According to a report by the U.S. publication NSJ on August 27, the U.S. Air Force is experiencing its most severe readiness crisis since the end of the Cold War.

The first issue is the age of the aircraft.

Currently, the average service life of the main aircraft models in the U.S. Air Force is so long that it's shocking when you actually calculate it.

The B-52 strategic bomber is a typical example, with an average age of up to 63 years, still serving as the core of the U.S. strategic strike system.

The B-1B and B-2 stealth bombers have been in service for 37 and 34 years respectively, far exceeding international standards.

In terms of fighter jets, the F-15C has an average age of over 41 years, while the F-16C/D is close to 30 years old. The F-22, which was once a source of pride, has been out of production for 14 years and is increasingly distant from its 2005 deployment date.

The second issue is the sharp decline in readiness rates.

The U.S. Air Force maintained a mission capability rate of over 80% at the end of the Cold War, but now it has dropped to historic lows.

In 2024, the overall availability rate of the entire air force was only 62%, meaning that about 1,900 of the more than 5,000 active aircraft were grounded at any given time.

Breaking it down, the mission capability rate of the F-35A dropped from 69% in 2021 to 51.5% in 2024, almost equivalent to one out of every two aircraft being unable to engage in combat.

The F-16C also fell from 72% to 64%, and the F-16D even dipped below 60%.

Critical support platforms such as the A-10 attack aircraft and the KC-46 refueling aircraft also saw a continuous decline in readiness rates.

This highlights the current situation of the U.S. Air Force being in a state of transition.

The future core strength that the U.S. Air Force is betting on is the sixth-generation air superiority project, the F-47, and the B-21 stealth bomber, but both are yet to become operational.

Although the B-21 has already made its first flight, it is expected to achieve initial combat capability by 2026, and it will take until at least 2030 to achieve large-scale deployment.

The F-47 project is scheduled to be operational around 2030, but it is still in the prototype verification stage at present.

During this period, the F-22 is no longer in production, and the delivery of the F-35 is limited, while the maintenance difficulty of the older fleet is increasing day by day, resulting in a sudden capability gap in the U.S. Air Force.

American Aircraft

Claimed as the world's top air force, how come it seems to have collapsed suddenly?

In fact, this is not really related to the U.S. Air Force itself. If it weren't for the rapid rise of the Chinese Air Force as a comparison, the current condition of the U.S. Air Force would not have been considered a crisis. In other words, the update pace of the U.S. military has always been on time, there has never been a real case of a shortage of new and old generations. It's just that compared to China, problems arise.

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. had virtually no competitors in air superiority.

Russia was stuck in a long-term stagnation in its military industry, and the main forces of European countries were still fourth-generation aircraft like Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen, which posed limited threats to the U.S. military.

Because of this, the U.S. Department of Defense set a very relaxed update pace: the F-22 began to be deployed in small numbers during the 2000s, ensuring a technological gap; the F-35 program started in 1996, aiming to gradually replace the F-16 and A-10 from 2015 onwards, achieving cost-controlled stealth upgrades; the B-21 was planned to be deployed in 2026; the sixth-generation F-47 project was set to form combat power around 2030. All steps were on schedule, and the U.S. did not need to rush to produce large quantities or replace them early.

However, the Chinese Air Force has risen rapidly in the past decade, completely breaking the U.S. strategic assumptions.

In 2011, the J-20 made its first flight, eight years earlier than expected by the U.S.; in 2017, the J-20 entered service, achieving mass deployment; by around 2026, the Fujian aircraft carrier and the J-35 carrier-based aircraft will form a complete catapult stealth carrier system; at the same time, China has also made a leap in hypersonic weapons, reconnaissance and strike drones, electronic warfare, and command and control systems.

The U.S. Air Force originally thought it wouldn't face a peer-level opponent before 2035, but China brought the U.S. plan forward by ten years. As a result, the U.S. Air Force now feels something is wrong all over.

J-20

If we assume that the Chinese Air Force remained at the level of Su-27 and J-10, without the cross-generation breakthroughs of the J-20, J-35, and the Fujian aircraft carrier, the U.S. Air Force would still be invincible today.

From the perspective of technological gap, the U.S. still leads the world in stealth air superiority. 187 F-22s are enough to suppress all fourth-generation aircraft globally. The stealth and situational awareness capabilities of the F-35 are significantly ahead of platforms like Typhoon, Rafale, Su-30, and Su-35, and do not even need to rely on numerical advantages.

In the field of strategic bombing, the B-2 stealth bomber still has no rival. Although the B-1B and B-52 are old, they still have a decisive advantage over non-stealth air defense systems.

And in areas such as large drones, electronic warfare, airborne early warning, aerial refueling, and C4ISR command and control systems, the U.S. will not face real challengers before 2030.

Under this assumption, the U.S. Air Force does not need to rush to advance the B-21 and F-47 projects because the existing system is sufficient to maintain global air superiority.

Russia's Su-57 has limited production, Europe's stealth fighters are nearly zero, Japan and South Korea's fifth-generation aircraft are not yet true fifth-generation, and India's Rafale and indigenous platforms cannot pose a threat.

Without China, the U.S. Air Force can still rely on the F-22, F-35, B-2, and a vast support system to easily maintain air superiority in any theater.

China's Sixth-Generation Fighter

But now the situation is completely different. The U.S. underestimated the speed of the rise of the Chinese Air Force, which is the most serious strategic miscalculation in the past thirty years, and there is almost no chance to correct this mistake.

Firstly, the time window is irreversible. The development cycle of aviation equipment is generally between 10 to 15 years.

It has been over ten years since the F-22 was discontinued, and restarting production would require rebuilding the entire supply chain, which would take at least seven years to start.

The F-47 is expected to make its first flight in 2029, and it will take until 2033 to achieve large-scale combat capability. Even if the B-21 accelerates mass production, it will be difficult to exceed 50 units before 2030. Given that China has already completed the mass production of the J-20, built the Fujian aircraft carrier, and put the J-35 into service, the U.S. cannot catch up within five years.

Secondly, industrial and supply chain bottlenecks. The annual production capacity of the F-35 is only about 150 units, but due to constraints in key components such as engines, radars, and composite materials, the delivery volume has repeatedly fallen short of expectations in recent years.

The shortage of high-end aviation talent and dependence on rare earth elements and titanium materials in the supply chain further restricts the U.S. military's expansion speed.

At the same time, China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry, Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation, and Hongdu Aviation have simultaneously expanded production, gradually forming a scale advantage.

Another point is the passivity of the strategic framework. The systematized breakthroughs of the Chinese Air Force mean that the U.S. can no longer rely on single-aircraft performance to maintain absolute air superiority. This strategic passivity is not something that can be solved by simply adding a few new aircraft, but rather requires a complete reshaping of tactics and deployment systems.

The most serious issue is that the technical route is locked. The F-47 and B-21 are the only bets the U.S. has placed on the future, but their timelines are already fixed, and they cannot be advanced any further. Not falling behind is already a blessing.

Even if the development is accelerated, the development cycle, testing and verification, and mass delivery phases cannot be compressed, meaning that the U.S. must bear the capability gap for the next 5 to 7 years.

Therefore, this is not merely a problem of outdated equipment, but a structural passivity caused by strategic miscalculations. The U.S. Air Force underestimated the leapfrog development of the Chinese Air Force, causing the original plan that was sufficient to maintain a technological gap of twenty years to be drastically compressed. The whole arrangement looks completely disordered now, and it's too late to correct it, as China won't give you the time.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7543464573643276836/

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