| Tango01 | 26 Sep 2014 10:46 p.m. PST |
"The Air Force's costly and controversial new F-22 Raptor made its public debut during bombing runs over Syria earlier this week and defense experts said they were impressed by the first glimpse of its lethal firepower. "It seems to have been very successful – it was designed to have that ‘first night,' precision strike capability," Rebecca Grant, president of Washington D.C.-based defense research firm IRIS Independent Research, told FoxNews.com. "This proves that the F-22 is a viable combat aircraft and a good air-to-ground weapon." Developed by Lockheed Martin, the F-22 has been touted as the world's premier fighter aircraft and a key weapon in the U.S. military's high-tech arsenal. However, with a price tag of $67 USD billion and beset by problems, the F-22 program has come under intense scrutiny. Only 188 of the planes have been built…"
Full article here
link Amicalement
Armand |
 Legion 4   | 27 Sep 2014 9:45 a.m. PST |
For the price it should have … |
| Black Bull | 27 Sep 2014 11:36 a.m. PST |
But did it do any better than a F-16 or F-18 would have ? |
| 15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 27 Sep 2014 1:50 p.m. PST |
Don't get too excited. The F-22 isn't a bomb truck; it's the premier 'air dominance' fighter in the world. I don't think there's much of a distinction between 'air dominance' and 'air superiority,' but the latter was given to the F-15 Eagle. This merely demonstrated that the Raptor has a secondary air-to-ground capability when called upon to undertake it. |
| Mako11 | 27 Sep 2014 2:51 p.m. PST |
Easy to be successful against enemies without aircraft, and without so much as a rudimentary air defense system……. I suspect a WWI biplane would have fared just as well, for a lot less cost. |
| Ron W DuBray | 27 Sep 2014 6:54 p.m. PST |
B-52 would do a better job at this mission. one aircraft could bomb 100 targets with one flight. :) |
| Cardinal Hawkwood | 27 Sep 2014 7:20 p.m. PST |
Bristol Fighters were extremely successful in that area right up to the 30s |
| Cardinal Hawkwood | 27 Sep 2014 7:27 p.m. PST |
always been an area where one saw the use of the cutting edge of aerial technology
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| Striker | 28 Sep 2014 7:23 a.m. PST |
Good thing it got some bombing time in, otherwise someone might have asked why we built them. And that leads to unpleasantries. |
The G Dog  | 28 Sep 2014 10:10 a.m. PST |
There's a job meant for an A-7E. Remember when the Air Force (Guard/Reserves) still had A-7? You don't? Apparently, I'm getting old. |
| Outlaw Tor | 28 Sep 2014 11:57 a.m. PST |
Remember, ya…I worked on them in the Navy. |
| Lion in the Stars | 28 Sep 2014 2:24 p.m. PST |
There's a job meant for an A-7E. Remember when the Air Force (Guard/Reserves) still had A-7? You don't? My local Air Guard unit went from RF4Cs to F4G Wild Weasels to A10s… |
| Deadone | 28 Sep 2014 6:36 p.m. PST |
All the bombing runs proved is the F-22 can do the job of an F-15/16/-18/A-10/AV-8 or even F-4/A-4/-7. Dropping LGBs is not really anything to brag about in 21st century – even turbo prop trainers get them. |
| Mako11 | 30 Sep 2014 3:03 p.m. PST |
"All the bombing runs proved is the F-22 can do the job of an F-15/16/-18/A-10/AV-8 or even F-4/A-4/-7". No one ever doubted that. It just takes a lot more sorties for the F-22 to drop the same amount of ordnance, but jet fuel is free, right, so who's worried about costs, not to mention the loss of a 1/4 Billion dollar jet fighting thugs in the desert, by moving mud/sand, if that happens to occur. We've got plenty of ultra-expensive, stealth "air-superiority" jets to spare for mud/sand moving, right? Oh, right, I almost forgot they cut the budget, and made less than 200 of them……….. Oh well, we can buy new replacements, at $500 USD mil a copy, for the next fighter/close-air support jet on the drawing boards. Someone in marketing has a brilliant plan. |
| Deadone | 30 Sep 2014 4:11 p.m. PST |
Someone in marketing has a brilliant plan.
That someone is Lockheed Martin who has managed to get a monopoly in US fighter design with F-22 and F-35 and can now do as they please. By 2020 Boeing will not have an active fighter product with both F-15 and F/A-18 will be out of production (as will Rafale and Eurofighter). That will leave Lockmart as a monopoly provider of fighters to the Western world. Even the Chinese and Russians haven't allowed such a monopoly to emerge in their markets and have sustained two fighter design bureaus each (MiG/Sukhoi and Chengdu/Shenyang). |
