F-22 - a plane you won't go to war with?

[Skybird]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html

Financing a greater fighter fleet of Raptors currently is a big battle in congress. Congress wants to finance more fighters despite the desastrous financial situation of the US, while both the president and the Pentagon do not want them. Having to do 30 hours of maintenance for one flight hour for a brandnew state-of-the-art supertoy is indeed a bit rich and raises giant questions marks whether or not such a plane really is worth 150 million dollars per piece - which is the most optimistic price tag. Critics calculate the price per plane to be as high as 350 million dollars.

That congress wants that plane nevertheless, maybe has to do with the fact the the production of the F-22, in typical American defense industry manner, is scattered over 40 federal states. This industry design works great to make sure that congress is very hesitent to cut defense spendings, because limiting defense projects, even if the military does not want them or does not need them, would cut job, which translates into: cutting voters for congressmen in the affected states. So that congress wants the Raptor no matter the desperate fiancial condition and the unimaginable debts already accumulated, is not so much military reason, but simply reflects the fact that 80% of Congressmen fear to lose voters in their home states.

The scenarios the F-22 originally has been designed for, currently are to be considered as being very unlikely, and for the more realistic military scenarios of the present and forseeable future, the F-22 has no value, especially no value that justifies it's ridiculous costs. You do not put such a costly item at risk, if it does not give you something in return, and in the ongoing wars of the present, the F-22 has seen no action - against whom anyway? But what made me abandoning the idea of the F-22 now in total is the absolutely undiscussable relation between maintenance and flight hours. A relation of 30:1 you expect to have with planes from the 70s or 80s after they have seen 20 or 30 years of service. For a brandnew plane, such a ratio of 30:1 is simply: crappy. even our very old Transall transporters, Tornados and CH-53 helicopters in germany do not reach such desastrous ratios, I have been told by a pro - after decades of service and being worn out pretty badly.

[goldorak]

The F-14 had something like 50 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. Way way more than even the F-22. You could argue that during the cold war money was no problem, and to a certain extent it was true.
But right now, having an aircarft that requires 30 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight is just absurd. The moreso considering how few of them are operational.




The decision to incorporate the Super Hornet and decommission the F-14 is mainly due to high amount of maintenance required to keep the Tomcats operational. On average, an F-14 requires nearly 50 maintenance hours for every flight hour, while the Super Hornet requires five to 10 maintenance hours for every flight hour.



Source : http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,88041,00.html?ESRC=navy.nl

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

The F-14 had something like 50 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. Way way more than even the F-22. You could argue that during the cold war money was no problem, and to a certain extent it was true.
But right now, having an aircarft that requires 30 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight is just absurd. The moreso considering how few of them are operational.

To be fair, the Super Hornet is in comparison something of an economy plane built on well-grounded tech, while both the F-14 and -22 were more at the limits of technology.

For the record, is it 30 man-hours, 30 hours using the standard sized US maintenance groundcrew or 30 hours if you throw a hundred guys at it?

The scenarios the F-22 originally has been designed for, currently are to be considered as being very unlikely, and for the more realistic military scenarios of the present and forseeable future, the F-22 has no value, especially no value that justifies it's ridiculous costs

The problem here, which is ignored by critics in the US and instituniks in Russia, is that militaries aren't designed to face so called "realistic scenarios", by which those critics generally mean "low-intensity conflicts" that aren't vital to the national interest. The military must retain the best possible ability against the worst-case scenario, which is the "high-intensity, high-tech conflicts" that most of those critics dismiss.

However unlikely they are, should the military follow the instituniks and reorient for LIC, and they suffer badly in the next HIC leading to the loss of vital interests or even sovereignty itself, you can bet that those instituniks will completely forget their role in all this and blame the generals.

[Max2147]

I think we should have more F-22s, but the impetus for that should come from The Pentagon, not Congress. I don't like the idea of Congress buying more F-22s, since it's just pork barrel spending for them.

My biggest problem with ending the F-22 production run is that the F-35 is not adequate in the air superiority role. It can't carry enough missiles, its stealth isn't good enough, and its performance isn't up to par. It's supposed to do air to air and air to ground work, but as a result its design is too compromised in both.

