China and Russia 5th gen never flying could be a win for them and loss for US.
We spend 100’s of billions on funding for a threat that never materializes.
I Rather have Several extra wings of proven fighters like the F22 and F18 E’s or how about the Typhoon.
It is published that the F22 is better in most area than the EF Typhoon. But at 361 million for F22 and 170 million for Typhoon.
Is the one F22 better than 2 Typhoons.
At and Avg cost of 180m maybe we should buy EF Typhoon instead of the F35.
Their is not an limitless supply of USD to spend.
An F22 can kill five of our best gen F-15s and F-18s before they can fly into the combat box. No kidding.
Why it was dropped for the F35 is beyond me.
It may be because spies got wind of how to beat the F22 and circulated that. I know the F35 is now being considered obsolete, and the AF powers that be are calling for radical changes to the F35 to counter what’s going on overseas (China and Russia)
Frankly, I can’t sort what is real from what is a ploy for a new military program for the defense folks.
The F22, however, is the real deal. Or was.
Oh, I fully agree with the point that you made. It’s just that we see endless fan-boy posts about the Russian & Chinese prototypes wherein these aircraft get treated as being on even footing with an operational aircraft.
Prototypes are test-bed aircraft. They lack little things like weapons, radar, countermeasures and so forth. Also, a cursory look at the layout of these aircraft suggests to me that they lack all-aspect stealth. The round engine nozzles and the use of canards suggest that these prototypes trade off some low-observablility to maintain and edge in agility.