Regarding UAVs, there has not yet been a UCAV developed to the standard of today’s fighters with radar guided air-to-air missiles, and the ability to reach supersonic speeds. The next generation UCAVs like Northrop’s X-47B are going to be relatively slow, stealthy strike/reconnaissance aircraft with a long loiter time. They won’t be air superiority machines.

When you design a UCAV with powerful fuel hungry engines, an advanced radar, and the capability to fire long range air-to-air and cruise missiles, it probably isn’t gonna cost that much cheaper than a manned aircraft. Even if it does, we still want some manned birds anyway.

Screw idiot liberal bloggers and anti-military nuts spreading lies about our equipment on Twitter. These people should not be involved in defense acquisition. Although having the Democrats in charge is hardly better. Our military is gonna be in bad shape to fight any sort of conventional conflict after these fools slice up the budget.

The “problem” is that the F-22 is being fielded during an unconventional war with a Democratic administration and Congress. It was designed and initially produced with the belief that its production line never being shut down due to politics i.e. voters and white collar jobs. We live in a current news cycle society fueled with Twitter driven by national and international perceptions and polls. These perceptions and polls drive the administration’s defense acquisition policies (along with the voting majority power in Congress and their pay back for the last eight years on the sidelines).

The current battlefield engagement strategy determines the future of defense acquisitions (look at our history and you’ll see something familiar). We’ll see how the Quadrennial Defense Review’s recommendations will be written to support the current administration’s defense acquisition strategic plan i.e. cheaper systems. Defense spending will dramatically decrease once we are out of Iraq. A smaller force will continue to kill “Taliban” fighters in Afghanistan to keep the polls in the positive.

I’m not a proponent of the F-22 or F-35 simply because we have the technology to build stealthy unmanned platforms that would be capable of surpassing any of the F-22’s capabilities. The F-35 is desired by the current administration and Congress because it can be sold for a profit to other nations. Any profits in this current recession would help pay for national healthcare and other proposed socialized programs.

Unfortunately for the fighter pilot community, computers and satellites are the future of conventional and unconventional aerial warfare. Range, speed, duration, maintenance, capability, performance and COST are significantly enhanced over manned systems due to the survival systems required for these manned platforms. The Reaper unmanned aerial killing machine is the concept of an unmanned fifth generation fighter that should be developed instead of the manned F-22 or F-35 aircraft.

Nuclear deterrence died after the cold war and the axis of evil nations are not deterred by the F-22 or “Shock and awe” bombing campaigns. Iran and Nk continue to thumb their nose at us because of the administration’s reaction to France’s polls and perceptions. They are however, “scared” to death of the Reaper though…in my opinion.

Check six.

Yes the F-22 is expensive in part due to the small number being built. But we are also paying a big stealth penalty for a capability that has not really paid off. Today, fighters or bombers ingressing would be flying over an area largely sterilized by cruise missiles, and stealth would not be a deciding factor. Similarly bomber’s stealth has not proven to be worth the money.

And the aircraft would not ordinarily be flying against each other, but more against ground targets. The F-15E would be very resistant to the Blackhawk shootdown scenario like in 1994 and Operation Provide Comfort. The F-22 would have less capability to avoid that.

And the ability to have 5 airframes distributed around an area would be a great advantage to reacting to problems.

Hopefully the AF will de-emphasize stealth so that we can more control the rapid increase in cost per airframe.

In any case, one F-22 would make quick work of five F-15Es…you only need to dig up the 2007 (or was it 2008?) red flag results to see this. The blue team (something like 12–15 F-22s with most of the pilots having less than 100 hours in the plane) outscoring the red team about 240–2. Let’s not forget that the red team are generally much more experienced, skilled pilots. One of the F-22 kills was supposedly a WVR kill when he went against 3 F-16s and after killing two of them, had a mutual kill with the third.

And lets face it, F-15s will not be dominant against all of the current and future 4th and 4+. Our goal is complete technological superiority, not parity, against any potential adversary. Buying five F-15s instead of one F-22 does not help us in the future conflicts that the F-22 was designed for.

Every generation of aircraft is far more expensive than the last, and goes through a long learning curve. To hold down costs the AF only puts in one engine and one person (these days we are even taking out the person).

The F-22 looks like a tremendous aircraft but it costs 142 million a piece. Couldn’t we buy five F-15E aircraft for that price?? If you want an interceptor — an F-15E stationed hundreds of miles closer to the air defense zone would get there a lot faster than an F-22 stationed hundreds of miles further away. Why not buy five F-15Es and spread them out around your borders? And the F-15E has one guy to fly and one guy to stare at the target — avoiding too many more accidental mis-identifications.

The F-35 is supposed to cost 41 million each.

We do need to update our technology at some point and buy newer aircraft but the F-22 has even crossed my threshold for “Too Expensive”.

And Rep Jack Murtha is supporting them hoping to one day see the F-22 “Murtha” flying out of the “Murtha Airport To Nowhere”.