TacAir Budget Intel: F-22 Buy 40 or Less

Felix March 11th, 2009 at 3:46 am

Any plans to change the bill that prevents the US from selling the Raptor to Australia, the UK etc.? One would think that the Obama administration is eager to demonstrate goodwill to allies as well as to boost sales of the American industry. Keeping the raptor line going only really makes sense if there are some follow-up orders, perhaps for export.

OUTLANDER March 12th, 2009 at 3:09 am

Last week I made a small reference to possibly consider fighter aircraft of yester-years, for the purpose of close-in ground support: the P51 Mustang and P38 Lightning fighting aircraft. Really, what kind of weapon system does our ground soldiers in Afghanistan need? So a thing that is simple and affective is what came to mind, like the P51 and the P38. Maybe the ARMY needs to consider something of the kind beside using attack helicopters and fast mover aircraft. The F22 and the F35 are beautiful, but really, which country out there is planning any aggression of the kind for us to require weapons of the kind now? And I do believe that our NAVY can handle North Korea air aggressions, — don’t you think so? And in that area, lets not forget Japan’s and South Korean’s Air Force. Yes, North Korea mental state of mind needs to be removed now, but them orders of pre– emptive strike has yet to be given. And now they are about to send more debris into space that will be harmful to all satellites and the ISS. And that is the only major crap I see in our future. Once Korea gets united into one, followed by a global humanitarian aid, — then what? Years after that, what country would want to have an Air Force aggressive enough for us to require having a fleet of F22’s and F35’s, — in such quantities? You know, the business of tomorrow is that of building communities. Still the F22 and the F35 are beautiful aircraft, but what a price tag.

stargazer March 12th, 2009 at 6:50 am

Not to sound like a press release, but we really need to continue our investments in the F-22 & F-35 to maintain US air superiority for the foreseeable future. I think we need to go along with the full 60 additional F-22’s requested by the Air Force and move to permit sales of the F-22 to close US allies such as Japan and Australia. This action — which should have been done a long time ago — would lower the unit cost of F-22’s and significantly broaden the base of top-of-the-line fighter aircraft in the inventory of US allies. And, of course, F-35 development and production needs to continue — we (and our allies) will need both of these aircraft in the future to maintain our air capabilities.

Current US fighter aircraft — F-15, F-16 and F-18 — are decades old designs and most of the airframes have been flying for many years. Moreover, we all know that these aircraft are subject to severe stress in current operational use which means they must be replaced — sooner rather than later — or they will simply fail. We have no choice in that unless we just park them waiting for the next conflict.

Additionally, while it is true that current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t require aircraft of their sophistication, if history has taught us anything it is that the next big challenge could — and likely will — come from a completely different source. A weakened US air arm could easily embolden adversaries and lead them to try to fill the void and make aggressive moves that they would never consider under circumstances of overwhelming US air superiority. For example, as tragic as it would be, recent developments off the China coast makes it clear that the US can’t ignore potential threats from China. China is dramatically upgrading its military potential. Couple that fact with the possibility that it could miscalculate a US response to an attempt to forcibly reunify Taiwan with the mainland and you have the potential for real high tech conflict. Recent US war games on this scenario show the US losing such a conflict with too few F-22’s to match the numerical superiority of the PLA’s fighter aircraft. We also know that the PLA is pursuing technology to permit it to “neutralize” US aircraft carriers should we attempt to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan. Again, China’s potential as a possible high tech adversary can’t be ignored or minimized and that calls for continued US air superiority.

Finally, while Russia is currently not a threat — and hopefully will stay that way — actions by their government around energy and in the middle east make it clear they could relapse into the role of antagonist all too easily. Again, a perception that the US is failing to maintain its air superiority could easily be perceived as leaving a power gap that some in Russia would be eager to fill. Russian efforts to revive their military technology — new generations of advanced military aircraft and submarines — demonstrate that we should never underestimate their potential to become a serious adversary should they choose to do so.

