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

[Skybird]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070903020.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/0,1...l?ESRC=navy.nl

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by 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.

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?

[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]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

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]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

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

-S

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

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

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/vide...rce=videoembed