The F-22's biggest flaw isn't its maintenance and such, it's the price tag. Not only does that make it tough to buy more, but it also brings up the possibility of the plane being too expensive to use in combat. If you have less than 200 of them, and each one of them is astronomically expensive, commanders might balk at putting them in situations where they could be lost.

[Hitman]

So that congress wants the Raptor no matter the desperate fiancial condition and the unimaginable debts already accumulated, is not so much military reason, but simply reflects the fact that 80% of Congressmen fear to lose voters in their home states.


Don't you simply love democracy? :D

[Zachstar]

Congress has voted to stop production of the F-22.

Now is the time for the military to get even more serious about drones. A flock of drones is better than any F-22.

[bookworm_020]

IF you want to see a battle of tech verses utility, just look at the B-1 v B-52

The B-52 is projected to still be in service after the B-1 is retired. The B-52 is slower, has a radar sig that is similar to a large building, and is hardly state of the art and yet it keeps on going.

Maybe the answer is some hi tech for high risk situations, and low tech for low risk situations???

[Buddahaid]

That's stop production after the current 187 ordered are filled.

Buddahaid

[SUBMAN1]

People are so short-sighted. The F-22 is the only aircraft in our inventory that can go up against SAAB Gripen, EF2000, Rafael, SU-30, SU-35, SU-37, S-37, S-47, and any future variant of the SU.

As already been proven, our guys in India's SU-30's mopped up the sky again our guys in everything from F-15 to F-16. There is nothing America flies that can take on the SU-30 and win hands down except F-22.

When the S-37 goes into production (It has already been approved to go into production), the F-35 will already have its work cut out for it. Only the F-22 will make short work of it.

Anyway, these idiots in Congress think that all the wars we will ever fight will be stupid wars like Afghanistan or Iraq. Get real! Unless the US plans to take over the world politically, we are going to have a rude wake up call someday.

These idiots in Congress think that 5000 dead in Iraq is a lot. What happens when that is 5000 aircraft and you have none left to fight a war?

What should I expect from my latest government anyway? They drop a trillion that they don't have at the drop of a hat. Short sighted freaks. I mean, they have a $800 billion defense budget on the table, and they are squabbling over 0.1% of it for something that we need, and then trying to make it sound like they did a big thing by saving SO MUCH MONEY! Crazy.

The people get the Government they deserve. How this is proving so true.

-S

[Zachstar]

Then give up. If you think its the government we deserve then feel free to leave politics.

[SUBMAN1]

Then give up. If you think its the government we deserve then feel free to leave politics.

Are you for real? It is my duty to vote for what is right for everyone. Evil is the absence of good. What you are asking me to be evil. That is something I cannot oblige.

-S

[Max2147]

Congress shouldn't be overriding the SecDef and The Pentagon on defense matters, so in that way I'm glad to see this vote. The folks in Congress who were trying to save the F-22 weren't concerned for our national defense, they just saw it as another pork barrel project for their district.

That said, I still think Gates got this one wrong. I have an enormous amount of respect for Gates, and I think he's really worked wonders to repair all the damange that Rumsfeld did at The Pentagon, but this is one area where I think he's wrong. He's putting a lot of responsibility on the F-35, and I don't like that. The F-35 is an overly compromised design that's pretty good at a lot of things, but not really great at anything.

However, it's worth noting that this would have happened even if the last election had gone the other way. I imagine McCain would have also kept Gates on, and McCain was very much against the F-22. He publicly backed Obama in trying to get production stopped.

[VipertheSniper]

It is my duty to vote for what is right for everyone.

-S

:timeout: So essentially you're saying you know all the answers to every problem, since you seem to know what's right for everyone. :haha::haha::haha:

[Zachstar]

Are you for real? It is my duty to vote for what is right for everyone. Evil is the absence of good. What you are asking me to be evil. That is something I cannot oblige.

-S

Then stop with the "get the gov we deserve" bull then. Its insulting. As for voting? There is no vote underway. It isn't 2010. And for evil? I could care less what you view not going around sounding like a fool saying junk like that.

There is no new currently useless F-22s orders. Big whoop in the face is massive strides in drone efforts that are actually saving lives in CURRENT wars. Not to mention the huge advantages gained from being able to lose a drone without losing a great amount of funds or battle resources.

