During the cold war we had jet fighters which were called minute men which could go from starting the engine to 10,000 feet is right around six minutes. This protected our coastlines incase of attack from incoming Russian Long Range Bombers or ICBM missiles. This made sense at the time because the threat was to be taken seriously and because if a Russian Bomber got thru then they could deliver multiple nuclear weapons to our major cities.

Having the ability to scramble interceptor fighters to defend our nation in the future will be paramount. Today with Stealth Technology, ground terrain following capabilities and new aircraft, missiles and UAVs on the horizon which may be able to reach speeds of 7,000 to 10,000 miles per hour we are going to need a much faster time frame to protect the American People from a technologically advanced aggressor.

We are going to need to cut down the time to go from parked and turned off to 10,000, 20,000 or even fifty thousand feet. This is not an easy task considering it takes time to start an aircraft, warm it up, taxi to the run way, roll down that runway, take up and then climb to altitude. Even an aircraft which climbs at 20,000 feet per minute still has to get airborne you see?

We need a jet fighter which can go from turned off to 10,000 to 30,000 feet in three minutes flat, from parked and turned off. If we have too, we need to use UAVs and launch them from catapults with rocket assist, but we are going to need these capabilities in the future as the enemys technology tracks our technology into the future. Think on this in 2006.