Wow, was just reading this article after reading the one about SAPs. I don't have much of any knowledge on aerospace engineering or what the Air Force/Navy have

Wow, was just reading this article after reading the one about SAPs. I don't have much of any knowledge on aerospace engineering or what the Air Force/Navy have planned for our skies, but it's still a crazy thought that they'd abandon that kind of tech. I understand the upper echelons of governments get really bureaucratic but a lot of the times their decisions are incredibly simplistic, a program like this could be abandoned just because the top rung shift focus to intelligence gathering, any platform that doesn't fit that purpose or can easily be made to fit that purpose gets the axe, despite how useful it may be in the future. All boils down to money eventually. I'm really interested in what the "next phase" of aviation combat will be, or if there even will be a next phase. It's possible some organization would create a weapon that would physically disrupt any vehicle or object flying through a certain patch of sky - that may push us into a air-to-groud laser or smart-guided weapon age to counter those kinds of measures, and also means air vehicles will need serious intel platforms to get around them. We also may see vehicles that can transition from air to sea and retain full combative power, anything in the skies that can't float at that point goes the way of the do-do, no matter how intelligent it's systems are, so maybe the USAF is waiting until it's clear what will work for the next 50 years, while other branches invest UCAV technology. *air-to-ground, not ground-to-air