If you ever wanted to know how far advanced the US military is, here's a prime example. It's a long way from model to prototype to full scale production, so I wish them good luck.
This hardly worrisome considering we're already working on third generation stealth technology. We also have the best pilots in the world, and technology that makes this plane look like a fourth year engineering student project.
If you consider training to be a measurable value of skill, I am randomly guessing that the above statement is due to the fact that we train our pilots more than any other military?
(I don't know if that's true or not, just that's what I would gather as the source of such a statement)
Indeed. Plus, the tactical knowledge obtained from fighting so many wars means that not only are there many experienced pilots, but when these pilots retire, they are likely going to train other pilots in their craft.
Yes, it's one thing to develop the industrial scale needed to field and effectively utilize aviation assets, it's another thing entirely to adapt and maintain that base as long as the U.S. has been able to.
Right now the U.S. has the institutional knowledge within the military, the industrial base to build craft, repair those craft, make custom tools/mods to those craft, well-trained and very experienced pilots, well-trained and very experienced aircrew, aircraft maintenance techs, etc.
The latter means that the U.S. has a ready base of available personnel to use as expert instructors, as policy makers (in and out of the military), to feed back into the industrial base, etc.
So it's not at all that other countries can't do it, but the investment needed to do so efficiently is just so massive nowadays.
This hardly worrisome considering we're already working on third generation stealth technology. We also have the best pilots in the world, and technology that makes this plane look like a fourth year engineering student project.