I know it's hard to believe but technology marches on. The F-14 and A-6 were obsolete, there's a reason they're gone. Everyone wants to crow about the good ol' days but the truth is they weren't so good. A single piloted F-16C with a loadout of GBU-32 JDAMS is a so much more capable strike aircraft than the A-6 ever dreamed of being it's not even funny, and the same aircraft is light years ahead of any F-14 variant in air-to-air capabilities, both BVR (beyond visual range) and in close BFM.
I've been out of the cockpit of the F/A-18 for 17 years so I'm not the most current. I know very little about the F-35 beyond what I've read in the media and that's so full of slanted BS like the posted article that I put no faith in any of it. I've fought enough F-16's to know they're a great airplane, I've also fought a few F-14's and know that their days are long past, the fourth generation fighters are a huge leap forward in capabilities. Sooner or later all aircraft are rendered obsolete, you can't keep retrofitting them with new avionics forever. Eventually it gets to the point where you have to invest in new aircraft. Capabilities change and missions change, theater commanders, the JFACC, have certain needs that they build their plans around and if you don't bring those capabilities to the theater then they don't want you around. I saw that in Bosnia in the mid-90's, an aircraft carrier would pull into the Adriatic & the F-14's were essentially useless to the JFACC because they couldn't self designate for the laser guided bombs like the ROE required. They were glad to see the F/A-18's, but the Tomcats were pretty useless because they didn't bring any capabilities to the fight that the JFACC needed. I shake my head at all the A-10 crap posted on this forum. There are reasons the Air Force wants to get rid of the A-10's but for political reasons Congress keeps insisting they be kept around. That's just what we need, a bunch of political hacks telling the warfighters what they need. Keeping Congress out of the military's business ought to be the goal, not demanding that they push an obsolete weapons system on the commanders that say they don't need and don't want any more.
Any way, I'm gonna shut up now so carry on. Let the arm chair quarterbacking roll on.
