Free Republic

US Air Force Gen. Mark Welsh made comments at an Air Force Association event on Thursday that were uncharacteristically bullish on the prospect of restarting the F-22 program. Lockheed Martin shuttered the F-22 program almost five years ago. Since then, the top Air Force brass has been focused on the troubled F-35 program as well as looking decades forward to the Next Generation Air Dominance program. In April, however, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio said in Congress: "In light of growing threats from a resurgent Russia and an aggressive China, further exploration into restarting the F-22 line is deserved." Welsh's...

UPDATING with Aboulafia analysis of questionable pricing] The F-35 just won a competition — and it wasn’t even close. In every category, from combat performance to cost, the Danish government rated Lockheed’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter as superior to Airbus’s Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing’s F/A-18F Super Hornet.

During his long tenure at the Pentagon, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates made many good decisions that helped soldiers and enhanced U.S. security. But his choice to truncate the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor program at 187 jets was an exception. With threats to American air superiority growing, it is time for Congress to consider resurrecting the jet or finding a suitable replacement. Conceived in the 1980s, the F-22 Raptor was designed to secure dominance of the skies for decades. America needed fighters that could outperform the newest Soviet models from Sukhoi and MiG. To counter them, the Raptor incorporated cutting-edge...

Increasing threats from China and Russia are causing some lawmakers to look at restarting the F-22 fighter production line, a House Armed Services Committee staffer said Tuesday. The draft defense authorization bill from the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces requires the Air Force to deliver a report to Congress by Jan. 1, 2017, detailing future aircraft shortfalls and what it would cost to buy more F-22s. ****snip***** The committee is asking the Air Force to provide cost estimates for another 194 F-22s. The committee staffer said the report was included in the bill at the request of a...

RAF jets will battle American stealth fighters in mock dogfights over Britain for the first time in the coming days. British Typhoon fighters will take part in air-to-air combat drills against United States Air Force F-22 Raptor jets. The contests will be the first time the aircraft have gone head-to-head in UK skies, RAF sources said. A dozen F-22s arrived at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk earlier this week and are due to stay for practice missions with the RAF until the start of next month. An RAF source said the allies were likely to fight scenarios at both close visual...

The development of a sixth generation fighter should not be a top priority for the US Air Force given that, according to Rob Weiss, executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works division, regular updates to the F-22 and F-35 would keep the edge of the current stealth fighters over China’s and Russia’s future fifth generation warplanes. Weiss recently told to DefenseOne.com, that these aircraft already enable the to have a distinct advantage over the capabilities its adversaries are developing and that a replacement for today’s F-22 and F-35 fighter jets isn’t needed anytime soon. “We’ve...

90th Fighter Squadron is the first F-22 Raptor combat unit equipped with the AIM-9X dogfight missile. On Mar. 1, 2016 the 90th Fighter Squadron (FS) belonging to the 3rd Wing stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska officially became the first combat-operational Raptor unit to equip an F-22 with the AIM-9X Sidewinder. According to Chief Master Sgt. Chuck Jenkins, 3rd Wing Weapons Manager, the AIM-9X will increase the already outstanding Raptor’s combat capabilities. “This has been in the inventory for the Air Force and Navy for some years; it’s nothing new to the military, but to put it on the Ferrari...

Advanced derivatives of the tri-service Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could replace the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor, Boeing F-15C Eagle and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, multiple sources told the National Interest. However, they added that the idea of replacing the high flying and fast Raptor with the slower and less agile F-35 was not well received by many within the Air Force. “No doubt that the F-35 will be doing air dominance missions in the future,” one industry official said. “Especially with more internal air-to-air, and maybe a new engine.”

A submission to a Senate inquiry into the feasibility of Government’s planned purchase of at least 72 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets says that the multirole planes will be instantly outmatched in air superiority by the airborne wings of competing countries in the region like China and Indonesia, and will fare even worse against future threats. It suggests — hypothetically — that Australia instead push for the F-22 Raptor, a jet that the United States has never sold to even its closest military allies. In the submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s Joint Strike...

The F-35 is an absolute disaster, and it needs to go. The scandals around it are legion. The supersonic stealth plane called F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to be the greatest and best military plane the world has ever seen. While the United States' stealthy F-22 is an "air superiority" plane, ensuring the country's dominance over the skies, which is why exporting it is illegal, the F-35 was supposed to be able to do everything, and be the standard fighter-bomber of the U.S. and most countries with which the U.S. has friendly relations. It was supposed to be stealthy,...