PrahaPartizan March 12th, 2009 at 10:45 am

The time has arrived to kill both of these bloated, too costly projects. Neither one has come anywhere close to the initial contract requirements, particularly on the cost front. Why is the USAF accepting contractor claims for cost-overruns? Make the bastards eat the contracts. They signed on knowing what they needed to do and failed. This is just another way of socializing costs while privatizing profits and time has long passed when it needs to stop. Worse, the technology embedded in both programs will likely be obsolete by the time we truly might need to use them. Put them down — now before we sink any more treasure into them.

Ron Whittaker March 13th, 2009 at 12:40 am

I love it! The Chinese and Russians are developing , building and deploying newer, more sophisticated, and highly agile fighters as well as selling them to other potential advarsaries such as Iran and North Korea and what are we doing? We,re just messing around trying to decide what we want for our defense. The F-22 was flying in prototype form in 1991. We,ve spent the last 18 years developing it and now we can,t even buy a few hundred of them to start modernizing our fighter fleet. If we don,t start to upgrade our forces with newer systems, we,er going to be in a bad situation. In case nobody noticed, some our current fighters are wearing out from 30+ yers of service( remember the F15 that broke apart in mid air)and can only be updated so many times before they need to be replaced. Some in our government had better get a clue when it comes to defending America.

Radarnav March 17th, 2009 at 3:38 pm

Remember that over 40% of the current F15 fleet (~280 A/C) has serious stress cracks that could force their grounding any day. Re-manufacturing these jets is not viable since the production jigs are gone.

The F-16 fleet is facing similar issues.

The KC-135 fleet is over 50 years old; the B-52 is over 46 years old and projected to remain flying till it is over 80 years old. Anyone want to fly a DC3 as a commercial airliner in bad weather, etc.? That is what we are asking our aviators to do.

The current USAF fleet age averages 27 years across all aircraft types. Not replacing them now, means that we, as citizens, are accepting the real risk that our air superiority capabilities will potentially vanish — not from a conflict, but from structural fatigue.

AlanPDX March 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 am

Recently as I went through my many aviation periodicals low and behold was an illustration of an F-35 as an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) by god someone is thinking on a new level. Look, this nations aviation military assets will be mostly unmanned in the future just look around us this nation is aging, and growing much less affluent, in a very short number of years 70 percent of this nation will be over the age of 50 or all ready retired and working at Wal-Mart. We had better in short time start turning this nations old F-16’s and 15’s into UCAV’s like what China is doing with there old Migs. Even the possibility using EA-6 “Prowlers” as such a unmanned weapon platforms would keep China and our future enemies up at night. I’m a bush pilot and I came to realized way back in 2002 the future is in unmanned aerial assets to protect this nation.
I began work in 03 to turn low cost single engine turbo-prop FAA certified “off-the-shelf” aircraft like the Cessna “Caravan” into aerial refueling tankers using larger engines carrying around 900 gallons to perform aerial refueling for the Predator or smaller Class III’s UAV’s below 100 knots. Next generation is now here and in our faces it is now time too move on from such mega-costly weapon platforms. We are not the huge middle class country we once where when we built the XB-70,B-52,B-58,F-101,102,104,105,106,F-4,F-111 and on and on we can’t do it anymore the game has changed it has to be smaller, lower cost and able to be flown on its own or from the ground using far far less energy and money to keep it in the air. Obtaining the natural resources just to manufacture the fat cat weapon systems like the F-22 and those huge moving target cities called aircraft carriers well there days are limited we are just not that country anymore we used to be in the past we need to be much much smarter using far less of “everything” if this nation is going to be around in the next century let along the next 50 years. Time is up no more keeping the stock holder happy, screw them keeping them happy and there big wig business leaders happy for “short term profit” has brought this nation to its knees and then some we need to keep OUR nation alive for the “long term” by moving to the next level it is time too saddle up and ride for a new brand called unmanned.