My understanding is that they shut down F-22 production, but you’d think that we would want MORE of them and perhaps LESS of the F-35?
The theory was that the F-35 was going to be “almost as good” as the F-22, at a fraction of the price. Now we have the F-35, which is inferior to everybody’s fighters right out of the gate, at almost the same price as the F-22.
Yes they were shut down by the Obey Amendment (Obey has since been retired). There were at that time 187 planes now there are less due to attrition and a few crashes.
The tooling remains as well as the videos on how to do what with which, but the skills are nearly lost and would have to be relearned.
Various articles have appeared on restarting the line - look using this search: What it would take to make more F-22s.
Basically the F-22 uses obsolete tech and to this day has not been fully armed with LR BVR missiles nor heads up helmet (which tech is nearly 40 years old).
It might be cheaper to start from scratch, but then it would be a 20 year lead before production and operational combat status could be achieved.
Meanwhile, the F-22 Chinese knock off, the J-20, will be combat ready in 3 years. All the while the USAF is desperately trying to upgrade its fleet of F-15s to match the Chinese J-10 by 2032 which will be retired after the J-20 becomes ready. You see the problem here?
Yes. My understanding is the f22 was too good with a dash of too expensive.