U.S. Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson, chief of Air Force Materiel Command, told a group of reporters Wednesday that the Air Force will figure out a way to buy 380 F-22s, despite the fact that the Pentagon — through the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) — has capped the number of Raptors to be procured at 183.
“We think that [183] is the wrong number,” Carlson said. Even 380, a number he joked is a “compromise” from the 381 the Air Force originally asked for, still leaves too much room for risk. That risk could even include a future conflict with China, he said. “Most people say in the future there will be a Chinese element to whatever we do,” he added.
“We’re committed to funding 380,” Carlson said Feb. 13 after speaking at Aviation Week’s Defense Technology and Requirements conference in Washington. “We’re building a program right now to do that. It’s going to be incredibly difficult on the Air Force, but we’ve done this before.” He added there are only three places from which to draw funds to accomplish the Air Force’s goal: operations and maintenance, research and development and procurement. “We don’t have a [money] printing machine,” he said. “We have to pay for it.”
Read more from our Av Week friends on Military.com.
– Christian
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Everytime there is one of these F-22 posts, my heart sinks, because I know the critics are about to boil out of the woodwork.
A) Pacifists/”Realists”, who think the world is hunky dory and there will never, ever, ever ever be another conventional war ever again, because gee-wilikers we have the best fighters ever and so we never need to buy another airframe ever again. In fact, my great-grandson will probably be flying derivative F-16s on Mars one day. AWESOME!
B) And Ron Paulians who think that we should eliminate the bloat in the defense budget as part of the method to eliminate our reliance on fiat-money from China where the Gold market is at its all time high!!!1!!!11!eleventy, as a necessary step to abolishing the IRS. Or whatever.
C) All around jackasses who think we should spend all of our money on building turboprop COIN aircraft, because, that’s the wave of the future, baby! It’s the 4-5th generation warfare out there where we can comfortably mothball our carrier battlegroups and invest money in the pitchfork industry/YouTube, ’cause that’s where the money is.
And it just gets boring.
Our stealth aircraft are old. The F-117 is severely limited to night-time only. The F-15 is great, but no longer king. Flight restrictions limit both pilot training and aircraft utility, a downward spiral to defeat. So the legacy component of both stealth and air-superiority aircraft is dying.
We need a replacement. Hey, lookey here, there’s the F-22. Go ahead and have a coke and a smile and STFU, STFD.
SW,
I want you to prove that the F-22 is not a stealth aircraft anymore. Go ahead, keep making ignorant statements.
Yeah, all those wars we fought during the Cold War certainly turned the world into a nuclear winter didn’t it? We’ve fought the Chinese once before and armageddon was not unleashed. Besides, that is why we are developing the ballistic missile defence system (see most recent article regarding Aegis CG preparing to shoot down spy satellite).
The record low seat time is being recognized by F-15C pilots as well just because the Air Force can’t afford for them to get said seat time. They are spending that money training other pilots on moving mud.
I don’t understand the nickel comment but I will take it as more ignorant blabbering.
The Isrealis haven’t fought an air war since before us. So don’t go bragging about their recent accomplishments either.
You want to fund more F-22s, then get rid of the F-35. And I think that is where they are going to end up getting the money from.
Oh, and the A-10 is a phenomenal plane. That is why they are currently upgrading it to A-10C configuration.
DC2
I’d prefer we have the raptor count be around 250.
and that the Air Force should buy more F-35′s.
SW, your not very smart.
just cause you have “the bomb” doesn’t mean that wars are a thing of the past. What about Iran? North Korea? Syria? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? the list could go on.
and I dont think its “fear mongering” when they bring up country’s like Russia & China. It would be nice to not have to go to war with them…..but ya never know.
“I don’t understand the nickel comment but I will take it as more ignorant blabbering.”
He’s talking about FOD, but you throw a cotter key into any high performance engine and you have a Class C incident, so I don’t get it either.
But thanks, SW! Tedious as I predicted. SW, pay attention:
A) No, that’s ridiculous. What is China going to do if we assist Taiwan? They have just a handful of missiles able to reach the US and we have a BMD system. They won’t nuke us. And we won’t nuke them first, even if we lose a carrier battle group, or five. This isn’t the Cold War. The South China Sea isn’t the Fulda Gap.
