Why is Stealth So Important?

Kevin Brooks wrote:

: The B-2
: and even more so the F-117 were very specialized designs, and
: aircraft that require special maintenance procedures and
: climate-controlled hangars are of limited operational usefulness.

: They have already proven their operational usefullness. In view of that
: fact, the above is an unsupportable assertion.

I wrote "limited operation usefulness", not "no operational
usefulness". Penalties such as these are acceptable for a
small number of aircraft with specialized roles. They are
not acceptable for the main body of an air force. If the
F-16 had had the maintenance requirements of the B-2,
the Gulf Wars would simply not have been fought. In some ways
stealth has been a backward step; since the 1960s engineers
have aimed to reduce maintenance requirements and turn-around
time, and to make aircraft less dependable on well-equipped
bases. The need for this was obvious in Korea and Vietnam,
as well as from the budget... The first generation of stealth
aircraft reversed this trend, a most unwelcome limitation on
their use.

: For stealth to be really useful, it must be made compatible
: with dirt strips and pierced metal planking.

: It already is "really useful". The loss of one stealth aircraft against how
: many hundreds of sorties into environments that were rich with radar
: directed threats in Iraq and former Yugoslavia.

Allow me to point out that the USAF has bought only 59 F-117s
and equipped only two operational squadrons with them. To me
this reflects a rather sober view of the operational usefulness
of the type: An useful accessory to the arsenal, but not able
to replace more conventional types. Before Stealth can be
incorporated in the backbone of the air frce, serious technical
problems need to be solved, and compromises must be made.

It is true that the loss rate of the F-117 has been low: The
low rate of other USAF aircraft has also been low, to the
point of making a comparison statistically insignificant.

--
Emmanuel Gustin