Saving money for bank take overs and to buy auto companies. Besides, what would you rather have: air superiority for the next several decades or more pork for loyal democrats to pass around to their voters?
Posted on 05/11/2009 5:05:44 AM PDT by GBA
The Obama administration has taken a look and after production of 187 aircraft, "the administration proposes to terminate the F-22 Raptor program," and close the Raptor production line.
~snip~
The OMB states that the 187 examples of the F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter, supported by the planned fleet growth of Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) to 2,443 aircraft, "will meet DOD's requirements to maintain air superiority." And, according to the OMB, the Department of Defense agrees. But while the F-22 has frequently been attacked for its expense it has rarely (if ever) been attacked for its demonstrated real-world abilities.
(Excerpt) Read more at avweb.com ...
Saving money for bank take overs and to buy auto companies. Besides, what would you rather have: air superiority for the next several decades or more pork for loyal democrats to pass around to their voters?
BO has failed to notice or care about China’s build-up.
Who needs defense when you are The Chose One? No one DARES attack The Messiah.
The F-22 is a US-only fighter (so far), while the F-35 is the export fighter replacement for the undeniably successful F-16.
If the US doesn’t fly the F-35, it’s a good bet that very few nations will.
I’d like to see both, but budget realities are hitting hard.
It’s wrong for us to be superior to the rest of the world in *any* was...particularly when it comes to military issues.
This is Barack’s B-1. If he follows Jimmy, there might be a Nobel Prize in it for him.
Since all of this money is going elsewhere, when the balloon goes up, I guess we’ll have to fight the Chinese horde with food stamps, medicaid and “green” cars.
Dismateling us one program at a time, weakening / destroying the currency all while dividing us along racial and class lines..........he is the enemy within.
So, they’re chopping the 22 off the block to go with a compromised fighter (F-35) that potentially has a vulnerability in its design that makes them vulnerable to Chinese and Russian radar systems? Not to mention a fighter who’s plans have been leaked to our enemies?
Leveling us with Afghanistan.
It took more than 20 years to get the Osprey but they finally started coming on line in 2007 and it is the light medium transport of the future. The One won’t be around forever. The F-22 will eventually get in service in large numbers if its good enough and the demand is there.
Doesn't the Clueless One see the correlation between having the best aircraft in the world and the fact that the bad guys don't want to screw around with it? What an idiot...
Then all the R & D, all the work will be for nothing.
The Won is looking for an excuse to kill the program.
Our President thinks an airplane developed by the “global community” sends a better message to our allies.
Our President has admitted he thinks that America is arrogant, so, why continue building our own superior aircraft, thereby continuing the perception of American “arrogance?”
We need that money for PROGRAMS!!! We have to fund ACORN...WELFARE...EDUMACATION!!!!!!
Yeah, all that socialism is costly ... Reparations by any other name.
It’s more important to throw money to ACORN than to keep our defenses up!!
The decision to close this line is crazy. Production should be continued until we can justify exporting to Great Britain, Australia, Israel and possibly a few other friends.
The plan to replace over 500 F-15s with 187 F-22s (and no way to make more) should make every American nervous.
The F-35 isn’t close to the F-22.
You have to remember obama lives in a bubble.
Which one uses more GE components?
Defense for pork, a democrats dream!!!
If it’s modified, then it isn’t the same.
Oh dang. There go all those retirement jobs for all those generals and colonels and DOD civilians.
Amazing how this new administration will cite this as showing how they are so very practical when it comes to its primary duty of defending the nation, when in fact it makes no practical sense whatsoever, even according to their own standards - "investing" to create jobs. I cannot understand this worldview that fears the intelligence and skill of our own workforce more than a GDP composed of mostly unskilled bureaucrats and social workers; fears Christianity more than Islam...
It just makes no sense from their own stated reason-for-being that I may just have to get myself blinded before their term is up.
Never fear. The engineers will not forget their designs. Obama can’t buy that!
The next step in the evolution of fighter bombers is obvious: numbers over quality. That is, mass produce thousands of small drone aircraft, each about the same price as a small car, $15,000.
Individually they are expendable, collectively they are impossible to fight, unless you use an equally numerous defensive air armada.
They are rigged to carry one of just three weapons. An air-to-air missile, a small diameter GPS bomb, or a machine gun.
The aircraft itself is little more than a fuel tank, engine, galvanized steel shell, with a beer can sized computer “brain” that can be plugged in to tell it what to do. A nose camera and sensors complete the aircraft. It doesn’t even need landing gear, it can do net landings.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. An F-22 Raptor per unit cost is $137.5M. For the price of one F-22, you could buy over 9,000 $15,000 drones. If you could keep their cost down that far.
Ironically, the cost of a Small Diameter Bomb, at about $26,000, would be greater than that of the aircraft. Still, if that is what you armed them with, you could still get over 3,000 drone aircraft for the price of one F-22.
The decision on whether or not F-22 production continues belongs to Congress, not Obowma and not DoD.
What budget reality prevents buying the F-22? For $15 B, you could buy 75, which would be a 40% increase over our current number. Compare this to the 15 B we’re going to forgive Chrysler for, or the 750 B for bank bailouts, or the 1,000 B we’re just printing because Obama wants to...
We’ll give the UAW far more than is needed to buy us a premium defense.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
You don’t know much about drones or air combat, do you?
Let’s just hire a 23 yr old James Kirk to be a starship captain, and then...
We can afford BOTH, and have the constitutional requirement to provide for the COMMON DEFENSE.
Unfortunately, Obammy’s budget insanity mare require the US to cut one of these.
As I said, only F-35 is going to be sold worldwide, so there’s the economic defense of that program.
