Unless there is a plan for procuring an MPA in the next 5-6 years what use can this serve? As the gap continues into 7-8 years or greater do we leave them out there indefinately or do we bring them home and start the skill fade clock? There just doesn't seem to be any apparent thought going into this aside from being seen to be doing 'something' at the moment...unless the double-secret plan is about to be announced due to surprise pot of cash being discovered under the mattress...
If we wanted to buy COTS tomorrow how long from signing a contract to buy to placing it on a dispersal for the seedcorn guys to start developing policy, process and the mixings of an OCU? Plus how long to spark up a training system, write course material, find training aircraft, build sims at the training and operational bases and so on....I would say, having experience of flight trials and now bringing in new capability, albeit in a non-aviation form, that things don't happen nearly as quickly as you would think...