[CaptainCrunch]

Its a way different world just based on things like the pure computer power and coding in planes and exotic materials design etc.

You look at the F6F Hellcat which was the Zero killer, it started design in 1941 and that included a mid development replacement of the engine and was in theatre in 1943 and by the end of the war They had put 13,000 in the air. Again it was a complex fighter for its time but fairly simple to design and build.

The F4U Corsair started its development in 1938, the Navy asked for a production schedule in I think March of 1941 got the schedule back at the start of April 1941 and the first one hit service less then a year later. That means that designed built repurposed factories did all of the parts acquisition and had them in the air in about 3 years.

When you look at the F-18 Congress started looking for a TomCat replacement in 1973 and the first production model joined the fleet in 1980 I think.

If we're talking wartime fighter replacement as long as we're talking production models then replacements should be pretty quick, but because of the complexity I doubt they could hit the speed of production that we saw in WW2.

A F-22 loss in wartime would actually be devastating because they are irreplaceable.


Its not about replacing losses at this point, its more along the lines of kill ratios, inflicting a ton of losses on the other side while losing very few of your own. That's why the F-22 is such a force equalizer and why the US military has pushed the F-35. In terms of replacement the F-35 concept for the American's is brilliant using the same frame across all services makes replacement and production work at a high speed effective manner.