Aerospace

The U.S. Air Force is worried

Gen. Herbert Carlisle, commander of the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command, is worried. For decades, 400 "fourth-generation" Air Force F-15s and nearly 2,000 F-16s dominated the skies over foreign battlefields. But today China and Russia have fighters of their own that outclass the F-15s and F-16s.

Worse, the Air Force only has 180 or so new "fifth-generation" F-22s to replace the old F-15s — and the F-35s that are supposed to supplant the F-16s aren't very good dogfighters. Plus, the Air Force is short on air-to-air missiles.