I guess I’m going to have to dive in here…though I’m reluctant to because the sides are so polarized in the issue.
The fight in the Senate is going on over the added funding for F-22s inserted into the 2010 DoD budget by Raptor allies in states with key Raptor manufacturing facilities. Sens. McCain and Levin are on the administration’s side on this one, arguing that the budget should stick with the 187 plane plan. Obama has said he’ll veto the DoD budget bill if it includes any (seven in the Senate, 12 in the House) additional F-22s over his plan.
Advocates argue that 187 is far too few aircraft to maintain air superiority in the future, even one still dominated by US airpower. And the undercurrent also flows with job-loss worries — particularly in Georgia, where a large portion of the manufacturing will be done.
They’re both right.
On the one hand we have Winslow Wheeler and his bros arguing that the F-22 is the poster child for a Pentagon procurement system run amok and that it’s aided and abetted by a Congress always looking for pork to fry up for its constituents. And on the other, there’s an eloquent argument made by Air Force Association president Lt. Gen. Mike Dunn that the 187 F-22s is really 100 operational F-22s and that’s way too few even for the most optimistic scenarios.
Arguably it’s not about raw numbers — people can debate 200 vs. 800 vs. 100 all day long. On the one hand, it seems to me a good idea to have the most advanced fighter in the world in our inventory — and to have a good amount of them (no fair fights). But on the other hand it has been frustrating that the Raptor has taken so damned long to field. I’ve been in the defense reporting biz for a while and I can remember doing stories in F-22 development (and even the competition for the Raptor) and seeing some stat that the components on it were from the 1980s…that’s a problem.
So maybe the F-22 is the B-2 of the fighter world. We need to call it a loss and keep a silver bullet fleet to satisfy all the constituencies involved and turn the chapter on this one. As far as I’m concerned, the future belongs to unmanned aircraft and it may be that we’ll go counter to our usual practice and throw dozens of cheap drones at an air superiority problem in the next two decades rather than send up one or two Gucci fighters to knock down Mig-15s, if you know what I mean.
So I’ll reluctantly side with McCain/Levin/Obama on this one (though I don’t think it’s worth vetoing the entire defense bill over seven more Raptors). But I’ll be sad to witness the final death throes of the manned fighter air superiority era…
– Christian
Israel has already started to reevaluate their military allocation strategy thanks to the recent bloody nose they received. Their number 1 conclusion: you can’t win a war with air superiority.
The F-22 is cool, there is no doubt about that. But will it win a war? Will it even contribute to winning a war? It feels like a Proof of Concept that can be used to design a different class of fighter. It’s shown that stealth an be integrated into a fighter (sorry, the F-117 was not a true fighter). It’s shown that shared radar feeds can be used to fight a non-LOS air battle. Now it’s time to apply those principals to a less advanced dedicated A-to-A airframe.
The Air Force needs to stop cramming every toy it can into a single craft. Decide what you want: a moderately stealthy air superiority craft with a phase radar system. OK, awesome, now build it. No no no, stop trying to cram in the extra crap. Focus. Know what you want to stick to it.
The same mistake is being made with the F-35. The original concept of the plane was great. Don’t make everything top of the line, just integrate the concepts of other planes. Moderate stealth. Moderate A2G capabilities. Keep the cost low so thousands can be fielded by the U.S. and its allies. But everyone wants their little pet project added to it. Now we’re looking at a bloated craft that can do everything but costs a fortune.
Really time for the Air Force to learn how to stop scope-creep and stick to their game plans.
The problem is that, thanks to shortsighted budgeting from 15+ years ago, we face the prospect of having our air superority fighters fall out of the sky. There’s no way to salvage the F-15. We have to replace them with something.
Unfortunately, the only thing we have in production is the Raptor. The Eagles must be replaced, and no amount of politicking will change that. So the question is, do we buy more Raptors? Do we count on buying the JSF? Or do we buy some other aircraft? Those are our only 3 options. No amount of Air Force hate will change that.
We built a grand total of 881 F-15 Eagles, and that does not include 200+ F-15E Strike Eagles.
183 F-22A Raptors is not enough to replace those no matter what way you lay down the numbers. “The Cold War is over” is not a justifiable argument to destroy our air superiority fleet.
Also the talk of more F-35As for the USAF? With the same politicians who cut down our F-22A purchase so much, there is no way we will be able to get enough F-35s to fill the USAF’s requirement to replace F-16s alone!
Just pray that our country comes to it’s senses by 2012 and the F-22 is resurrected as the F-22B. Or F-22C if that designation was reserved for something else.
As far as UCAVs go, none of the UCAVs in development offer a credible air-to-air capability. Really all they will have is the AIM-9X for self defense. These UCAVs are designed to be relatively slow but stealthy aircraft with a long loiter time, built for strike and reconnaissance missions. They are not air superiority aircraft and there are many more concerns with using UCAVs for such a role.
“There’s no way to salvage the F-15. We have to replace them with something.“
You can always build new and upgraded F-15s to replace the old ones. Can you imagine the performance of the Eagle with F119 or F135 engines? The powers-that-be should also put their focus on researching new AAMs to replace the AMRAAM.
BTW, most of the F-15’s kills in the Middle East were already confused by ECM, killed by BVR Sparrow shots, after being stalked by AWACS planes, not from World War 1 –style dogfighting.
Way to much ignorance to reply to all so just a couple extreme cases…
The Cenobyte,
For the cost of 187 F-22s you could only get ~262 F-15SE or ~291 F-15E.
drago,
Sorry but there is technology & capability in the F-22 that can can not be applied to the F-15 &/or F-16. What you are saying is akin when the F-15 came out after we built a couple hundred of them we should have cancelled the program & went back to building F-4s…
“It wasn’t Japan per se that sold the propeller milling equipment but one Japanese company, Toshiba. Simple case of corporate greed.…remember that when you buy a laptop or TV.“
I thought it was Mitsubishi. Imagine if GE wanted to sell such a piece of equipment to any country. Would the US government find out? Of course. Did the Japanese government know? Of course. Did they stop it? No.
You do remember the F-35 don’t you ?
Yes, I remember the F-35. I remember that it’s not yet finished and hasn’t been tested much.
I also saw on the news that an F-15E went down today, and not due to hostile fire. Both crew were killed. If it turns out that it was due to an aging fuselage, will people finally agree that they need replaced?
I’d rather see more money go into weapons platfors such as the AC-130, UAV, and cruise missles rather than more fighters. I’ve been in the USAF 13 years and let’s face it, we support the front line troops more than anything. I know I’d feel much safer knowing that an AC-130 was off circling in the distance waiting to deliver precision engagement right on my target rather than having a super expensive fighter sitting on the ground waiting for a mission. In terms of UAVs, throw A/R capabilities into one and you have an unprecedented capability. Plus, take into consideration maintenance costs of the F-22. It’ll take far longer to troubleshoot when compared to a C-130.