[Max2147]

This thread has a fever.... and the only prescription is.....

MORE ONION!

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_axes_pentagon_plan_to_build?utm_source=video embed

[goldorak]

One of biggest problems of the F-22 is that is was not developed with "exports" in mind. In the past F-4's, A-4's,F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, even F-14's were sold abroad (and I'm forgetting a lot of other aircraft). It made good financial sense. If the F-22 were built more modular, then a less "stealthy" version could still be sold on the international market to friendly governments. Case in point, Japan prefers the F-22 over the other EF-2000 but they can't buy it.

[Loud_Silence]

IMHO, for several reasons, Russia is not a trustworthy country. Specially after they let eastern europe countries' people freeze and die for not paying the russian gas taxes.

[goldorak]

IMHO, for several reasons, Russia is not a trustworthy country. Specially after they let eastern europe countries' people freeze and die for not paying the russian gas taxes.


Who said anything about selling F-22's to Russia ?
I talked about friendly governments as in NATO, and other allies such as Israel and Japan. Where the hell did I mention Russia ?

[Loud_Silence]

Who said anything about selling F-22's to Russia ?
I talked about friendly governments as in NATO, and other allies such as Israel and Japan. Where the hell did I mention Russia ?
Sorry for moving away from your topic.
What he meant is that the F-22 is there to warn Russia that they can't do whatever they want.
The biggest problem in the US military is that the equipment is not created by the needs of the soldiers, but by politicians and business interests.
Also, having four armies and some more national guards and reserve forces doesn't help... did the US Army Corp do anything at all during the last Iraq war? And why the US Navy fighters have groud-strike capability? Isn't that a task for the USAF or the Marine air corps?

[Skybird]

This thread has a fever.... and the only prescription is.....

MORE ONION!

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_axes_pentagon_plan_to_build?utm_source=video embed

:yeah:

The F-22 was planned for a wartime environment matching the expectations of a big war with Russia. A war with russia, like a war with China or India, is extremely unlikely nowadays, espiecially on a scale where deep interdiction missions would take place. For local defence, however, defeating enemy ground radar is not such a big argument than if you would fly into enemy territory, and that is true both for A-G AND A-A missions. That's why the Pentagon's dominant assessement is that defending own airspace is possible even without the overpriced and work-intensive interceptors like the F-22.

The war scenarios that are to be expected for the forseeable future do not include major global wars between the superpowers, but are of the kind that we currently see in Afghanistan and Iraq. We talk of assymmetrical wars of limited scale in underdeveloped countries. This is the kind of war America - and Europe as well - needs to prepare for. In such scenarios, an overpriced super-hightech-toy like the F-22 has no place. You do not even expose it to risk in such conflicts, because a single machine lost would cost you so dearly.

Seen that way, and accepting the reasonable need to face financial and economic realities of a nation being the biggest debtor on Earth, stopping the F-22 is the only reasonable option. I meanwhile learned that the price for the F-22 already has raised to almost 400 million per unit (389 million). A nation in a condition like the US cannot afford such expensive toys.

The eurofighter also is an expensive plane, but in no way it's german fly-away price of 65 million and full-package-price of 105 million compare to those 389 million price tag of the Raptor. Nevertheless in the war scenarios to be expected it, can do the job of the F-22 - but much more cost-efficient than the Raptor, and being more diverse in it's possible mission profiles. Defence plicies cannot escape economic realities, but are embedded in them. From that perspective, alternative planes like the Eurofighter make much more sense than the F-22. they remain to be more economic and reasonable even when hypothetically referring to those simulated results against the SU-35, where the F-22 got a ratio of 10:1 and the Eurofighter in second place with "only" 4:1. Considering maintenance times and costs, the Eurofighter still brings "more aircraft" into the air even when having not as high a kill score like the F-22. Saying that is grim towards the pilot finding himself in the actual combat situation, but the whole debate is hypthetical anyway.