B) Daylight stealth. Air Dominance. Sold.
C) I love the Warthog. Just not a dogfighter/air-superiority/stealth aircraft, is it?
Good stuff. Guess what, SW? As the article says, we’re going to get 380 Raptors, whether you like it or not, and I’m pleased as punch about it.
This guy should be fired for wasting everyone’s time with this fantasy. Not going to happen. If it did, that would be the most useless procurement ever. Maybe he will personally beg China for another 30 billion of their money so he can buy his super toys.
In the mean time, at least some people there have brains and grasp 4GW.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-02-13-hezbollah_N.htm
Everyone else gets the reality except the USAF; no wonder the rest of military wanted their own air programs separated from these sad clowns.
Interesting that the Air Force is crying about future threats etc…but even when it comes to present issues, crises and THREATS, its no where to be found. Why should we have faith that there future plans, and procurements will have any bearing on that mythical conflict if they’re slow to aid in the current one? The statement that they’re going to get 381 fighters despite what the civilian Pentagon leadership is saying smacks of the industrial defense pact that we were all warned about. Also note that the force that brags about Air Dominance/Space Warfare isn’t even the lead agency when it comes to shooting down an errant satellite (no matter how dubious that idea seems). So its just more of the same. Statements like this are why they’re facing budget issues.
Cut excess waste in the AF Dept to buy the 380 F22s.
CUT DC bureaucracy alone.
Combine programs
Lay off some Generals.
or Cols.
Rethink Strategy/
Use in the NG Units?
Give some to the Navy
Or the Brits.
There U Go.
I think the F-22 is a great plane and all but I don’t think we need 380 of them. It costs way too much to be used as an everyday fighter like the F-16 and F-15 are and F-35 will be. Why doesn’t the AF build more PRACTICAL airplanes? You know, something they’ll use everything, not just the beginning of a campaign.
Air power is our biggest and best weapon we have. Controlling the skies extremely important in any conflict, especially a major one. The Raptor fits a great roll, its more stealthy then the retired “stealth fighter”, and its faster in more maneuverable. This makes it an even better strike aircraft, and on top of that, its the best air superiority fighter in the world. I think its a necessary club to have in our bag of weapon.
I also think that we pretty much have reached the end of the era of conventional warfare.Battle tactics of the future will be asymmetrical guerrilla/terrorist type tactics of Manpads,IEDs,& snipers on the low end & state sponsored use of cyber-terrorism,information warfare,& use of weapons of mass destruction.There will be more victims than fighters in this war.The missiles will be flying way before we can get our tanks,planes,& ships into battle.He who strikes first,fires the first shot,wins in a lop-sided blow out & rout of the enemy.
Some potential POTUS proposed to pay a bunch of low lives 250 billion for Green Jobs. So on this level, the AF deserves 500 F22. Even if we park them somewhere and the jockeys just sit in them. If YOU and you know who you are want extra monies for the military either demand we fund defense %GNP or let the military fight wars and don’t force them to play the warm fuzzy, worrying about PC backlash stuff.
How much money does it cost the US per non/combatant to kill? I don’t know but my guess is that it would make this F22 conversation moot with regard to inefficiency.
Like the F22, there are similar arguments against BMD. At the rate of development (which is exciting), this system will make Nuclear weapons a non option for our enemies. Although I really shouldn’t talk because the Govt. doesn’t tend to fund success. Only failure. They sure showed us didn’t they! Our threat is Roger the baseball boy while our buddy China is sucking us dry.
Tech site contribution: the F22 is a worth the money even though it is merely capable of shooting down 8 F15 per loss. For those who don’t want to fight, the F22 is a great set of feathers to show the other roosters …don’t even think about it. What’s that worth?
Only the dead have seen the end of war. Plato
I for one am appalled that our air force can’t take directions from the government. We offered to pay for 183 That’s all that is in the budget. It was cut from 380 aircraft for a reason. Which is, we spent a hundred billon or so as a sop to those who think we are going to refight the cold war. Even if China built an air force that could challenge us, it would take two decades, and by then our F-22 design would be four decades old. We have, I fear, built ourselves a white elephant. I will note that I work in a building that used to be owned by a mainframe computer company. Long after the world had changed, they stuck to their knitting. They’re gone now. The world changed around them, even as their business died their groupthink caused them to think things were the same as ever, even as they withered in to bankruptcy. In a time when UCAV is the product of the future, the Air Force is fixated on the old ‘big iron’ model. What a disaster.
