Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
I guess what I am saying is I think the country can afford to hedge its bets and at least make sure the F-35 works before we bet our airpower overmatch on it. I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I just don't want to see us end up like we did at the start of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, where we lost air superiority quickly and had to fight to get it back- I don't think we have the resources to take the losses that would entail anymore.

V/R,

Cliff
I wasn't aware that we ever LOST air superiority over Vietnam. When exactly did this happen?

That said, I don't have a beef with the F-22 as a tech test bed, but I have yet to be convinced that anyone is going to send it into a SEAD environment where it might get shot down (and I mean a real war environment, not an exercise). Remember the fuss when one F-117 got knocked down? A-10s can manage to a great degree because they can take lots of physical damage. Stealth aircraft simply cannot. And as so much of procurement is political, that explains much of the white noise that emanates from congressional hearings. Congress has always liked airpower because it's sexy and (more to the point) because its most strident advocates always promise that it brings war on the cheap.

I don't think anyone's proposing the M-60A3 analogy, but I do think there is a growing sense that the F-22 might be a "bridge" aircraft between the F-15 and the F-35.