Yeah, except 'jointness' to the AF means "everybody do it our way, and we'll run it - or we won't play". No way they'd trust Navy AIMD-and-above maintainance for their airplanes. Not keeping with their high standards and all, and outside the AF's bureaucratic clutches.
Introducing and maintaining a new type of aircraft is expensive for a service, it is part of the reason the Marines are so focused on having just the F-35 and have rejected any possibility of buying Rhinos (no VSTOL is another reason).
Again, the simplest and probably cheapest solution would just buy some new F-16's to replace the old ones. It wouldn't even be that hard to buy ones optimized for the air defense mission, they did before with the Block 15 ADF conversions they did in the late 80's/early 90's. There is absolutely no reason to go and buy a comletely different type of aircraft to perform a mission that is done well enough by the current F-16's. This is almsot pure politics, nothing about hating on the Navy.
I'll bring it up again - has there been any thought into letting the Reserve VFA guys share some of this mission? Couldn't hurt to tap into some of that NORTHCOM money.
First off, it is really not a core Navy mission, the USAF/ANG has performed the air defense mission since it pretty much started and have rarely needed any help from the USN/USMC. Secondly, there is only one reserve VFA squadron left, VFA-204, the others are all VFC adversary squadrons. It is not like we could help out much at all.
