US Navy to Replace Fighter Jets with Drones

Better go find that DVD copy of Top Gun and put it away for the grand kids to see, that is if you want them to know what a Navy fighter jet looks like taking off from or landing on an aircraft carrier. The US Navy is getting ready to mothball fighter jets, replacing them with unmanned aerial systems and drones, according to US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. 

According to Secretary Mabus, these new unmanned flying weapons will be the wave of the future. Meanwhile, the F-35 Lightning II jet fighter plane, a product of the infamous Joint Strike Fighter program, will apparently be the last crewed strike fighter aircraft that the Navy will ever buy or fly.

It's no wonder. The F-35 has been plagued with problems from day one. It's now 7 years behind schedule and is the most expensive acquisition ever in military history. It's $167 BILLION over budget and will probably cost the country over a trillion dollars before it's finally put out to pasture.

Secretary Mabus, apparently seeing the writing on the wall, says unmanned aircraft can perform missions quite adequately on land, at sea, as well as in the air. Plus, they'll cost a heck of a lot less too. And, by removing the human factor from flying the machines, he says the Navy won't have to worry about factoring in the pilot's safety, which currently extends the time and cost of every project they are now working on. 

And they'll have a lot more room to experiment with more risk, plus be able to improve systems much faster over time, and be able to get them to the fleet at a much faster pace than ever before.

Secretary Mabus says he's planning to create a new naval office for "Unmanned Systems” and plans to appoint a deputy assistant director soon to head things up.

Still, a swaggering Tom Cruise being replaced by a handful of drones being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier just isn't going to have quite the same visceral impact.