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As the US Air Force fleet keeps shrinking, can it still win wars?
The Air Force’s fleet is already less than one-fifth of its size at its 1956 peak, when it had 26,104 aircraft.
Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said that while modern aircraft do offer more speed, range, stealth and other advantages over previous generations of technology, “the reality is that one plane can only be in one place at a time.” Heather Penney, a former F-16 pilot and senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the Air Force’s fleet dipping below 5,000 is “absolutely a noteworthy number,” with worrying implications for national security and the service’s ability to project power. Instead, a single B-2 Spirit — or even in years to come, an in-the-works B-21 Raider, touted by manufacturer Northrop Grumman as the first sixth-generation aircraft — can travel long distances and destroy a target that previously would have required multiple fighters and bombers working in concert.
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