From what I understand, we have the F-15, F-16, F-117, F-22 and F-35.
Why do we need all these different models? I assume each specializes in something…what is it?
In: Engineering
The US Government would love nothing more than to have a single airplane that can do everything, but so called multi-role fighters have a huge flaw in that they ‘jack of all trades, master of none’.
If you compromise an aircrafts capabilities too much to make it do everything, then it can’t perform any of those roles effectively. So there is always a need for dedicated aircraft to perform specific roles. But multi-role planes share maintenance, parts, and training so there’s a cost savings there as well.
Multi-role fighters have also historically been notorious for going way over budget and being an overall disappointment. This has been an argument for and against multi-role planes in politics for decades. Some multi-role planes have been successes, others have been abject failures.
The US Air Force therefore maintains a fleet of mixed multi-role and dedicated aircraft. Since the 1970s the philosophy has been to have a mix of a small number of expensive dedicated aircraft and large numbers of cheaper multi-role aircraft.
The F-15C Eagle is an air superiority fighter, ie shoot down your opponents planes
F-15E Strike Eagle replaced the F-111 as a fighter-bomber than can precision bomb targets as well as fight
The F-16 Viper is a light and cheap multi-role fighter than can bomb and fight
The F-117 Nighthawk is a stealth bomber, it does precision bombing while avoiding enemy radar. It’s meant to be used day 1 of a war when the airspace isn’t controlled by the US. It technically should be a B designation, but F was chosen likely to hide it’s true purpose.
F-22 Raptor is the replacement of the F-15C and is far FAR better at shooting down enemy planes. But it’s too expensive to operate in larger numbers.
F-35 Panther (known to the pilots as *Fat Amy*) is a multi-role monstrosity meant to replace the F-16, F-18, Harrier jet, and a variety of platforms. It’s stealth, can fight, can bomb, and do other stuff but it’s arguably not particularly great at any of those roles. It’s main advantage is stealth and the ability to coordinate multiple planes together, you can’t see it until it’s too late. It is so far untested in an actual war, but it sounds like they’ve fixed a lot of the problems in the past few years.
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