Strying off a bit, but this nevertheless is part of defence spendings:
These days, with 12 trillion in debts and a ruinous budget balance, America simply cannot buy anything anymore just becasue it wants to have it. If you have looked at stockmarkets lately, you will have noted commentator's observations that investors have started in huge crowds to abandon US state bonds, and invest into resources instead. Many take this as a signal that now the final mass-fleeing of non-Us investors from US bonds is about to get started. If that is true, Obama's spending frenzy will prove to have no effect, and the economic crisis in fact is not even near to the real low point - even more when considering that latest wins ob Golden Sacks obviously only were obained by shopwing that one had learned nothing and fell back to the same kind of high-risk operations that have led us into the mess. In other words: the next crunch is already in the making.

But carrying on to spend for weapons and guns like crazy...? There is no terrorist and no taliban and no third world dictator who could care a single second about the F-22. Because they would never be in the crosshairs of it. what these guys care for are Predator drones, CAS, boots on the ground, helicopter gunships, mobile ground manouvers, telecommunication, artillery. Where is the F-22 in all that? Nowhere. I know that some people here are almost eager to see a big war coming with China or russia so that they can see all those gimmicks of the military coming into action and feeling like Audie Murphy in a warhero movie - but such a big war will not come, guys. Live with it. Because nobody launches such wars between great powers since WWII, if the economic gains do not compensate for the costs - no country on Earth could afford that anymore. There will be regional wars and asymmetrical wars, and plenty of them. But no unlimited global wars between great powers anymore. the likelihood to see some kind of nuclear war is bigger than the the chance for a major war between the Us and Russia, India, or Brazil.

(That's why Kapitan's thread on Europe declaring war on Russia - is pointless from A to Z.)

[Takeda Shingen]

(That's why Kapitan's thread on Europe declaring war on Russia - is pointless from A to Z.)

Hey, now in fairness to our friend, 9 out of every 10 threads on this forum are pointless from A to Z. If we were to cut out the pointless content, no one would have anything to talk about.

[Hitman]

Out of curiosity, is there somewhere a comparison of modern aircraft with the cost -if updated- of a Spitfire or a Me 109 in the pre-WW2 days? Even if those planes were state of the art in their time, they probably are still way cheaper in comparative terms than the F22.

I overall agree with Skybird's estimation of the potential future wars, but would like to know how precise is this statement from Subman1:

The F-22 is the only aircraft in our inventory that can go up against SAAB Gripen, EF2000, Rafael, SU-30, SU-35, SU-37, S-37, S-47, and any future variant of the SU.

As already been proven, our guys in India's SU-30's mopped up the sky again our guys in everything from F-15 to F-16. There is nothing America flies that can take on the SU-30 and win hands down except F-22.


Isn't the F-15 a good enough air superiority fighter?

[Skybird]

Hey, now in fairness to our friend, 9 out of every 10 threads on this forum are pointless from A to Z. If we were to cut out the pointless content, no one would have anything to talk about.
:D Point taken.

One thing one would want to add to what already has been said, is this: since the F-22 has been polanned for a big war in which you would need all your ressources, you nevertheless would not want to need to depend on such a maintenance-heavy piece of equipement with a major failure taking place every 1.8 hours. you want reliable equipement, since it will be put under enormous stress in such a big war, and you want your equipement not sitting in hangars, but putting air presence up into the air, where it belongs. So, even if taking into account the original kind of war the Raptor was planned for, it would be an anachronism, due to it's economic inefficiency.

It seems to me that if you compare maintenance time as well as production costs per piece, the F-22 would need to reach an even much higher kill ratio to justify it'S enormous costs. referring to that (disputable, btw) simulation of duels against the SU-35, and the F-22 scoring a kill ratio of 10:1 and the Typhoon "just" 4:1, you compare this 2.5 times higher kill ratio against 3 times as high costs and 3-9 higher maintenance time - time in which the Typhoon is in the air and the Raptor sits in the hangar.

[Skybird]

I overall agree with Skybird's estimation of the potential future wars, but would like to know how precise is this statement from Subman1:



Isn't the F-15 a good enough air superiority fighter?

