Ski wrote: Listen, all services need to take a real hard and honest look at all of their major procurement projects. The FCS is a wishing well. The bottom line is our stuff takes way too long to design, build and is wicked expensive to maintain. Martin Van Creveld stated that aircraft today in the West are almost custom design pieces due to the complexity of the systems. Modern state based warfare is very expensive for a slew of different reasons - I think we are on the very edge of pricing ourselves out of business. The ROI on a $12B month war for us vs a less than $10M a month war for AQ is telling enough. Now that we have a weak dollar, bad housing market, energy troubles, etc...the ball is going to stop rolling towards DoD. People in our country are starting to have trouble making ends meet - I know people who spend over $600 a month in gasoline in the DC area - they were forced to buy 40 miles out because they couldn't afford living in the Beltway. And DC is an affleunt area. It's worse once you get out into "real America."
I wonder whether the aviation community's love of aircraft on technological steroids (and hence exceedingly expensive) has something to do with the fact that it's officers who fly. That is, if enlisted personnel were the aviators would there be a different philosophy on the development of aircraft?

My gut says that while aviation remains a sort of knightly endeavor it will continue to be cost-intensive on a per aircraft basis. If it were to become the province of the masses, as it were, this would change.

The only question is, would this be better?

Regards,
Jill