In 2005, The Air Force made it official. The F-22A Raptor was ready for combat. “If we go to war tomorrow, the Raptor will go with us,” said then head of Air Combat Command, General Robert Keys, at Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base. However, for the next nine years, what has been called the world’s most capable fighter stayed on the sidelines, sitting out, for example, U.S. strikes against Libyan air defenses in March 2011. On the night of September 22, 2014, tomorrow finally came: The 1st Fighter Wing, based at Langley, flew four F-22s to strike ISIS militants in...

Sukhoi T-50 fighter climbing after takeoff, 2011. Creative Commons After confronting serious technical and economic difficulties, Russia has dramatically cut back its air force program to field its first radar-evading “stealth” fighter jet. By delaying large-scale acquisition of the Sukhoi T-50 fighter, the Kremlin is tacitly acknowledging a truth that the U.S. military learned decades ago — and that China might also learn in coming years: developing stealth fighters is hard. But fortunately for the Russian air force, and unfortunately for Washington and its allied air arms that are Russia’s chief rivals, Moscow has a backup plan. Instead of counting...

One of the most important programs that the U.S. Air Force is undertaking is far from glamorous and comes with a funny name: Talon HATE. But this podded system will be vital for eliminating communications barriers between the F-22 and F-15C/D fleets, as well as other weapon systems. It’s showing for the first time on the belly of an Operational Test F-15C flying out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Here’s how it works. The F-15 is no stranger when it comes to evolving with the times, and Boeing is doing just that with this new communications and sensor...

Even as the Pentagon is struggling to figure out a way to afford and field its fifth-generation fighter of choice, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy and the U.S. Air Force—along with industry—are looking at what comes next. This sixth-generation fighter initiative is loosely known as the “F-X program” for the USAF and the “FA-XX” for the Navy. The F-X program looks to to finally replace the F-15 Eagle, as well as the F-22 Raptor, and the FA-XX program aims to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. This new aircraft will be as much about reusable weaponry (lasers) as it...

The most advanced operational fighters of U.S., U.K., and French origin pose for the camera high over the Atlantic. The Raptors, Typhoons and Rafales, along with T-38 and F-15E aggressors and E-3 AWACS support, are taking part of the first international anti-access focused aerial exercise dubbed simply “Trilateral Exercise.” You can read all about this inaugural set of war games at the piece linked here, in the meantime, enjoy these awesome images:

The U.S. Air Force might buy 72 upgraded F-15, F-16 or even F-18 fighter aircraft due to low F-35 production rates and the high cost of the F-35. The U.S. Air Force “is struggling to afford 48 F-35s a year” for the first years of full-rate production a senior Air Force officer told Aerospace Daily & Defense Report. Full rate-production is slated to begin in 2019 and the U.S. Air Force wants to buy 60 planes in 2020, and 80 F-35 per year after that. This year, the Air Force is to receive 28 F-35s, whereas in 2016 the number...

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is the best air superiority fighter ever built, but could America have done better? When the YF-22 prototype won the contract for the Advanced Tactical Fighter in April 1991, it was a lesser plane compared to the Northrop YF-23 in many ways. Though the YF-22 was a more maneuverable aircraft, the YF-23 had far greater supersonic cruise capability — especially when outfitted with the General Electric YF120 variable cycle engines. Even when powered by the less powerful Pratt & Whitney YF-119, the YF-23 had the ability to fly an entire sortie at supersonic speeds above...

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is one of the most experienced and capable air forces in the world, with roughly 400 American-made F-16 and F-15 fighters in its inventory. For the most part, this force resembles a smaller version of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) “legacy” fighter fleet – fourth generation aircraft originally developed during the 1970s. Like the USAF, however, many of these aircraft are three decades old and nearing the end of their service life. snip If the F-35 cannot hold its own against fourth-generation fighters, which are increasingly equipped with infrared sensors that can detect stealth aircraft,...

As if they suddenly came to an epiphany, the United States Air Force brass is now admitting what many of us have been screaming about for so long: We didn’t build nearly enough F-22s, and the F-35 cannot simply pick up the slack. So why aren’t those who pushed so hard to cancel the F-22 program being held accountable? By the mid 2000s, the F-22 was finally entering the fray as the world’s first true stealth fighter, offering a quantum leap in capability and performance when compared with anything else on the battlefield. It was a thoroughbred weapon system meant...

As if they suddenly came to an epiphany, the United States Air Force brass is now admitting what many of us have been screaming about for so long: We didn’t build nearly enough F-22s, and the F-35 cannot simply pick up the slack. So why aren’t those who pushed so hard to cancel the F-22 program being held accountable? By the mid 2000s, the F-22 was finally entering the fray as the world’s first true stealth fighter, offering a quantum leap in capability and performance when compared with anything else on the battlefield. It was a thoroughbred weapon system meant...