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Okay, dude. It doesn't mean that folks will listen though.

First a few facts:

1. There is no fighter aircraft anywhere on the planet in production or on the drawing board that is as capable and dangerous as the F-22, excepting the F-23.

2. The US never goes into war games or exercises with other nations with a mind towards testing our own capabilities. Instead, we tank, play dead, fake it, play dumb and other things to see just how capable the other guy is. We don't need to know if we can whip India. I think we have that question covered?

3. Any aircraft produced by any opposing nation as an answer to the F-22 would not be able to be developed in sufficient numbers as to have any impact on our Air Superiority status over ANY nation. Russia does not have anything that approaches super-fighter status after you hang a few tanks and weapons on them. We see all those pretty Cobras, loops and other things they do in demos and air-shows, but anyone inclined can check the wing-loading and calculate just how agile these aircraft would be with a full load of fuel and a combat package.

4. Combat capability does not matter, if the F-22 blows your ass out of the sky while you are still picking your nose and waiting for your gear to come up. Even if you manage to get off the deck, and fire up your fancy ruskie radar, the only thing that your sensors are going to pick up are the two -120s going hound-dog on your ass. "Uh, this might be a good time to drop those tanks and break, Ivan?"

5. Currently, our front-line fighters are more than a match for anything out there. Where the fighter might have disadvantages, they are completely made up by the training of our pilots. When you can go out in an A-4 Skyhawk and fly circles around an F-18, (until that kid is trained) then you understand the advantages we have.

6. Lastly, the facts are clear. One F-22 is superior to at least 7 F-15s at this time. If the F-22 could carry more weapons, that gap would grow even stronger. There is not a single person on this long thread who has anything negative to say about the Raptor that has the slightest idea of what they are talking about. The F-22 ends the contest. If there are F-22s in the sky over some enemy country, the leaders of that enemy country know that they might as well save their aircraft and pilots, because they aint comin back from that fight. When you combine the capabilities of JStars, AWACS, AEGIS and the F-22, you know that these fights are over before they begin. The outcome is not in doubt. The US owns the sky. Deal with it.

"we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought",air force chief of air combat command gen.hal hornburg candidly admitted to the press after his pilots were trounced by indian aviators during cope india 04 exercise."We always knew we were good",an indian air force spokesman said."but it is only when the U.S.says so that the world takes notice".just how well the indian pilots performed the U.S. air force refused to say.results have been classified.However,the british media claimed an unnamed U.S congressman who had been briefed on the exercise said american pilots were defeated in 9 out of 10 engagements.The mock combat pitted the older air force f-15c eagle fighter against the indian air forces new russian made sukhoi su-30mk flanker,a 2 seat multirole fighter.American pilots in the mock air to air combat were drawn from the 3rd wing of pacific air forces.weapons fire was simulated with radar."the U.S. air force has never flown with or against the su-30 flanker before,so that aspect of this exercise is completely new for us" Capt. mark snowden,an eagle pilot,said in an interview distributed by the air force prior to the exercise.an analysis of the exercise by the new delhi based india defence consultants,a military affairs think tank,cited its sources as saying that the americans and indians had spotted each other on their radar screens at the same moment,but that the indians shot first.another factor,said idc,may have been the absence of 2 critical support air craft,the grumman e-2c hawkeye and boeing e-3b sentry.each carries an airborne warning and control system(awacs).normally operating with eagles,awacs equipped aircraft spot targets minutes before ther appear on cockpit radars,and then help pilots determine how to best attack the opposing force.idc said that the inability of american pilots to win without awacs support could lead to changes in tactics that place higher value on protecting these assets.hornburg believes a more sweeping overhaul is needed."the exercise leads me to remind people that we need to modernize our air-to-air capability".