Play it again: The USAF's tac-air jet plan is still in trouble.

FY 2014 USAF data

Total number of USAF tactical jet types available during this reporting period.

A-10 --225
F-15C/D --211
F-15E --193
F-16C/D --813
F-22 --166

Those that are "combat-coded" (not used for training) are somewhat less. Example: there are only 120-130 "combat-coded" F-22s. F-16s? Only a small number of those are Block 50/52. And those are the 'new'ones...now old. Block 40/42s and older, are really tired. Unit-level maintenance is also not shown. That would be "mission capability rates" or "MC-rates". That is the percentage, when a crew walked out to the scheduled aircraft for a mission, that it could start-up and run. Not all aircraft deploy. The rotational force structure means that maybe 1/3 of the combat-coded squadrons are available for war with the rest in different phases of work-up. There are also a number of aircraft always slated for home air defense.

So, if there ever is a major air war against near pear players, USAF doesn't really have all that many aircraft that can show up...or even be competitive against the threat.

As long as we fight threats with a 3rd-rate, or no air force, everything will be fine.

You can see that if all the hype over the F-35 was in-fact true, it could fix this problem.

We don't live in that world.

Also, if the USAF is successful at grounding the A-10, that will not really solve any problems. They will keep coming back. Next will be another cut of F-15s and F-16s.

Tankers that are a quarter of a billion dollars each. new-generation long-range bombers that are a billion dollars each, and the failed F-35, are, the future.

.