[chessplayer]

The more complex the machine, the more things that can go wrong. Planes are of little use if they are continually grounded for one reason or another. The USSR had it right in the Cold War. Their planes were not as technologically advanced as ours, but they made up for it with overwhelming numbers of them. And their planes could take a beating and keep going. They could land and take off on battered airstrips that our planes could never do.

[gorush]

I heard that the Ruskie’s birds had vacuum tubes as opposed to digital...which would survive an EMP attack.

[DesScorp]

Colonel Boyd was right. He was always right. And we’re doing it wrong.

Every more expensive, complex planes means a small, bug-ridden fleet with no real military value. Time to bring back the Fighter Mafia in USAF.

[thinkthenpost]

Hmmm, I guess we could ask the Syrian and Egyptians how that Soviet Bloc equipment worked out for them.

[steve86]

The Air Force currently has zero flyable stealth fighters. None.

Well, no non-black program ones, anyway.

[tet68]

Headline not exactly correct, F-117s and B-2 bombers
still flying.

[SZonian]

"The Air Force currently has zero flyable stealth fighters. None."

Not true. Hyperbole is not a good way to start an article.

They may not be operational (war ready), but they're flying.

See 'em flying around a few times a week here.

They're busy testing anything and everything they can think of to find out what's causing the contamination in the OBOGGS system.

I'm confident that they'll figure it out.

[pietraynor]

Way to go Obama administration! Let the enemy know your flight readiness status. Next thing they will tell us that they had to bring all the SSN’s into port and open the launch tubes to air them out. IDIOTS

[The KG9 Kid]

"... The Air Force currently has zero flyable stealth fighters. None."

Then I have to wonder who was flying the two F-22s that flew over my house last week.

[sten]

gee, you mean 0bama’s plans have left us without a stealth fighter, leaving the domination of the skies to the chinese?

who woulda thunk it

[USMCWife6869]

All these billions wasted, and they want to take my husband’s pension to balance the defense budget. Nice.

[SDShack]

Reminds me of the old cold war air force joke that went something like this:
“In the future, the USA will develop a multi-role fighter/bomber that will single-handedly be able to defeat the entire Soviet Block Air Force... and we will only be able to afford ONE of them!”

[Flavius]

Need to give enough time for Chinese to catch up er copy enough of the hardware

[A.A. Cunningham]

Try and keep up.

Air Force grounds F-22s over oxygen system concerns

[Tallguy]

The USSR had it right in the Cold War. Their planes were not as technologically advanced as ours, but they made up for it with overwhelming numbers of them.

The Russians also expected that they'd take HUGE losses against western airforces. This is another reason that they designed things to be cheap. Another consequence was that their pilots didn't get much actual stick-time. Training was lower.

Russian military hardware was "rugged" but that doesn't mean that the maintenance hours per flight hour were any better.