How about 272?
I mentioned this a couple days ago when the last F-22 discussion was happening. Why does the plane cost so much? I mean, I want to know the details why. Does anybody have this info?
I bet most people don’t. I also bet if shown the details, the jet should be able to be manufactured a heck of a lot cheaper. Why accept the price we are given as gospel?
I bet there is a heck of padding in the cost. Forget arguing how many we need. I want a lot of F-22s and I want the price down. The government needs to get their act together on management.
Also our country needs to stop throwing our dog into every fight. It not only costs money to buy the jets but to fly them and maintain them. It especially costs money to fight wars – with or without fancy jets. Why the heck do we still have our military around the globe being the world’s policeman?
I say give a handful of nukes to South Korea, Taiwan, and any other place we want to defend. Have a way for us to disable these nukes if we wanted to. Get our boys out of town and back to the states. If the world wants another world war, let them kill each other off.
I think the next wars are not going to be fought militarily but financially, and fought in the press. Thus we need to financially get efficient and stay there. We also need to pull our troops back from home from Germany, Japan, Korea, etc. Let people know the US in not going to meddle in their business. Thus, we don’t make so many enemies.
Our country also needs to clean up our act morally to remove that reason from the Islamic terrorists. We use our freedom as license to do evil and then wonder why they hate us. I still think it is just an excuse and they would hate us anyway. But we don’t need to go and make their job easy.
We need to have good families and rear the children up right and smart. We need to focus on our homes and less on the world’s welfare. We need to figure ways of doing twice as much for half the cost. Then we can have plenty of F-22s.
SW… you are a complete moron, and you obviously have NO conception of the reality of the future, or any knowledge of the F-22 or F-35 or even the F-15 for that matter on the modern battlefield. Also, you apparently have no understanding of the usage of low observable platforms, and their advantage in warfare, regardless of the other platforms the enemy may have at their disposal. Don’t spout your mouth off unless you’ve actually found your clue next time.
The plane costs so much because you are not only paying for the build costs, but you are paying for much of the R&D costs, distributed across the # of aircraft being purchases. That’s why each time the planned number to be bought goes down, the price per plane goes up, and vice versa. For example, the B-2 cost $2.1B per plane, but only about $250k was actually the cost of the plane.
According to LA Times, the General got a serious rebuke from his boss.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-airforce15feb15,1,5409898.story?ctrack=8&cset=true
/quote/
According to an Air Force official briefed on the Thursday rebuke, Gates telephoned Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne, who was on vacation at the time, to express his displeasure with Carlson.
The senior defense official said Carlson’s remarks, reported Thursday by the trade publication Aerospace Daily, angered the Pentagon’s top leadership, adding that they were “completely unacceptable and out of line.”
“Gen. Carlson and others in the Air Force may not like it, but 183 is the number of F-22s approved first by Defense Secretary [Donald H.] Rumsfeld, then reaffirmed by Defense Secretary Gates and provided for in budgets presented to Congress by President Bush — Gen. Carlson’s commander in chief,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing internal debates.
/endquote/
The F-22 development was simply too slow. It’d have been nice ten years ago.
As a fighter it will be the mainstay by 2030-2040 – that’s 40-50 years after the concept was published.
Whoever might challenge the USA to a serious fight that makes new air superiority fighters (better than F-15) necessary would certainly assure that its new fighters are useful.
The advance that stealth seems to be is so obvious and great that the countermeasure to it is assured and certainly effective after so many decades.
We don’t know what it is, that’s because of secrecy.
And air superiority would not be assured even if the F-22 ruled the skies. Small killer UAVs might be bird-sized and fly at no more than 200 ft. Shotguns are a better defense against that than a F-22 in the sky.
The F-22 concept became self-defeating through excessive development time, technical success and world-wide awareness.
