On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:16:27 -0600, T.L. Davis wrote:

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 06:32:20 -0800 (PST), Mike
wrote:

...By 1997 officials
had suggested a "four corners" defense, maintaining alert sites in
Massachusetts, Oregon, California, and Florida. By September 11,
2001,only 14 interceptor aircraft were sitting alert in the United
States.

Unbelievable, isn't it? 14 aircraft to protect the entire continental
United States... This was what NORAD was reduced to?? Pitiful. What
was the defense budget in 2001?? Who got all the money?

What if Russia had launched an old style attack with waves of Bears and
long range escorts?

Just incredible. I had thought that we had all of 16 aircraft available
on 9/11. I overestimated. This is what happens when a country becomes
grossly overconfident in its own defenses, and it's happened before.

At times we are truly "The United States of Amnesia".

And the best is too good for America. F-35s are good enough.

TL

Perhaps F-35s _are_ good enough. Do you really think that there's a risk
of advanced enemy fighters, ones so advanced that only the F-22 can take
them on, swarming into US airspace any time in the near or long-term?
Where would they come from?

About the only place where some adversary could base these advanced
fighters is south of the border (eastern Siberia would be ridiculous -
it's too far away). And I do believe we'd notice these fighters being
based in Cuba or Mexico...in enough time to shift F-22s in.

So generally speaking the ASA mission is going to be checking out
commercial aircraft, not fighters, and in some extremely unlikely
scenarios dealing with a handful of bombers bent on suicide. Why exactly
would you need F-22s to handle any of this?

Granted, the F-22s are better air superiority ac. Precisely the reason
why they'll end up where they're needed, which is not being wasted for
ASA. After all, we're only going to end up with a puny number of F-22s.

Here's the other thing. Given that the most dangerous thing these ASA
aircraft are going to encounter is a manned bomber, on rare occasions,
but more typically a commercial airliner, and they have lots of
intercepts to do in the course of a year, *and* there is an urgency
involved in eyeballing an unknown aircraft, the ASA mission is better
served by having more F-35s spaced out at more bases, rather than having
a tiny number of F-22s located at just a few bases.

After all, while the F-22 is certainly faster, it's not better on range
than the F-35. And 9/11 showed that the threat can come from inside the
border - there is very little response time. Having a super-capable F-22
based 500 nm away from where it needs to be isn't all that useful.

Incidentally, this is not a question of overconfidence...it's a question
of money. Our aircraft cost way too much, and the problem is only getting
worse. You think it's bad now? Wait until the next round of this
discussion, say around 2050, when the US debates whether they should buy
75 replacements for the F-22, or settle for 50.

AHS