It depends on the kind of enemy you go against, and how it is used and supported by electronic networking. Comparisons of this kind are difficult, because not only the aircraft's flight characteristics adds to the formula, but also the tactic way it is being used, it's sensors and radar, IR and radar profile, and especially the kind of missiles it can support. Presence of friendly AWACS makes a big difference, too. the Russians built some hell of capable anti-tank- and long-ranging anti-air-missiles, and modern IR-missiles from Russian, American and Israeli production are practically impossible to evade. Some russian radar AA missiles outclass the American AMRAAM in range, they even built an IR missile with the range of a LR radar missile in the past. Their good missiles and their strong radars is what gives russian fighters their strength - I would not call the Su-30 or Su-35 a good dogfighter. But classical dogfighting is not the decisve factor in air combat anymore, since nay advantage one side has gets neutralised more and more the shorter the combat range is. You can neutralise that by a design like the F-22 - or by improving your own weapon's precision and range, which is the cheaper way to go, and is economically less prone to own equipment being shot down. By this logic I tend to think that possibly armed drones are indeed the future, they also remove the availabilty of pilots from the pilot pool from the formula. However, as the high number os civilian csualties in Pakistan and Afghanistan shows, drones are no wonder weapon and the way they are being used and their capabilities must be improved. currently they are still too unreliable as weapon-platforms.


Regarding the most likely scenarios we need to expect, this all is of not much more than academic value. Guerillas and Taleban do not run air forces and tank armies.

I just would wish we would stop to trade top notch tanks, combat airplanes and submarines to foreign countries. It is so very stupid to sell your sophisticated weapons just to anybody.

[Hitman]

Pf course I meant against the average enemy the US or NATO might act; i.e. second or third line countries with not very advanced armies, or if having some advanced units, at least not a big amount of them. I think that war against any nuclear power is nowadays ruled out for two reasons:

1) Interdependency and globalization: China & Russia, as nuclear powers whose interest could eventually collide with the US would probably in case of war act on a different level: Economic war, energy war, food supply war (Russia is a big net importer of grain from north america IIRC) etc. and besides I don't see how they would really even get to lock horns seriously.

2) Even in the unlikely case of entering a war, the ultimate resource of nuclear war when cornered would probably make the conventional war unnecessary.

So I was mainly referring to countries like Iran, Venezuela, African countries, etc. against which a limited conventional war could eventually happen. Isn't the F-15 a good enough aircraft against them? I think it should be, and even if those countries managed to get a bunch of advanced russian fighters, I don't think they would play a big difference if everything else around them is more outdated and they haven't the electronics supposrt you mentioned.

But someone correct me if I wrong :hmmm:

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

IMHO, for several reasons, Russia is not a trustworthy country. Specially after they let eastern europe countries' people freeze and die for not paying the russian gas taxes.

Hah? I don't know if people died when Russia cut off their gas, but what did you really expect Russia to do. Give them gas for free? They aren't nearly rich enough to do that. If you really expect free gas to be handed out when people can't afford it, then perhaps you should think America should buy the gas for the East Europeans.

[Molon Labe]

Pf course I meant against the average enemy the US or NATO might act; i.e. second or third line countries with not very advanced armies, or if having some advanced units, at least not a big amount of them. I think that war against any nuclear power is nowadays ruled out for two reasons:

1) Interdependency and globalization: China & Russia, as nuclear powers whose interest could eventually collide with the US would probably in case of war act on a different level: Economic war, energy war, food supply war (Russia is a big net importer of grain from north america IIRC) etc. and besides I don't see how they would really even get to lock horns seriously.

2) Even in the unlikely case of entering a war, the ultimate resource of nuclear war when cornered would probably make the conventional war unnecessary.

So I was mainly referring to countries like Iran, Venezuela, African countries, etc. against which a limited conventional war could eventually happen. Isn't the F-15 a good enough aircraft against them? I think it should be, and even if those countries managed to get a bunch of advanced russian fighters, I don't think they would play a big difference if everything else around them is more outdated and they haven't the electronics supposrt you mentioned.

But someone correct me if I wrong :hmmm:

Someone's been reading Thomas Barnett. :DL

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Point taken.

One thing one would want to add to what already has been said, is this: since the F-22 has been polanned for a big war in which you would need all your ressources, you nevertheless would not want to need to depend on such a maintenance-heavy piece of equipement with a major failure taking place every 1.8 hours. you want reliable equipement, since it will be put under enormous stress in such a big war, and you want your equipement not sitting in hangars, but putting air presence up into the air, where it belongs. So, even if taking into account the original kind of war the Raptor was planned for, it would be an anachronism, due to it's economic inefficiency.

