Comment by mikkupikku
8 days ago
My read is that the "loyal wingman" thing is a ploy to get around all the pilots / expilots in Air Force brass who might otherwise gatekeep anything they think is a threat to the careers of human pilots. These people want the Air Force to be about hotshots flying planes; this is part of the reason the US spun off the space stuff, because Air Force brass is institutionally incapable of taking anything other than manned flight seriously.
Really loyal wingmen are just an extension of jets.
Ultimately a carrier strike group could achieve many of the missions a F35 can through cruise missiles, ballistic missiles etc.
What an F35 provides is a sensory platform deep into enemy airspace.
But with the F35 being very expensive, and required to stay silent in RF to maintain stealth it's further desirable to have a loyal wingman out there.
The whole thing becomes one large sensor network with th added weapons.
It makes most sense in a near adversary situation and as it stands that particular scenario is why the F22 is not exported.