Originally Posted by
m0nkfish
I would respectfully disagree. The latest war has shown that Russia’s Air Force is technologically not on a par with the West. A paper tiger if you will. I imagine the West is sitting pretty happy right now with the capabilities they have that they know work effectively, F22 being just one. And I doubt any valuable intelligence was given away by an F22 shooting a heat seeking missile at a balloon.
The thing I had in mind is how Ukrainians have used a cheap drones efficiently. Without going into cost comparison on a battle field you better have a couple of dozens of Bairakars than one Predator. And a hundred of switchblade drones can do more than one Hawk. They are not used for comparable missions and ideally you should have an array. But this is the same as using modern fighters vs positioning a lot of cheap old fighters all around California, Washington, Canada and Alaska. The time for uber jets will come later (hopefully not), better save money now.