Until unmanned fighters come into service the F22 is better than anything else out there, or in fact proposed. More maneuverable Russian experimental jets notwithstanding, maneuverability isn’t important, stealth and speed are. The F22 is stealthy, that is hard to see, but I don’t know how hard to see. It is also fast, and can travel nearly twice the speed of sound without afterburners.
I’m for keeping the assembly line open at minimum capacity indefinitely until the unmanned fighters prove better at everything.
When war comes we will need these things in inventory, not years down the road.
The question really comes down to military necessity and money. As for military necessity, others have already made points that it will be a far more capable fighter than anything else out there for a long time. That’s great. But how many do we really need? There are something like 600 F-15s out there now. If the F-22 is 10 times more deadly than the F-15, why do we need more than 200 of them? There are various sites on the internet that report that an F-22 has a kill ratio at Red Flag exercises that are into the many dozens of enemy fighters killed for each Raptor killed… as in, 80 to one.
Now, for money. If you think we need more F-22s, what, precisely, do you think should be reduced from the Air Force’s budget? Shall we cancel the next generation bomber that would replace the B-52s starting in about 10 years? Shall we cancel the new tanker aircraft that would replace KC-135s that entered service in the 1950s? Shall we cut back on pay and benefits for airmen? Shall we propose ending purchases of C-17 cargo aircraft… oh wait, that’s already been done, so there isn’t really money to save there.
All the talk about how needing more F-22s than we currently have is nice, but I can also go around saying that I really need a new Porsche Boxster, too. Until I can tell you what exactly I’m paying for now that is a lower priority than that new sportscar, I’m not being realistic. So if you advocate in this thread to build more F-22s, tell me what the Air Force is buying now that it should stop buying.
Canceling the F-22 isn’t really an option. They were working on that thing when I was in the Air Force, and I got out in 1992. It takes years to develop and deploy a fighter. Scrapping that and starting over would mean Eagles and Falcons would likely still be our main fighters until 2030 or so.
For that matter, similar complaints were raised about the F-15 and F-16 back in the day. The airplanes are expensive, and they require lots of work to keep them flying.
Keep building/deploying the F-22s, start work now to develop the plane that will replace it.
“Military necessity” needs a broader definition. Remember that part of the reason for continuing to design and build new and better weapons systems is to maintain the *capability *to design and build them. That can mean choosing a method of program management that is less cost-effective and slower in producing new products, just so the capital infrastructure and industrial labor force levels can be kept relatively stable. There’s quite a bit said about the commercial base of the US’ defense industry being one of its strengths, but don’t kid yourselves - DoD manages contracts with an arsenal mentality, as if it were government-controlled and owned, which in effect it is.
True, it may be generations before a truly credible need for a new air superiority fighter reappears - but it might still cost less to keep the F-22’s and their successors in trickle-rate production until then than to start a new fighter industry from scratch.
The arsenal approach to contract management also involves giving enough business to the different contracting firms to keep enough of them in the military business. The US is effectively down to one single prime contractor for fighters as it is, and the others have effectively had to shut their capabilities down. Part of the reason the second engine for the F-35 has so much support is that killing it would eventually mean having only one manufacturer who knows how to design and build them.
Remember Kelly Johnson of Skunk Works? He oversaw the development of a number of successful aircraft. He was successful because he kept the government out of the design process (for the most part). He would develop an aircraft, and then present it to the government. Smart man, he was.
In 40 years time the F-22 will be hopelessly dated. There’s no point in building more copies of the plane if there’s no credible likelihood of a suitable threat arising before the Raptor is an antique.
It already is practically cancelled - they cut the order by about 80% and they’re in the last batch of production IIRC.
This isn’t true. It is true that our support and pilots are better, but our hardware doesn’t outclass the world anymore. We’re at parity with quite a few countries.
For example - India’s air force is competant - nothing great, but not some tin pot dictator. We’ve wargamed against their SU-27s and lost - F-15s scored a kill ratio of 0.7:1 - meaning that we killed fewer than we lost.
This is with our most modern hardware against a middling airforce.
European fighters are generally inferior to the SU-27, but their pilots (depending on country) are probably better than Indian pilots.
OTOH, F-22s in similar wargames score ratios of over 20 to 1 against SU-27s. It’s a huge leap.
This is true now - but will be less and less true as time goes on, as the F-15 and F-16 airframes become 30+ years old and the kinks are worked out of the Raptor.
This is true - but as I said, we’re already at that point - it’s not something far off into the future. We can still maintain parity with existing designs at least for another decade - but we have supremacy at our fingertips.
Broken window - irrelevant to the discussion IMO.
It’s a pain in the ass to maintain, and has some reliability issues, but it’s far and away the best air superiority platform available in the world when it’s actually in a fight.
Besides, this really isn’t much of an issue now. The sunk costs are gone, and we’ve already reduced the order. What do you suggest we do, stop the last batch from being built? The debate should be whether or not we fire production back up (IMO we should).
The F-22 does pretty much everything better - faster, longer range, stealthy, better radar and avionics. It can take over the light stealthy strike role that we lost when the F-117 was retired. The aircraft it’s replacing don’t have any capabilities it can’t do better, that I’m aware of.
Like I said, it’s already spent. I’m guessing about 98% of the project’s total funds (R&D and production) have already been spent.