The F-22 doesn’t have that support, unfortunately.
Almost as if.
$15,000 for a drone (RPV)? I don’t think so, Tim!
You left off a decimal place or two, (depending on the model)!
“Ironically, the cost of a Small Diameter Bomb, at about $26,000, would be greater than that of the aircraft. Still, if that is what you armed them with, you could still get over 3,000 drone aircraft for the price of one F-22.”
First of all, you should see from your example of the SDB being $26,000, that such a drone couldn’t be $15,000. First of all, just the sensor suite for all-weather operation (critical) would cost several hundred thousand at least. Then you need engines that can drive the airframe to at least Mach 2, and stealth (since without stealth they’d be fodder for any weapon system). There’s also the issue of range, which is pretty directly related to aircraft size.
Due to distrust of AI as much as anything else, for at least the next twenty years or so humans will have to be on the scene to make command decisions. I could see a force structure where a F-22 (or F-35) would act as “commander” for a squadron of drones. The major engineering advantages of drones are: no weight taken for human support/safety and b) ability to turn at way over the 9G human limit c) no pilot training time, expense, or risk. The only things that reduce cost are a & d.
The airframe I’d like to see seriously pursued at this point is the B-1R, the idea being a re-engined with F-22 engines B-1B airframe, back to Mach 2+ capable supercruise, with the addition of air-to-air weapons (AAMRAMs - plenty of ‘em). It’d be relatively cheap, and would greatly expand our capabilities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer#B-1R
Obama WILL cut the F-22. However, there is NO budget REQUIREMENT driving that decision.
I understand what you are saying, and I’m pretty sure you agree with me. I just don’t like to use terminology that gives Obama cover for doing the indefensible (see tag line). If the muslim bastard was balancing the budget, I’d understand. But he’s printing $1,000 Billion just because he can, and who cares about the debt, inflation, etc. He makes GWB look like Scrooge.
This is an active choice to weaken America for pennies of savings, so he can toss $100 bills to his friends.
“a & d”
Make that a & c. lol
Yes, the F22 has had worldwide support, make that demand. We just won’t sell it to anyone.
The technology must be something really special if the US won’t even consider selling to Australia or Japan.
SZ
Wrong. The tooling is owned by the USAF.
Your post makes a lot of sense. I’d just point out “...no weight taken for human support/safety and b) ability to turn at way over the 9G human limit...”
The weight of the human & cockpit is now negligible, since engines are so powerful. The advantages to the ability to turn & burn are also now negligible, since modern missiles can hit a target from any aspect. This means a 30G turn wouldn’t help you IF the turn is consistent - the missile would just predict the impact point and fly there. And at any distance - more than 1-2 seconds out - the turn wouldn’t help because with wouldn’t create enough angles.
“The weight of the human & cockpit is now negligible, since engines are so powerful.”
Nope, because there’s a lot of other equipment there to support the human. Let’s see how many I can think of off the top of my head:
1) Oxygen.
2) Ejection seat.
3) Human readable displays.
4) Human friendly control systems.
5) Firefighting systems (to an extent).
6) Climate control.
7) Glass cockpit.
8) Volume for pilot/systems (structure).
The loss of the volume and cross section for the cockpit is as big of a win as the reduced weight.
On the flip side, you’d need some upgraded onboard computers for the drone.
“The advantages to the ability to turn & burn are also now negligible, since modern missiles can hit a target from any aspect.”
Not true, it affects the rates at which things need to happen on the missile. Think of how quickly the drones could go into a defensive maneuver. It is also an important offensive asset, especially with guns.
“This means a 30G turn wouldn’t help you IF the turn is consistent - the missile would just predict the impact point and fly there. And at any distance - more than 1-2 seconds out - the turn wouldn’t help because with wouldn’t create enough angles.”
First off, with stealth radar guided missiles shouldn’t be a major threat. IR guided missiles are generally short range, and computer controlled, high-G maneuvering could shake ‘em - in fact the drones should have an advantage with larger wing area and thrust vectoring. The missiles lose powered flight after a short time.
In the days of an F-4, the cockpit weight vs thrust available was pretty significant. However, I think you would find the weight of the F-22 cockpit - with all attending systems - is not a huge drain on available thrust. With time, it will be even less so. At Mach speeds, weight is less restrictive than aerodynamics.
Further, many of the systems you mention do dual purpose. Climate control is required for electronic systems to operate. Human controls may be less involved than secure, non-jammable data link and sensors.
Turns have an impact on defense only in creating angles at the end game. Think of a plane in a flat spin. It would be an easy shot, even though the plane is spinning around. If you want to beat a modern missile using G, you’ll have to do it end game by creating angles - very tough to do in any reasonable size aircraft, since the missile is vastly smaller. There are of course a lot of limitations on the missile’s ability as well - small size can be a disadvantage as well as an asset.
Guns are irrelevant as offensive counter-air weapons.
IR missiles aren’t exactly short range anymore, but on the end game, you still have to beat them with angles - or other countermeasures. But from an airframe perspective, it is an angles game. High G, if held for more than a second or two, becomes a predictable intercept point. I’m not sure how good modern missiles are at that right now, but I’m sure they are getting pretty good. The point is that it isn’t how much turn you do, but how much turn the missile needs to do - which is minimal on a predictable path for an all-aspect missile.
I also wouldn’t count on stealth preventing a shot. However, that is getting outside my area of expertise.
The main thing is that you have to replace the pilot with sensors and comm links, and that can get more expensive than the pilot - even assuming technology allows you to reach that point at all.
They don’t use all the same parts for repairs. Are we having only one fighter just so we can say there all fighters?
STOVL
Being the father of Marine Corps aviation, I will defer to you.... : )
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