Let me get this straight.
We have five different fighter airframes: f-15, f-16, f-18, f-22, and f-35.
The most advanced and combat capable for air dominance is the f-22, but we stopped making them.
The most expensive is the f-35, which has already had budget overruns greater than the cost of the f-22’s entire program budget.
The other three existing airframes are in various states of repairs and upgrades, but still represent a force capable of fighting and winning in aerial combat against any air force in the world. It may not be a tough fight, but we have top quality pilots who are better trained compared to any other force we would face.
Five airframes. Each one deemed the most essential. The newest two are filling an anticipated gap that may never exist... and with the last decade of developments in electronic warfare, may be rendered obsolete if ever employed. ... and our biggest enemies, the ones we have been fighting for the past decade and a half don’t have an air force, except for some Radio Shack drones? Something is terribly wrong here.
The f35 program is the golden bb the program is designed to suck not just our resources but those of our allies and deliver a hugely overpriced non flying turkey! It is turning our best airforces into second rates. The biggest weakness in the f35 is its lack of range and the only long range fighter that we have left, the f15 they want to trash!
If I was president trump I would fire these idiots and begin building f15se until lockeed martin re-establishes the f22 assembly line. I would emediately cancel the f35 program and use the components in f15, f18 and f22.
The age of the f15 design is not a detriment as the flanker is also a legacy aircraft. The new f15 could benefit with stealth technology, new engines with vector thrust, f35 electronics that will give it an edge against the flanker. The raptors would match up against the new pakfa. Boeing has made f15s for Korea recently so the assembly line is intact.unit price should be low and after re-establishing the f22 assEmily line the unit cost would be comparative to the f35 for twice the plane.