Z-Man vs. Top Gun

Ruh-roh.

Ol' Z-Man figured out the scam.

...Outside of asymmetric wars, like America attacking a weak country, manned combat aircraft is becoming obsolete. Surface-to-air missile systems are reaching the stage where they can defeat the best manned aircraft at pennies on the dollar. If you can take out a billion dollar plane with a million dollar missile, it is not going to take long before the other side stops using their billion dollar planes to attack you....

Good thing Tom Cruise is aging out of making pictures, eh?

And there's another issue:

 ...The United States has spent roughly a trillion dollars per year on weapons but there is not enough stock to last a year in a real war. Even if there is a shift toward ramping up production, it will take years to match the Russians and Chinese. In some cases, the ability to make the stuff has been lost. Once the contract with the military was fulfilled, the men and facilities to make the stuff was repurposed. For those cases it means starting production from scratch....

We have known for years that the Pentagon (like Detroit) loves them some whiz-bang--whether it serves a practical purpose or not.  And McDonnell-Douglas gets a LOT OF MONEY for whiz-bang; they're not going to complain.

But if all you need to take it out is a slingshot, Goliath ain't a weapon no mo'.