The USAF is looking to cut more than 250 fighters from its fleet, in order to make budget space for the increasingly expensive F-35.

The problem is that, once again, the aircraft are too damn expensive. More is the enemy of “good enough”.

In the meantime,
David Axe points to a book which proposes a solution, which suggests smaller and lighter aircraft, America’s Defense Meltdown.

They propose two aircraft:

• A 9 ton class air-to-air fighter with a 16 ton class engine with a, “cutting edge, all-passive with 360-degree infrared and radar warning gear” that is supposed to be cheaper than an F-16.

I do not find this one particularly realistic. Whenever you insert the phrase “cutting edge” in a phrase, you never get low cost.

The other one is more interesting:

• A higher performance aircraft to replace the A-10.

Given that the rate of fire of the A-10 of the GAU-8 cannon has been reduced by about 1/2, because the accuracy requires further rounds, simply by reducing the size and weight of the cannon, and the ammunition loadout, along with using a more modern engine with a higher thrust to weight ratio, you easily get to a thrust to weight ratio at combat weights that approaches unity. With advances in things like Aluminum alloys and ceramic armor, performance could be further improved.

The problem is that while the Army would love such an aircraft, the USAF hates it, and has been trying to kill the A-10 since sometime around 1981, and so is completely uninterested in developing a successor.