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Already, though, some are envisioning the end of the Air Force as we know it.

Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, one of Washington's oldest and most respected think tanks, predicts a vast array of missions for unmanned craft, from stealth bombing to electronic warfare -- even dogfights.

"It's not just intelligence and bomber pilots who will be replaced with machines," said a recent article by Singer, a campaign adviser on defense policy to President Obama.

"Planning is proceeding on UCAVs, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which will replace fighter jocks, too."

Air power advocates and military officials contend that the moves, if enacted, would hurt U.S. strategic might and put at risk missions that depend on the aging tanker and bomber fleets.

“The Air Force needs a new tanker desperately,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Dunn, president of the Air Force Association. “The KC-135 tanker averages over 47 years old, and the B-52 bomber is almost as old.”

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. Zero. In three decades of flying, no F‑15 has ever been shot down by an enemy plane—and that includes F‑15s flown by air forces other than America’s. Rival fighters rarely test those odds. Many of Saddam Hussein’s MiGs fled into Iran when the U.S. attacked during the Gulf War. Of those who did fight the F-15, like the unfortunate pilot framed on Rodriguez’s wall, every last one was shot down. The lesson was remembered. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Saddam didn’t just ground his air force, he buried it.

That complete dominance is eroding. Some foreign-built fighters can now match or best the F‑15 in aerial combat, and given the changing nature of the threats our country is facing and the dizzying costs of maintaining our advantage, America is choosing to give up some of the edge we’ve long enjoyed, rather than pay the price to preserve it. The next great fighter, the F‑22 Raptor, is every bit as much a marvel today as the F‑15 was 25 years ago, and if we produced the F-22 in sufficient numbers we could move the goalposts out of reach again. But we are building fewer than a third of the number needed to replace the older fighters in service.

The Air Force may face severe aircraft and personnel shortfalls in the near future that could present significant challenges to its ability to protect domestic airspace, a government watchdog agency has found.

The little-publicized findings by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will likely stir a tug-of-war between the Air Force and a number of factions in Congress over whether the Air Force should buy cutting-edge — but expensive — fighter jets, such as the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or continue buying and modernizing older aircraft, such as F-15s or F-16s.

US lawmakers have called on the Pentagon to release USD140 million in advanced procurement funds that have already been appropriated
to pave the way for the purchase of an additional 20 F-22s.

They - along with some US Air Force (<script language="JavaScript1.2">
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USAF) officials - have argued that failing to robustly fund the F-22 would lead to the
shut-down of the world's only fully operational fifth-generation fighter production line.

However, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Pentagon officials have until now resisted efforts to fund the F-22 beyond
the 183 already purchased, preferring to focus funding on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

However, Russia's invasion of Georgia in support of the breakaway region of South Ossetia may have strengthened the position
of those advocating a renewed emphasis on preparing to fight future conventional wars. The case for extending the procurement
of the F-22 has seemingly been strengthened by events in the Caucasus, even if conflict in Georgia may not establish a firm
requirement for additional Raptors.

The US Air Force (USAF) has seen a huge increase in the number of bombing missions it has carried out over Iraq since the
United States' troop 'surge' began. The service's role is poised to expand even as ground forces withdraw, according to current
and former defence officials.

Former Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne said that the USAF's breakthroughs in targeting technology and tactics have
led to a 400 per cent increase in the amount of ordnance being dropped by the service's aircraft in Iraq since the surge was
launched in February 2007.

One key technology breakthrough in close air support has been the USAF-developed ROVER (Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver),
a laptop that can exchange live video imagery with pilots in the cockpit.

The system can be linked to targeting pods on fighter aircraft so that everyone in the targeting loop can see the same things
at the same time.

The Air Force begins its sixth decade in circumstances that aviators elsewhere might consider enviable: unrivaled for global air dominance. But that is not the way Air Force leaders view their situation. They see a decrepit air fleet in which the average aircraft is older than the average Navy warship and which is rapidly approaching a breaking point as a result of continuous use in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every category of airframe operating in Iraq and Afghanistan is suffering from metal fatigue, corrosion, parts obsolescence and other age-related maladies that diminish readiness and raise safety concerns. And yet, timely replacement is not assured.

How did the air fleet fall into such a state of disrepair that only 60 percent of the planes could be airborne quickly in a national emergency?