May 1, 2024: The US Air Force has invested heavily in its new F-35A fighter and is planning to purchase 1,763 of them at a cost of about $450 million each. While an F-35A costs $130 million, the cost of maintaining and operating each aircraft throughout its expected service life increases to nearly half a billion dollars each. Over the last 40 years, over 4.500 F-16s have been built and put into service. Currently about 3,000 F-16s are still flying. Since it first entered service, F-16s have shot down 76 aircraft while five F-16s have been lost to ground fire and one was lost in flight as two F-16s accidentally collided. One aircraft was able to land safely while the other F-16 was lost and its pilot killed.

Plans to replace F-16s with F-35s are in danger of being rendered obsolete because the fighting in Ukraine demonstrated that the air war has moved to lower altitudes and is being fought with UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) costing less, often much less than $15,000 each. These UAVs often have human operators who are five or ten kilometers away but still close enough to the fighting to be attacked by hostile UAVs. In Ukraine the vast majority of surveillance and attack missions are carried out by UAVs, leaving little work for manned aircraft. Transport aircraft and some specialized surveillance like AWACS are still around but four and twin engine AWACS aircraft are being replaced by UAVs. While surveillance UAVs may last for a year or two in wartime, the majority of UAVs are armed with explosives and used once to attack a target. Those attacks are not always successful because of ground fire or electronic warfare efforts that cause the attacking UAV to crash.

The U.S. Air Force has noticed all this and is considering the elimination of many current F-16s and reducing the number of F-35s purchased and put into service. Currently the plan is for over 5,000 F-35s to be built by 2035 for the U.S. and its allies. As of early 2024 there are no F-35s in service because of problems with the software. Unlike the F-16, the F-35 is heavily dependent on its software to achieve what the aircraft was designed to do. When the software doesn’t work, neither does the F-35.

F-16s are still in service and are now a stable and reliable design. So far, the average F-16 has served f0r about 17 years. During that time, it spent about 200 hours in the air each year. In wartime, or a period when hostilities are a possibility for F-16s, flight hours can reach over 300 hours a year. An F-16 spends three to four hours in the air each time it is sent out on a mission. These flights can be for training or combat. Since the 1990s combat missions have not been very dangerous for F-16s because these fighters were used as bombers and smart bombs or missiles were used. These weapons could be used high enough and far enough away from enemy anti-aircraft weapons to keep the F-16s safe from enemy fire. But not safe from obsolescence and replacement by cheaper and more useful UAVs. This shift is being demonstrated in Ukraine. While Ukraine requested F-16s and these are now arriving, there won’t be much for them to do. Originally the plan was the F-16s could deal with the few modern Russian combat aircraft operating along the border between Russia and Ukraine.

Over two years of combat in Ukraine have demonstrated that the best way to deal with enemy aircraft and missiles is with anti-aircraft missiles like Patriot and the European IRIS-T. Patriot is particularly effective at intercepting Russian missiles. Meanwhile the increased use of UAVs provided most of the airstrikes and surveillance the troops needed. Soldiers prefer air support delivered by UAVs because the troops control the UAVs. Soldiers used UAVs to find targets and then used explosives equipped UAVs to damage or destroy the targets. With manned aircraft the troops on the ground have to depend on someone on the ground communicating effectively with armed aircraft providing support. This is inefficient and dangerous compared to using UAVs. Calling airstrikes takes time and the attacks sometimes hit friendly troops. These problems are largely eliminated when the troops employ UAVs to find and attack targets. These attacks are not only happening more quickly and accurately, but they are a lot cheaper than when a manned aircraft is involved. And that is why the new F-35 is at risk because it has been replaced by cheaper, more reliable and, for the troops, safer UAVs in the ground support role. The air force doesn’t like where this is going because it means less work, less need, and a reduced annual budget for the air force.

In early 2024 Ukraine created a new branch of their military, the UAV Force. This is in addition to the Ukrainian Air Force and its manned aircraft. The UAV Force does not control the UAVs Ukrainian forces use regularly but will contribute to developing new UAV models and organizing mass production for those new models that are successful. UAVs have been an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine's current war are fought. UAVs were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable.

Early on both Russian and Ukrainian forces were using cheap, at about $500 each, quadcopter UAVs controlled by soldiers a kilometer or more away using FPV (First Person Viewing) goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the UAV can see. Adding night vision at least doubles the cost for each UAV, so not all of them have that capability. Each of these UAVs carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the UAV into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This was an awesome and debilitating weapon when used in large numbers over the combat zone. If a target isn’t moving or requires more explosive power that the UAVs can supply, one of the UAV operators can call in artillery, rocket, or missile fire, or even an airstrike. Larger, fixed wing UAVs are used for long range, often over a thousand kilometers, operations against targets deep inside Russia. Since 2022 the use of UAVs by both sides has escalated and so far about 10,000 UAVs have been put to work providing surveillance and attack services for both sides.

A major limitation to the expansion of UAV operations was the need for trained UAV operators. These operators need over a hundred hours of training before they are able to start operating these UAVs, and another hundred hours of actual use before they are able to make the most out of the system. These small UAVs are difficult to shoot down until they get close to the ground and the shooter is close enough, as in less than a few hundred meters, away to successfully target a UAV with a bullet or two and bring it down. Troops are rarely in position to do this, so most of these UAVs are able to complete their mission, whether it is a one-way attack or a reconnaissance and surveillance mission. The recon missions are usually survivable and enable the UAV to be reused. All these UAVs are constantly performing surveillance, which means that both sides commit enough UAVs to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line, to a depth, into enemy territory, of at least a few kilometers. This massive use of FPV-armed UAVs has revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides are producing as many as they can. Military observers from other countries are reporting that warfare has undergone a fundamental change because of the widespread use of UAVs in Ukraine. Many armed forces at peace are reluctant to change, despite the evidence from Ukraine that any future war will provide the more prolific user of UAVs with a significant edge in combat.