whatilearned
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_Air_Force_aircraft
TIL The USAF still operates 922 F-16 fighter aircraft, more than the combined numbers of the F-22, F-35, A-10 and all other bombers and ground attack aircraft.
5 Comments
Leave a ReplyLeave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This makes sense considering the capabilities and cost.
The new upgrades are giving them AESA radar and Link 16. The $6.3 billion dollar modernization plan was announced last year.
F-35 are probably too next gen to be justified right now. Have you seen the helmets for this thing? The helmet costs more than my house.
[https://youtu.be/Dj4cP4PMPPM](https://youtu.be/Dj4cP4PMPPM)
Makes sense, as you can see in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, most of Russias planes are old and don’t need to be fought with 5th gen fighters. Well maintained and well trained F-16s are more than capable. As for the countries that do have equivalent 5th gen fighters, well we have plenty of those too. And we all know a-10s are on their way out no matter how slowly that may be.
They also have ~470 F-15s which came out 2 years earlier.
They’re perfectly good orbiting ground-support aircraft. Hang out at 16,000 feet with hard points full of smart bombs and wait for a fire mission from ground troops.
They were envisioned as a super F-5 but mission creep bloated them to the point of uselessness as an actual fighter.