"World's Pre-eminent Fighter Defeated" Topic

It is sad to read that the F-22's funding has been cancelled.

Hopefully, the ones already in service will be enough to stem the tide, should there be aerial battles with other well equipped enemies in the near future.

Our other fighters are much less capable, and getting a bit long in the tooth – many have been grounded for structural cracks, and engine problems.

Still have F-35.

I imagine it will end up costing more than the F-22, on a per unit basis, and provide much less capability, just like occurred with the F-14 program cut.

The F-18 was billed as a less expensive option to supplement the expensive F-14 fighter, but provides far less capability, at a higher cost than the Tomcat.

They both are fantastic planes, but wow, they cost a lot. I can see why the F-22 has been cut. It's way too expensive in my opinion for what it does.

I dont know, the F-18 is becoming a more and more versatile aircraft just about every day. If you're familiar with the EA-18 Growler…you'll know what I mean.

Anyway, as recent trends have shown, stealth only truly matters in the first couple weeks (hours…) of a war anyway. Once enemy air defences are shattered even the most unstealthy plane can carry on normally with relative impunity. And failing that… just buy more growlers, the ECM "bubble" they can put up might give away their position, but nothing except for unguided weapon systems will be able to hit them.

Oh and by the way, it was announced recently that the F-35 is expected to be over budget by another 17 BILLION dollars… guess who had contracts for the both the F-22 AND F-35…

Would that be the same folks that have Virginia's IT contract?

But to put it more in line with this site--anyone have a project funding game? you can use that as a "pre-game" for a near-future or sci-fi strategic battle game (to see what kind of equipment your troops actually end up with).

Rob

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Hooray for common sense – methinks there are better ways of spending the money….

The stated reason, "because the F-22 doesn't fit into the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan" seems disingenuous. One should plan for the next war. The current inventory might be

Without getting into the politics, this is very reminiscent of the F-15/F-16 decision where the 15's were to be curtailed with the cheaper 16 filling most of the needs. But, for the past four years, the DoD hasn't been able to justify the extra aircraft in repeated reviews.

The Japanese and Israelis are quite happy to buy Raptors – the latter at nearly double the price. I suspect that some accommodation might be reached in overturning the export ban.

Wyatt

I pity those who have to decide what weapons programmes to pursue. Given the lead time on the projects how do you pick what to develop? According to Wikipedia (yes I know it is not a reliable source) the F22 started from a USAF requirement in 1981.

In 1981 ago it was simple – the West versus USSR in Europe. Now it is land mines and a bunch of people with explosives strapped their chests. In twenty years time it could be anybody anywhere.

The usual problem is a tendency to plan and prepare for the last war because it is the one you know the most about.

First, there is no political will to export a superior fighter that our own government isn't going to have (even though that's their choice). China and Russia will exert a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure to keep the F-22 out of Japan, and the idea that this administration would support Israel getting the F-22 under any circumstances is ridiculous.

Second, Georgia is out of fashion, but Texas is still in play as far as the political game goes.

Third, there's an emerging view that falling behind in manned fighters is no longer important, and that the next fighter will be unmanned.

Fourth, with massive federal spending and two wars going on, even a real need will be ignored if it's long-term. I believe the need is real, but it's certainly further out, and there isn't a lot of long-term thinking going on in DC at the moment. (Yes this somewhat contradicts #3)

In other news, does anyone know of a 1/285 or 1/300 scale F-22? I'm surprised that GHQ hasn't got one-- but perhaps there were cost overruns. :)

Navwar makes them still, thankfully.

And for far less cost, Top Gun!

The military didn't want it. The only ones who wanted it were in Congress.

One should plan for the next war.

True. But I would argue that the future of air-to-air combat does not include piloted fighters. UAVs are the fighters and bombers of the future. In fact, more and more they are the bombers of the present.

The F-35 is quite probably the last piloted front line fighter the U.S. will manufacture.

How do you secure unpiloted aircraft?

Wouldn't be easier to turn them off or disrupt them than to shoot down conventional aircraft?

Wouldn't a nation with wealth be able to buy hackers at a much cheaper rate than aircraft and pilots?

I am sure all such systems are secure and the code is uncrackable until of course they are cracked.