It’s a lot like the F-15 and F-16. The F-22 is the premier air superiority platform - expensive but it can out-fight anything in the world. The F-35 will be the cheaper, slightly less advanced version that we can export to allies that will be the workhorse of light strike forces while still having solid air to air capabilities.
Why did the F-117 get retired so soon? Lack of manueverability? Costs? The advent of the F-22?
It seemed to have a really short shelf life, and the only major complaint that I came across was that pilots generally disliked it’s lack of capabilities. Did it become no longer stealthy?
The F-117 first flew in 1981 and went operational in 1983. It was retired last year.
By contrast, the F-15 first flew in 1972 and became operational in 1976; so the type has been in operation for 33 years and counting. The F-14 Tomcat first flew in 1970 and became operational in 1974, meing retired in 2006 – 32 years. First flown in 1974 and made operational in 1978, the F-16 is still flying 31 years later.
So 25 years, in context, seems like the F-117 was retired early. The F-22 and F-35 are more capable aircraft, so the F-117 was retired.
This is just simply untrue. The most expensive weapon acquisition program in the universe, the F-35, is going to be operational within a couple of years and will replace the F-16, the F/A-18, and the AV-8 Harrier. The F-22 is basically a replacement for the F-15 only.
And the odds are that the F-35 will be the last manned fighter we build, at least according to the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
This is an apples to oranges comparison. The F-117 isn’t, technically speaking, even a fighter aircraft; it is a tactical bomber and ground attack aircraft, and therefore should have an “A” designation. (The application of a Century Series “F” designation was one of many ploys to divert attention from the actual role of the F-117.) The F-117 is also late-1970s technology; the materials and manufacturing technology, especially for composite frame aircraft with stealthy, radar absorbing coatings, have significantly improved since the F-117. Indeed, the B-2 is essentially a generation ahead of the F-117, having piggybacked upon the development and advances discovered.
The F-22, on the other hand, is primarily an air superiority fighter with multi-role capability, including ground attack and close support, tactical recon and surveillance, and electronic warfare, essentially filling the roles of the various models of the F-15 Eagle. The question isn’t really whether the United States needs to develop the next generation fighter aircraft as a successor to the F-15, F-16, and (eventually) F/A-18; it is whether the expensive F-22 provides any significant capability beyond that offered by the considerably cheaper F-35 variants.
The F-22 is a jobs program, as much as defense program. Thecurrent -16/F-18 fighters re superior to anything else in the world; but Congress wants to hand out contracts. Thats the main problem with defense programs-they become entitlements. lso, I think maned aircraft are going obsolete-autonomous drones wil take over from maned fighters.
I’m confused - some posters are saying the F-22s are still being built and others are saying the production’s already shut down and it’s dead (insofar as building new ones.) Which is correct?
I understand the numbers have been cut a lot from what was originally planned, and the first operational units started using them 3 years ago. How fast does the whole group of 200 or so planes get built? Did they finish them all?
The other thing I don’t understand about this thread is the application of the Broken Window Fallacy. If Congress/DoD decide to stop spending money on more F-22s (assuming the answer to my first question is ‘yes, they’re still in production,’) but choose instead to purchase more F-35s…
…or even if they choose to spend more on block grants to states for schools or something…
… that money is still being spent, and may even be more productive (from what I understand, military hardware is not spending that allows the economy to become more productive or efficient in the future, such as training new engineers or building needed roads would be.) How is that the Broken Window Fallacy?
Sorry that the above post is poorly worded and phrased. It’s morning, and I can’t understand myself think, much less type coherently. Hopefully someone will understand the gist of my post and overlook its grammatical and composition flaws.
It was secret until the early 90s, which made it seem to have a shorter service than it did - 1981-2009 is a fairly long run. People look at the B-52 lasting 50+ years and they develop false expectations as to the longevity of aircraft as if it were the rule rather than the exception.
I’m not fully versed in the reasons for the retirements, but I’d imagine the maintenance costs were high, and the technology in it is fairly old - the program started in the 60s and used most of its technology from the 70s. The F-22/JSF should be able to replace it fairly well… and where stealth is of the utmost importance, the B-2 is more capable.
Again, this isn’t true. It’s just an assumption that we’ve got the best tech - we don’t. I can’t speak as to how an F-18E/F would fare against the more modern opfor systems, but the F-15 and F-16 do not fare especially well against SU-27s with inferior pilots. The SU-27 isn’t some far-off piece of tech - it’s used by quite a few militaries. The European 4 and 4.5 gen fighters are roughly at parity with upgraded F-15s and F-16s.
F-22s give us a technical lead over other countries possibly greater than any fighter aircraft in history, where the F-15s and F-16s either achieve parity or are behind more modern systems.
Plus, they’re old. Let’s say we start up a brand new fighter program now - whether it be manned or unmanned. How long until that system is in full deployment? Can the old F-16 and F-15 airframes last that long? Fighter airframes are stressed more than bomber airframes - we’re not going to see the F-15 in service for 50+ years like we might a bomber or tanker.
Somewhere around 160 of an order of 183 have been delivered, and the others have been paid for and are in the production pipeline.
You just reasoned out why it’s the broken window fallacy. In this case, the broken window fallacy is “even if it’s not really worth it, still, spending that money means jobs for people, so we can’t stop it” - the problem with that is that if we didn’t produce them, it’s not as if the money and resources dissapear - they’d be put to tasks that also create jobs. Therefore that point is irrelevant to the decision. You seem to have explained it yourself in the premise of your question, so I’m not sure what the source of your confusion is.
