Those look like they'll be great targets for us to practice on the next time we get frisky. Hopefully they make a lot of them so we don't run out too quickly.

Guess what the F-22 can do when it's blown up everything it can with the missiles it has. Oh yes, it can act as an AWACS stand-in for other friendly aircraft.

Only difference is, when it's no longer needed as a stealth AWACS, it can go get more missiles and blow up more stuff.

Drones will eventually be the future of air combat, but they certainly aren't the be-all end-all answer for 2012 or even 2020. Find me the drone that can shoot down an F-22 and I'll happily support shelving every other plane in the arsenal in favor of them. Until then, they need a lot more R&D to get to a point where they can actually replace F-22s, F-16s, and F/A-18s.

All this talk about how much more drones can do is all theoretical. Theoretically, drones can reach speeds and performance characteristics no human pilot ever could. In practice, we don't have any yet that match up against Gen5 aircraft (or even many Gen4/Gen4.5 aircraft). Hoping against that reality doesn't clear skies of enemy aircraft.

You realize that in Red vs Blue combat exercises, F-22s are so dominant against F-15e aircraft (and everything else) that they don't allow the F-22s to engage BVR anymore and actually start a lot of the sorties with multiple "red" aircraft behind each F-22 to give them a chance? Most Gen4 aircraft have a very hard time locking an F-22 even if it's sitting right in front of them.

During Exercise Northern Edge in Alaska in June 2006, 12 F-22s of the 94th FS downed 108 adversaries with no losses in simulated combat exercises. In two weeks of exercises, the Raptor-led Blue Force amassed 241 kills against two losses in air-to-air combat; neither Blue Force loss was an F-22. Shortly after was Red Flag 07-1 in February 2007. Fourteen F-22s of the 94th FS supported Blue Force strikes and undertook close air support sorties themselves. Against superior numbers of Red Force Aggressor F-15s and F-16s, 6-8 F-22s maintained air dominance throughout. No sorties were missed because of maintenance or other failures, and only one Raptor was judged lost against the opposing force's defeat. F-22s also provided airborne electronic surveillance.

According to Lt. Col. Larry Bruce, 65th AS commander, aggressor pilots turned up the heat on the F-22 using tactics they believe to be modern threats. For security purposes these tactics weren't released; nonetheless, they said their efforts against the Raptors were fruitless.

"We [even] tried to overload them with numbers and failed," said Colonel Bruce. "It's humbling to fly against the F-22." This is a remarkable testimony because the Red Flag aggressor pilots are renowned for their skill and experience. Lt. Col. Dirk Smith, 94th Fighter Squadron commander, said the aggressor forces represent the most lethal threat friendly forces would ever face. http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041725

The F-22 is an air dominance aircraft. You don't fly F-22s against Iraq (where there's no air force) or Afghanistan (where there's no air force). You fly them against countries fielding Gen4 aircraft that could actually give F-15s some trouble. You do that because the F-22 will shoot down everything in the sky that isn't friendly before the unfriendlies know there's an enemy in the area. The F-22 is the hedge against a country using Russian, Chinese, or French built aircraft.

If you want to talk about costs, you need to look at the costs of an AIM-120D ($700,000) vs the cost of one of those Russian/Chinese/French aircraft ($40 Million - $60 Million). Add to that the cost of training a modern fighter pilot ($2.5 Million) and I'd say we're stupid to not have these things in play. The F-22 dominates anything on any drawing board anywhere in the world. With the time and expense of designing and building modern aircraft, that means we could sit by without doing any upgrades on the F-22s for the next 15 years and still dominate any airspace on the globe. The simple fact is, there isn't a nation on Earth with aircraft that can do anything but die horribly against the F-22. So let's throw our $700,000 missiles at their $50 Million planes and bring our pilots home to their families. Or we can try it your way: mass produce slightly cheaper aircraft and lose tons of them the next time we face someone with an actual air force.

