It is so sad to see that short sighted turf protectors could not see the national security…the greatest weakness to these 5th gen AC is the need to operate from fixed runways. This makes them have to travel ever further from target and return…lengthening sortie times and decreases numbers of sorties per crew per day. It also lengthens response time while decreasing loiter over target time for CAS. Jump jets would have been a great way of capitalizing on the lessons of the WWII and the battle of Britain.