The F-22 Acquisition Program: Consequences for the US Air Force's Fighter Fleet

Air and Space Power Journal ^ | Nov-Dec 2012 | Lt Col Christopher J. Niemi, USAF

[hattend]

This article, which examines the F-22 program from a historical perspective, seeks to answer two questions. First, given the unprecedented age of today’s fighter fleet, why did the Air Force acquire just 187 F-22s? Second, how could alternative decisions during F-22 development have enabled the service to acquire larger numbers of these aircraft? In consideration of this historical analysis, the article then assesses the Air Force’s current efforts to transition to a fleet comprised entirely of fifth-generation fighters.

[hattend]

Excellent Article

[hattend]

Long, but excellent

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks hattend.

[Jet Jaguar]

Bump

[Blood of Tyrants]

The F-22 was designed as an air superiority fighter but there is no way it can win when it is outnumbered 10 to 1.

[sten]

the number of F-22s in the world is radically increasing....

in china

you can thank 0bama... china has (see $34m Hawaii place)

[GeronL]

F-22 is nice but its very expensive

we also need other planes, cheaper planes too

[Hardraade]

An important point, of course, was to keep it out of export. Might end up having Israel getting its hands on it.

[Zhang Fei]

The guy is right that an all stealth fighter fleet is not practical in the short term, i.e. the next decade. But in the long run (i.e. beyond 10 years), we don't have a choice. Just as prop fighters were outclassed by jets during the Korean War, non-stealth fighters will be massacred by near-stealth or stealth fighters fielded by our adversaries. We've been lucky in not having to fight a near-peer adversary in the last 70 years. We can't count on never having to do so. Note that in Vietnam alone, we lost over 900 fighter aircraft in combat against a major but non-peer adversary. We can't assume that all future non-peer adversaries will be as unmotivated and incompetent as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israelis are right - it's easy to look good when you're fighting Arabs and/or Muslims.

[Army Air Corps]

Raptor Ping.

[Jet Jaguar]

Thanks Bud.

[Jacquerie]

North Vietnam was hardly a non-peer environment. Instead of swarms of Migs, the North Viets most effective countermeasure was primarily the surface-to-air missile. We lost over 900 aircraft largely due to political considerations. ROE prevented us from intercepting the Russian freighters that delivered the SAMs.

[Dilbert56]

Wow, painful to read.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Been saying that very same thing for years. Minor changes and additions could have been made to existing airframes to make them even more capable.

[GeronL]

Having some F-22’s if we need them are nice but for normal over the sandpit-istan battles why risk something so expensive?

Having a core of advanced fighters is good but lets have a bunch of cheaper but very capable fighters around for regular missions.

[Yo-Yo]

Having a core of advanced fighters is good but lets have a bunch of cheaper but very capable fighters around for regular missions.

But we do have a bunch of cheaper but very capable fighters available, and will have for the next 20+ years. We are not getting rid of all of our F-15Cs, F-15Es or F-16s, and we are upgrading many of them with AESA radars.