Mark Bowden's amazing profile of Col. Cesar Rodriguez makes as good a case as you'll ever see for the F-22. Bowden's over-arching argument is that air supremacy is the sine qua non of American war fighting and that said air supremacy comes at a cost. The question is simply whether we pay that cost ahead of time in dollars, or during military operations with blood. And in order for America to retain bloodless air supremacy, we need more Raptors. (In case anyone was looking to, say, stimulate the economy with stuff America needs, the F-22 is a "shovel-ready," made-in-America project.)
All of that high-minded defense stuff aside, Bowden's piece is nearly pornographic in its level of fighter jet detail.
Just one tiny sample:
When Rodriguez retired two years ago from the Air Force as a colonel, his three air-to-air kills (two over Iraq in 1991 and one over Kosovo) were the most of any American fighter pilot on active duty. That number may seem paltry alongside the 26 enemy planes downed by Eddie Rickenbacker in World War I, or the 40 notched by Richard Bong in World War II, or the 34 by Francis Gabreski across World War II and Korea. Rodriguez's total was two shy of the threshold number for the honorific ace, yet his three made him the closest thing to an ace in the modern U.S. Air Force. . . .
American pilots haven't shot down many enemy jets in modern times, because few nations have dared rise to the challenge of trying to fight them. The F‑15, the backbone of America's air power for more than a quarter century, may just be the most successful weapon in history. It is certainly the most successful fighter jet. In combat, its kill ratio over more than 30 years is 107 to zero.
You read that right. To put things in perspective, the F-22 Raptor was initially 144-0 against F-15s and F/A-18s in Red Flag exercises and it took until July 2007 for a fourth generation fighter (an F-16) to finally register a mock kill against an F-22.
Then again, maybe we really do need that Disney-Vegas mag-lev line.
