We killed the tomcat... what's left?

[Eagler]

Thread sounds like an air to air conflict ..plane against plane..man against man..topgun on roids

I don't see that myself

Eagler

[icepac]

Very little serial production of SU57 since many “in service” SU57 are prototypes foisted on the pilots as new planes.

[-gg-]

In the not too distant future, the US will have a HUGE advantage in air power over anyone. I mean, we already do - but the next stage is going to be off the charts.

With up to  two "Loyal Wingman" stealth drones per F-35, plus the new 6th gen air-superiority fighters for the navy and air force. And the B-21 bombers.

Nobody will have anything even close to being able to deal with that.

[Elfie]

Vietnam taught us that the altar of high technology and BVR kills is a false god's sacrifice. A lot of good men died in Vietnam because of those foolish ideas. Now they're saying almost the exact same thing, except now they're saying stealth instead of BVR missiles.

In Vietnam missiles were unreliable in part due to the high humidity. Lessons were learned and improvements were made to missile designs. One of those lessons learned was that dog fighting was not obsolete and training was instituted to address that issue.

*Edit* Most of the aircraft we lost in Vietnam were lost to AAA and SAMs.

[Elfie]

Sorry, I really don't care about so called press releases about stuff like this. Look at actual statistical analyses and government reports and studies instead if you want to know what's really going on. We already know they have toys, and toys don't win wars.

And how many hours are the pilots flying this so called end-all fighter again?
We still have yet to see the US military use these so called drone force multipliers. How many hours are these export countries flying their F-35s?

I call BS on pure numbers.

-How many F-35s are combat-ready (meaning ready to scramble within one day)?
-How long to take an F-35 out of reserve and into combat safely?
-How many personnel to get one into the air for a combat air patrol flight?

Let's look at the logistics. How long to order a new part for an F-35 to get to say, Germany? How much in air refulling capabilities do these countries have?
If the F-35 is so good, why is the Pentagon ordering F-15EXs? AC-130s?
They're building new AC-130s. What happened to the F-35 being the end-all multirole and ground attack aircraft? We're still putting howitzers and miniguns on cargo planes.

AC-130 gunships are fantastic gun platforms that can put a bullet in every square inch of a football field. The AC-130 has never had mini-guns to my knowledge, 2 20mm gatling guns, 2 40mm Bofors and 1 105mm howitzer. The mini-guns were on AC-47 gunships that were known as Puff The Magic Dragon to US ground forces. (I knew a former Green Beret that serrved in Vietnam that was bat toejam crazy but he loved telling stories about the times Puff saved them.)

The F-15EX is a missile truck and it can carry 12 A2A missiles. No other US fighter can carry that many missiles.

Questioning how long spare parts can get to another country shows a level of ignunce about how spare parts supply works that is almost unbelievable.

When you scamble aircraft you don't get a day to do it, these things must be done in a matter of 5 minutes or less for alert aircraft and a few hours (2-3 tops) for an entire squadron. I helped launch an F-15 on 5 minute alert and we did it in just under 3 minutes. We regularly generated 21-22 F-15s in under 3 hours during exercises and inspections. That's 3 bags, 8 missiles and 940 rnds of HEI per aircraft.

Simulators give real pilots training at a fraction of the cost of real flying. Do you think other countries aren't using simulators to train their pilots also?