A Different Option - Rediscovering Lightweight Combat Aircraft Solutions

摘要

The modern first-line combat aircraft is a highly sophisticated and highly capable piece of equipment. Unsurprisingly, this comes at a significant procurement cost. These aircraft are expensive to acquire, expensive to operate and expensive to maintain. Then you have to factor in the cost of the weapons that a combat aircraft of this sophistication is going to employ. These systems are characterised by their advanced capabilities and application of high technology, and capability never comes cheap. Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to fight cost escalation in combat aircraft and the results have been less than satisfactory. In generation after generation of combat aircraft, procurement cost has risen and it has proven virtually impossible to turn back this tide of increasing cost. One way of avoiding unpleasant discussions about cost increases has been to counter this problem by stating the qualitative advantages of the modern combat aircraft, meaning that qualitative superiority in a far more efficient metric than quantitative superiority. In short, the message is that quality beats numbers.