The military may not want it, but I'll bet the air force jockeys do…..

Unpiloted American aircraft will be a Chinese/Russian hacker's dream, since they will finally have a first-line air force of their own to control.

Per the Military Channel the other day, the F-22 costs 100 million per fighter. It is also the limit of what can be built with a pilot, as it has limiters in place that ensure the pilot does not become a pile of goo should it maneuver at its actual capacity.

the F-22 is, by definition, a first strike aircraft. they also mentioned that it is more likely that future aircraft will likely be UAVs. Cheaper, pilot safe, and expendable.

I was never so relieved than when I found out we had A-10s on station. I doubt I would have been as ecstatic to learn we had Predators overhead.

Not to mention it's hard enough to direct CAS when you're looking at the same thing as the pilot with his own eyes ("are you guys to the west of those burning fuel trucks?") and at the same time rather than through a camera with a time delay.

But what do I know? I'm not a weapons salesman.

Jay Arnold wrote:

"But what do I know? I'm not a weapons salesman."

You also apparently have never used ROVER. Did you ever talk to the USAF JTACs supporting you to ask their opinion of the Predator or Reaper? There is more to CAS than kinetic effects.

We didn't have JTACs.

No UAV will be able to do a show of force as effectively as a B-1B.

THAT was impressive.

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about the F-35's cost.

In the 2010 USAF & USN budget, I discovered the REC Flyaway cost of the F-35A is $133 USD million and the F-35B&C are $155 USD million. The cost difference is most likely due to the cost of the lift fan in the B.

For comparison, the F-22 REC Flyaway is $134.5 USD million. Clearly the F-35 is going to get much cheaper as opposed to the F-22 whose price has stabilized.

For the last two LRIP cycles, LM has come under budget for the REC Flyaway cost by %3 and 5% respectively.

The JPO has stated that the average REC Flyaway price for the F-35A program will be ~$83 million in 2002 dollars.

As to the JET report and the alleged POTENTIAL $17 USD mil overrun is tied to the development costs, not the procurement costs. In other words, it does not directly affect the sale price of the F-35.

That being said, it is a worst case scenario which both the JPO and LM deny. 2010 will be the telling year for the F-35 program. Their plan is called 12-12-12. This means that they plan, in 12 months, on having 12 SDD airframes completing 12 flights a month each. Is that an unrealistic number, no. The F-18 test flight program got up to 13 a month. Recently, BF-1 (the first STOVL F-35B) completed 6 test flights within a two week period demonstrating that even current airframes are quite capable of meeting that schedule.

The F35 has several participating nations, the F22 didn't. I'm not raising this as a way to discredit the F22, rather to put some wider context into the funding debates.

Right now, the participating partner nations are only funding the Dev on the F-35. For that last three years, approximately 1 billion USD has been provided by the partner nations.

In relation to the principle of "Economy of Scale", just think how little the F-35A will cost when they are producing 230 a year as opposed to today's 30 a year.

As far as the F-22, I love it and wished they had hit the 381 number.

The truly unfortunate thing is that the Congress-idiots aren't going to buy anything to replace the rest of the (unbuilt) F-22s, nor are they going to buy anything to replace the (worn out, and falling out of the sky) F-15s.

I don't agree with the argument that the F-22 should be canceled, but I'm willing to concede that it isn't entirely groundless. However, if we aren't going to buy the F-22, we should definitely buy a bunch of new F-15s, while the production line is still up and running.
-Kle.

I think that one other thing that caused these cuts is how many European and Asian countries have cut back on their own orders of hi-tech aircraft. The annual costs of maintaining these aircraft, spare parts, fuel, and training is astronomical and few countries other than China and the U.S. can afford it. Although the Russians and Chinese continuously bring out new prototypes of aircraft that supposedly are in the same class as the F-22, they never go into full production for various reasons(poor quality, no funding, etc.).

Until a potential adversary comes up with something that can compete against the F-22 and in large numbers the current projected number should do the trick, although I would have liked to have see at least 300 built. The F-35 is not an air superiority fighter, so the F-22s are needed. Also,, as mentioned above, the EF-18 Growler is one nasty aircraft. In fact, it's only one of two aircraft that have scored kills on F-22s in exercises when it created a "hole in the sky" and crept up on one and shot it down.