It seems to me that if you compare maintenance time as well as production costs per piece, the F-22 would need to reach an even much higher kill ratio to justify it'S enormous costs. referring to that (disputable, btw) simulation of duels against the SU-35, and the F-22 scoring a kill ratio of 10:1 and the Typhoon "just" 4:1, you compare this 2.5 times higher kill ratio against 3 times as high costs and 3-9 higher maintenance time - time in which the Typhoon is in the air and the Raptor sits in the hangar.

To be fair, the MTBF of the F-16C is supposedly only 2.9 hours (at least by Russian evaluation, but I don't have an American opinion on this). Even counting possible different definitions ... it is bad but not a relative disaster.

The overall cost per flying hour is higher for the F-22, but compared to the F-15 it's supposedly not even twice as high according to your article:
The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22's predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.

So it is arguably not such a disaster on the economic front. It would seem that most of the 30 hours is waiting for glue to dry - so it is irreducible, but presumably at least they are not man-hours.

The problem with just going for the above number is that they came from a 90s DERA analysis, with unknown assumptions, but it is not hard to see that the Typhoon's advantages are less robust than the F-22.

Might also remember that 2-2.5 times poorer kill ratio means 2-2.5 times more planes that won't ever fly again, regardless of the maintenance time you dump on them.

There are also the problems of SAM penetration when facing a first-rate power, and here the difference is one of being engagable versus unengagable (at least with current tech). The Eurofighter IIRC has a cruise missile class RCS or something similar, which in the modern SAM world might as well mean it wasn't stealthed at all.

[XabbaRus]

But all this knowledge is mainly speculative from various open sources so we can only conjecture how good any of these planes are.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

True, but open sources are the only way citizens can decide on the merits of the programs.

[Hitman]

Someone's been reading Thomas Barnett. :DL

Hummm no, I don't even know who that guy is :oops:

[Molon Labe]

He's a defense author, pretty much made the same case you did, and with the exact same two-pronged explanation. Although it is something obvious enough for several people to come up with of course. Took a shot and missed. :doh:

[Skybird]

So it is arguably not such a disaster on the economic front. It would seem that most of the 30 hours is waiting for glue to dry - so it is irreducible, but presumably at least they are not man-hours.

The article states that they have too many major malfunctions even in flight, so I doubt that those 30 hours maintenance is just about glue to dry. with regard to that I called it economic inefficiency - not so much meaning the insditrial economy damage or the GOP and national budget, but workinging efficiency. In a big major confloict - the scenario that I argue is to be unliekly nowadays - compared to other planes, the F-22 spends too little time in the sky and too much on the ground.

The problem with just going for the above number is that they came from a 90s DERA analysis, with unknown assumptions, but it is not hard to see that the Typhoon's advantages are less robust than the F-22.

The specifications for the F-22 roots back in the 70s.

Might also remember that 2-2.5 times poorer kill ratio means 2-2.5 times more planes that won't ever fly again, regardless of the maintenance time you dump on them.

But the F-22 makes any oplane lost more hurting , since it costs more and the enemy can buy more polanes for the same money. A power depending on maximum-priced platforms obviously suffers greater damage from the same ammount of numerical losses than a power using less precious sytems. the first needs to achieve a higher kill ratio therefore, to compensate for that. But as I said, the redcued time-in-air also plays into the - admitted: abstract and academic - comparison.

Not too mention that those kill ratios found in that SU-35 simulation are, like any military exercise and analysis, not beyond disucssion.

There are also the problems of SAM penetration when facing a first-rate power, and here the difference is one of being engagable versus unengagable (at least with current tech). The Eurofighter IIRC has a cruise missile class RCS or something similar, which in the modern SAM world might as well mean it wasn't stealthed at all.

As you said: against a first-rate power. the argument is that a conflict against a first rate power is extremely unlikely, and the kind of wars we have seen since WWII and in the present and will see in the forseeable future are no conflicts against firtst rate powers. The F-22 is a overpriced system for a type of war that will not be.

