Free Republic

Defense: While America has stopped production of its stealth fighter, China prepares to challenge U.S. air supremacy in the Western Pacific with its own. China is on another Long March, one it hopes will lead to military supremacy over the U.S. at least in the Western Pacific. It is deploying a carrier-killing mobile missile, the Dong Feng 21D, and is expected to launch its first aircraft carrier this year, the refurbished ex-Soviet carrier Varyag. China is also conducting preflight tests on a fifth-generation stealth fighter expected to challenge the best the U.S. has to offer. Photographs reportedly showing China's J-20...

Defense: The administration decision to scrap a proven aircraft in favor of a supposedly cheaper, more flexible replacement is proving to be an expensive mistake. We may wind up defenseless and broke. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was supposed to be America's frontline fighter for the foreseeable future is in big trouble. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the general in charge of the program this week amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays. Gates also announced he is withholding $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin's project managers,...

The U.S. military’s historic dominance of the skies, unchallenged since around spring 1943, is increasingly at risk because of the proliferation of advanced technologies and a buildup of potential adversary arsenals, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the service’s chief for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Speaking today at the Air Force’s annual convention in the Washington area today, he provided a wide ranging assessment of what the QDR team is calling “high-end, asymmetric threats.” Emphasizing the increasing capabilities of “anti-access weapons,” such as long range precision missiles, Deptula said pilots in future wars will not operate in the...

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee says the battle to fund more than 187 F-22 stealth fighters is not over, even though pro-Raptor forces suffered a stinging defeat in the Senate this week. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California told HUMAN EVENTS the next F-22 war zone is a House-Senate committee conference on defense spending. There, as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, McKeon will fight to preserve final bill language to provide for 12 more jets, as the House approved...Gen. John Corley, who heads Air Force Air Combat Command in Langley, Va., sent a...

America, Israel and Japan are now at a crossroad. America may not be able to sell an export version of the best fighter in the world, the F-22, to Israel and Japan. The reason is the Administration's current insistence on holding fast to a DOD-budgeted production run of F-22s that will stop soon at 187. The harsh reality of stopping F-22 production will be two American allies who are in increasing mortal danger will not have access to the absolute best when they really need America's help. It has been argued that the F-35 is a great substitute for the...

Defense Spending: The TARP bailout may hit $24 trillion, but the Senate says the F-22 is too expensive to build and maintain. So why are the Japanese so desperate to buy this "unnecessary" Cold War weapon?By a vote of 58-40, the Senate on Tuesday voted to remove $1.75 billion set aside in a defense bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already in the pipeline. After some hope the production lines would be kept open, the Senate succumbed to arguments by the administration and others that the fighter was too expensive, too hard...

The most senior retired military officer to back President Obama's run for the White House says the president is making a "real mistake" in terminating F-22 production. Retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, who was the Air Force chief of staff during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm and who credited air power with winning the war, was the first four-star officer to endorse the one-term senator in his presidential campaign. McPeak traveled with Obama to bolster the candidate's commander-in-chief credentials, much to the chagrin of the general's fighter pilot colleagues. But now McPeak is breaking with Obama on the president's most contentious...

Imagine a fighter jet that would give the United States complete air superiority in any conflict. An aircraft that’s faster, has longer range, and is more fuel-efficient at high speeds than any aircraft ever built. A plane virtually invisible to radar and deadly accurate, almost guaranteeing that any selected target would be destroyed. An aircraft so advanced that the armed forces of every country on earth are scared to death of it and know that they would be defenseless against it for years to come. We have that plane. It’s called the F-22 Raptor, and our President and Commander-in-Chief, Barack...

Without congressional intervention, the Air Force's ability to conduct air superiority missions will be increasingly at risk over the next three decades. President Obama's fiscal year (FY) 2010 defense budget request would stop production of the F-22A Raptor at just 187 aircraft and permanently shut down this production line.In reality, the F-22A program would actually end production at 186 fighters and not 187, because the March 2009 crash of an F-22 at Edwards Air Force Base involved a test aircraft not part of the official program of record. President Obama's decision to cap F-22A production at 186 fighters would in...

Defense: By a narrow margin, a House subcommittee has voted to keep open the F-22 Raptor production line. The future of American air dominance and the fate of the world's most capable fighter hang in the balance.On May 30, with North Korea huffing and puffing about nuclear war, the first of 12 high-tech U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter jets landed at Kadena Air Base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. It was just days after North Korea unnerved the region by detonating a nuclear device. There were reasons the F-22 was deployed to Japan. The stealthy, radar-evading fighter jet is...

In a blow to Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon has decided to purchase to end funding of the F-22 fighter jet. The decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates will rouse widespread opposition in Congress and is likely to bog down the 2010 budget approval process, with F-22 supporters maneuvering to secure more money. The Pentagon will fund four of the radar-evading stealth fighters in the upcoming 2009 emergency war-spending request, but those additional aircraft will do little to keep the production line in Marietta, Ga., open beyond 2011. Lockheed Martin is the main contractor for the F-22, each of which costs...

New F-22 Videos

19 July 2005 -- Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said today that since the threat of Afghanistan for Central Asia has declined, the presence of Western military in the region is not needed. Speaking to journalists in Dushanbe, Nazarov said there was no need for the permanent presence of military troops of the U.S.-led coalition in the region as Afghanistan is stabilizing. Some 200 French Air Force personnel and two transport aircraft are currently based at Dushanbe airport to support operations in Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Central Asia, the U.S. military is using the Khanabad air base near the southern Uzbek...

On July 20, Kyrgyzstan's Ministry of Defense announced that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to arrive on July 25. Rumsfeld will discuss the future of the U.S.-led air base Manas with the new Kyrgyz leadership, in the wake of Moscow- and Beijing-inspired demands to set a deadline on the presence of U.S.-led coalition forces in Central Asia. Meanwhile, French Defense Minister Michèle Aliot-Marie is arriving in Tajikistan on July 22 hoping to firm up the arrangements for French use of the Dushanbe and possibly also Kulob airports. For its part, on July 20 Moscow again urged the Central...

03/29/03 - WASHINGTON -- A pair of Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles attacked a Ba'ath Party headquarters building in southern Iraq on March 28, where some 200 leaders of the Iraqi "irregular forces" were meeting. According to Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart, U.S. Central Command director of operations, the attack was meant to destroy some of the terror cells that are holding hostage many of the cities in southern Iraq. "Each time we make one of these attacks, we degrade the regime," Renuart said during the daily CENTCOM press briefing at the command's forward headquarters in Qatar on March 29. Renuart...