I'll bet the air force jockeys do…..

Generally anything the Airforce wants to do with their single minded obsession on air dominance at the expense of any other mission should be thwarted for the good of the nation. Disband the USAF and put the missions, personnel and people back into the Army or Navy and you might suddenly find budget space for real missions such as CAS, Mine Warfare and Lift. All those unglamorus things the fighter jocks could care less about.

No UAV will be able to do a show of force as effectively as a B-1B.

Not until you make a UAV as big and impressive as a B1, anyway.

For no particular reason…. link (Contains bad language….)

I dunno, how many people have surrendered to a B1, versus the number of people that have surrendered to the Pioneer UAV?

Sorry, small mistake in the F-35 pricing.

The average price in 2002 dollars is "upper $40 USD million", while the average purchase price in "then year dollars" is $83 USD million.

Per-plane prices are misleading. Funding includes development and infrastructure costs, which are fixed. So if you have a 50 billion dollar program and cut the number of planes in half, you are still paying 37 billion-- which means a higher per-plane cost.

F-22 / F-35 prices are further distorted because Lockheed can export F-35s, but not F-22s. Larger market, higher quantity, lower per-plane cost. If the planes are so comparable, why not export the F-22 to the same allies? Answer: they're not. The F-35 is an excellent plane, don't get me wrong, but it isn't on the level of the F-22.

Russia and China still don't have a plane that can challenge our dominance, but they have two advantages. 1) Any hypothetical war will likely be fought near their borders, at the end of a long logistical chain for us. 2) They aren't sensitive to casualties like we are. Even low losses can spark a strong anti-war response in the US.

On the other hand, both nations have other sources of power that they are pursuing that may make our air dominance irrelevant anyway. Russia by acting through proxies can attrite us in low-intensity conflicts (either of their making or just stirring other stuff up). China has massive economic leverage over us (both through holdings of US debt and massive trade interdependency). Both have the potential for nuclear blackmail, again directly or through proxies. So I will concede that air dominance isn't necessarily a panacea. We've had it for decades and so of course our potential enemies have adapted.

IMHO, the F-22 is better at A2A and the F-35 will be better A2G.

Jay Arnold wrote:

"We didn't have JTACs.

No UAV will be able to do a show of force as effectively as a B-1B.

THAT was impressive."

But the UAV can provide you 20+ hours of continuous full motion surveillance video overwatch, telling you what's over the next ridgeline or inside the walled compound you're observing. It can also provide laser designation for that Bone's 16 GBU-12s.

It may not take a village to raise a child, but it takes an orchestra of assets to bring you guys on the ground full-spectrum air power.

How do you secure unpiloted aircraft?

Wouldn't be easier to turn them off or disrupt them than to shoot down conventional aircraft?

Wouldn't a nation with wealth be able to buy hackers at a much cheaper rate than aircraft and pilots?

I am sure all such systems are secure and the code is uncrackable until of course they are cracked.

The U.S. with more money than Jesus hasn't been able to purchase enough hackers to defeat IEDs in Iraq and now Afghanistan. There will always be a rock-paper-scissors aspect to this stuff. Countermeasures will be met with counter-countermeasures. For example, air-superiority UAVs could be pre-pregrammed to detect and attack enemy aircraft on their own should the ground signal be broken.

In the end, I'm not so sure that the ECM issues facing UAVs will be more difficult to overcome than those facing manned aircraft.

But the UAV can provide you 20+ hours of continuous full motion surveillance video overwatch, telling you what's over the next ridgeline or inside the walled compound you're observing. It can also provide laser designation for that Bone's 16 GBU-12s.

Would have liked to have a UAV when we had that B-1B on station. Would have liked to have an LLDR with us, too, but despite having been trained on the equipment, we didn't have one.

Don't get me wrong, UAVs are great in their roles. I tend to doubt that our skies will ever be completely pilot-free, however.

chaos0xomega wrote:

[Snips]just buy more growlers, the ECM "bubble" they can put up might give away their position, but nothing except for unguided weapon systems will be able to hit them.

So, how does the AN/ALQ-99 defeat optically-guided missiles, or home-on-jam?

All the best,

John.