Will Air Force Cancel its Fighters?

The LA Times says the Air Force is considering cancelling both its only jet fighter programs, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F/A-22 Raptor. If this is true it will mean a major turn of events for the future military.

ACCORDING TO MEDIA reports, the Defense Department is considering canceling two supersonic jet fighters that are on the Pentagon's drawing board: the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.There is no doubt that even with the defense budget at historical highs, the Pentagon cannot afford the $1.5 trillion worth of weapons that the military services would like to purchase. ...The F/A-22 Raptor is the most unnecessary weapon system being built by the Pentagon. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tried to do away with it in the summer of 2002 but backed off when his Air Force secretary threatened to resign over the issue....The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is another story. It is an ambitious program to build three related, but slightly different, aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Current plans call for building 2,443 planes for all three services at a cost of $245 billion, or about $100 million per plane — about one-third the cost of the F/A-22.

I agree with all this, though I do think the JSF program could be scaled back considerably without adverse effect on America's defenses. New precision weapons and unmanned combat vehicles (UCAVs) have greatly boosted aerial striking power, which could safely mean a reduction in the number of JSF purchases as low as 500. The best buy would be the S/STOL version which all services could utilize, the Navy especially on small carriers (yeah right!).