Indeed the Obama admisnitration plans a slight increase if defemnce spendings over the medium and long range. to say they just cut spendings, is nonsense. Instead they try to cut what is not really needed but still costs a lot of money - and still increase spendings. And this with 12 trillions in debt, a bad budget and trade totally off balance. I think that system tries to declare insanity a virtue and tries to cure the disease by redefining sickness as a state of relative health.

[Castout]

350 million plane a piece?:o

Soon enough the US Air force could only afford to deploy ONE plane to war!
That must have been a hell of a plane!:rotfl:

[goldorak]

350 million plane a piece?:o

Soon enough the US Air force could only afford to deploy ONE plane to war!
That must have been a hell of a plane!:rotfl:


300 million $ including R&D costs.
Really the airplane costs "only" 130 million $ I think, still a lot more money than any previous aircraft.

[OneToughHerring]

Yea but it looks cool. If there is no war it will be nice to look at it in air shows etc. :)

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

The article states that they have too many major malfunctions even in flight, so I doubt that those 30 hours maintenance is just about glue to dry.
To be exact:
Over the four-year period, the F-22's average maintenance time per hour of flight grew from 20 hours to 34, with skin repairs accounting for more than half of that time -- and more than half the hourly flying costs -- last year, according to the test and evaluation office.
The positive way to look at this is that if they gave up skin repairs, they can cut the time by half. Obviously, if the stealth skin deteroriates, stealth would suffer, but materials are only half of stealth (around 20dB) worth with the rest being shaping.
Thus a wartime expedient might be to just give up maintaining the stealth coating. The F-22's "total stealth" is somewhere in the -30 to -40 region. Even if its effectiveness thus falls to zero, it would only be a 20dB deteoriation and it'll be a -10 to -20dBSM aircraft, which still makes it stealthier than a "prime condition" Typhoon.
The stealth skin would seem to be materials not living up to its promise, and thus it is doubtful a permanent fix can be found. As for the rest of the problems, they don't seem to be problems that can't be solved ... eventually.
with regard to that I called it economic inefficiency - not so much meaning the insditrial economy damage or the GOP and national budget, but workinging efficiency. In a big major confloict - the scenario that I argue is to be unliekly nowadays - compared to other planes, the F-22 spends too little time in the sky and too much on the ground.
See above.
The specifications for the F-22 roots back in the 70s.
Don't know what you are trying to say here. What I was trying to say is that tech has advanced since the mid-1990s, and not in a way particularly friendly to stealth aircraft, which means even if we assume DERA was 100% accurate in its estimate in 1990s, by now the estimate would have slewed to a much lesser advantage. It is not hard to guess where the advantage was for the EF and F-22, and not hard to see that the F-22 has broader (more multidimensional) and deeper (more superiority margin), which means it would have lost less of its estimated edge.
Not too mention that those kill ratios found in that SU-35 simulation are, like any military exercise and analysis, not beyond disucssion.
Of course, but frankly, I don't see a whole lot of possible arguments that would make things chummier for the Typhoon relative to the F-22 or the Su-35 int erms of performance.
As you said: against a first-rate power. the argument is that a conflict against a first rate power is extremely unlikely, and the kind of wars we have seen since WWII and in the present and will see in the forseeable future are no conflicts against firtst rate powers. The F-22 is a overpriced system for a type of war that will not be.
I don't disagree that the United States will do well to reduce its total military budget. GIVEN a particular budget, however, I don't see cutting the F-22 program as the way to go despite its travails, especially since the JSF program isn't going so swimmily itself.
As for retaining optimal ability for dealing with first-rate powers ... the average citizen and politician (and even some politically motivated general) might want to optimize their military so they can use it to kick ass against weak countries more often and get some "Return on Investment", even if it means sacrificing some ability on the high end. It must not be forgotten, however, that the military is ultimately an insurance policy against the unlikely, but dangerous threat of the "high-end war". Intervening against weak nation might be nice and probable but probably isn't quite vital to the nation's interest. A strong nation is much more likely to actually hold a vital interest. Is it wise to gamble away the ability to prevail here, however unlikely, to improve ability to kick ass in more probable but ultimately less dangerous "Low intensity" conflicts?
Less than optimal arrangements for LIC means some extra blood. Less than optimal arrangements for HIC might mean losing the war. America's choice...