It seems to me some of you guys are clueless. To be honest I think the only reason the DOD is pushing for the JSF so hard is because it has international implications. If other countries see that our Air Force doesn’t want much less stealth F-35 why would they. This is evident with Australia and Japan, who both want the Raptor and feel as though it meets there needs better. The more planes we buy the more the price comes down, this is not an opinion but a fact. More-over with over 100 f-15′s grounded indefinitely what do you propose, we wait until 2012 for the f-35 to fill these roles? From what I read, the JSF won’t even have initial Air to Air capabilities because they want to perfect land attack abilities first. The JSF is much less maneuverable then the Raptor, and it can’t super cruise, not to mention it only has one engine…Which doesn’t exactly make it comparable to the F-15 like England is suggesting. As of right now the SU-30 will wipe the floor with the F-15, which doesn’t make me happy, but it is a fact. The F-15C still uses doppler radars which has huge blind spots. I don’t see why everyone thinks that the F-15 is so superior or even comparable to the newer stuff out there? Most of the f-15′s from the 80′s are on flight restrictions which they aren’t allowed to perform at there performance envelope for fear of it falling apart in the air. We haven’t fought a major air battle since Vietnam, but it would be foolish to wait until we got in an air war to decide oh maybe we did need more raptors. I mean the Marines get there 100 million dollar helicopter I mean tilt rotor, the army gets its shiny new FCS vehicles with unproven technologies. Why wait 5 to 10 more years to replace aircraft that needed updates or to be replaced in 99. That makes no logical sense, Sorry that the airforce developed this expensive aircraft, but it would be cheaper to add the number of raptors needed then it would be to A. keep flying the broke junk, and B. Develop a new cheaper aircraft.
For anyone complaining about the costs of new build F-22s, have you seen the cost of a new build F-15 (such as the F-15S or F-15K)? They are currently being sold for ~$100 million. The way the airframes are wearing out, new builds are going to be the way to go. So, do you pay $100 million each for an 80s era aircraft design or $130-150 million each for a more capable system.
I can’t see why they have to buy all these all at once. Wouldn’t it be better to commit to whatever number now and buy the rest later. Its not like they are breaking the mold that makes these planes.
Sure it’ll be more expensive and harder later… but right now the money isn’t there.
Actually Foreign Boy, they do break the mold.
DC2
Foreign Boy and Morpheus:
If you delay the production until later, you drive up the price. By a lot.
The reason the airplane is so expensive is because it cost a lot to develop. Almost half of the total cost for the Raptor has already been spent–all on research and development. Yeah, the plane may cost $300 million apiece, but 150 of that is already spent. So you can either pay another 150 and get an aircraft, or you can pay nothing and get… nothing.
The way to buy Raptors cheap is to buy a whole bunch and buy them all NOW. The way to make them cost even more money is to buy only a handful and then stretch it out over 20 years.
Any airplane we buy on the open market to replace the F-15 is going to cost at least 100 million. Period. New Raptors are estimated to cost about $140 million each (less if we buy more–some estimates say they may cost as little as $120m if we brought our order up to about 380). So you’re basically saying “buy European at $100M or buy a Raptor at $140M”. That’s an easy choice for me.
FACT: We have to replace the F-15. They are literally falling out of the sky.
FACT: We have only 3 choices to replace the F-15. 1) Buy European. 2) Buy Raptors. 3) Develop a brand new aircraft and buy it. Option 3 is the most expensive. Option 1 is the cheapest, but means we have the exact same fighter as everyone else. Option 2 gives us an F-22 at a $40M premium over any replacement. I’ll take Option 2 every single time.
My God! Carlson – your my hero! way to stand up to those pin-headed a*%holes who fancy themsleves qualified to run our military(Gates & England) Peronally, I’ve always felt it is a HUGE mistake to have civilian politicians be the secretary of defense, as they don’t always have the needs of the military as their primary concern. Too often their top concern is keeping their jobs, their wallets padded, and their superiors happy.
Carlson’s your hero ? OK when he’s on the board over at Lockheed Martin then tell me what a hero he is. This argument makes no sense. You have the most pro defense administration in history and even they say that 180 odd F-22s are enough yet the peanut gallery (and that includes Air Force brass) cry and say that its not enough.
Solomon,
They also said the current size of the Army (and your beloved Corps) is appropriate to do any job necessary. That would include fighting the wars we are currently in as well as a war with another lesser country such as North Korea.
Based on past experience, I wouldn’t give this administration the benefit of washing my tighty-whities.
But you are probably right about the Lockheed Martin comment.
DC2