The F-35 tries to do too many things. I'd be happy to see that thing scrapped in favor of more specialized (and functional) replacements, but we can't because it'd piss off everyone who put money into the program (which is just about all our allies). Typical stupid political crap. The same is said for the scrapping of the F-22. First they cut production to a fraction of what it was supposed to be, then they rolled up all the R&D costs and complained about how much each plane cost the country. That'd be like a major pharmaceutical company spending $30 Billion on R&D for a drug that cures cancer, then deciding to only make 10 pills and bitch that each pill cost the company $3 Billion. Well yeah, if you only make 10 and roll the R&D costs into it, you get ridiculous numbers. If you actually make what you were originally planning, you get numbers that make sense. Actual unit cost on an F-22 is $150 Million (2009 flyaway cost). If they didn't have to spread the program all over the country, they'd probably cost $100 Million instead.

I say we cut the politics and the bullshit at the same time. The F-22 dominates every other aircraft in the sky and will continue doing so for the next 20 - 25 years with upgrades. Build them as cheaply and efficiently as possible and have them ready to go clear the skies wherever we need control of the air. Then design and build real replacements for the F/A-18 as cheaply and efficiently as possible. The F-16 can be replaced quite well with drones, but said drones should be designed with redundant self-destruct mechanisms in case of malfunction and multiple methods of location tracking. B-2s are just fine for bringing down large-scale air defense and when they're done with that, bring in the B-52s to flatten everything else.

"That group of politicians are self-serving liars, but this group is benevolent and trying to help everyone!"

I knew there were still people like you out there, but I thought we'd pretty much fixed this kind of ignorance on Slashdot. I guess we've got some more work to do.

Here's a hint: neither side gives a shit about you. You're not even a pawn in their little game. At best, you're the chair they rest their fat, sweaty ass on while they play the game and get rich and powerful. That you believe you're on the same side or working towards similar goals is, quite frankly, pathetic.

If you want to see politicians who aren't stepping on every man, woman, and child to get a little higher up, look for the ones who've been marginalized as fanatical zealots and kooks. After all, in the game of politics, anyone who isn't crushing everyone else to get more money, power, and glory must be a lunatic.

The problem in this case is ignorance. If the government would simply provide simple, rational education to its citizens, there would be no problem implementing policy that's in the best interests of the people. So long as the government allows an ignorant populace to be paralyzed by fear of the invisible boogeyman of "radiation", the will of the people will be self-destructive and counter-productive.

It's been a year since the disaster happened. If the government had spent that time drilling the known facts about radiation (specifically as it relates to nuclear power plants) into the heads of the populace, there would be a broad consensus to move forward along a sensible path.

The citizens have the power to vote their government out of office if it's not abiding by their will. If the government becomes tyrannical, the people have the ability to revolt against it and overthrow it (see also: Arab Spring).

The Japanese government shouldn't listen only to me. The Japanese government should listen to reason and follow the course that's best for their people. In this case, the course that's best for their people is to operate clean, safe, nuclear power plants (and to do their job ensuring those plants remain clean and safe); NOT to shut down power plants that are clean and safe in favor of plants everyone knows are unsafe and horribly unclean.

Right now, the Japanese government is poisoning their own people with an energy policy that heavily favors power plants we know to be terribly hazardous to human health; both for the workers at those plants and anyone who lives near them or downstream from them. They're not doing this because they're malicious, but because their people are ignorant and full of fear about the vastly better alternative sitting there idling.

There just is no reasonable argument in favor of what they're doing right now. They should be fixing the problems of ignorance and fear while getting their people power in the cleanest, safest manner available. There's no justification for poisoning your own people while allowing them to remain ignorant of a better way.

It's not paranoia to lash out at governments that violate the fundamental human rights of their people.

It's not inconsistent to lash out at governments that prefer to let ignorant, fearful people drive policy decisions rather than educating them and doing the right thing. Getting the plants up and running is beneficial to the Japanese people and the economy (which is also beneficial to the people). Replacing those plants' power generation with increased output from less safe, vastly more damaging (in terms of environment and public health) sources does not benefit the people. This is quite clear and obvious to anyone looking at the situation with factual information and a brain to process it.