The World - News from Dec. 16, 1986

The United States has drastically improved its air combat readiness in recent years, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft said. The new 1986-87 edition of the London-based aircraft yearbook said that while the Soviet Union is working to close the technology gap, “it never did have a magic formula to get combat aircraft off the drawing board and into service overnight.” Jane’s also noted that while the U.S. “Star Wars” program has dominated recent military thinking, the Kremlin still makes use of missile-carrying Bear bombers, which it said should not be dismissed as a “lumbering relic of the propeller age.”