Posted on 07/10/2020 10:09:35 AM PDT by mowowie
A hurricane that struck Florida in late 2018 damaged and displaced so many of the U.S. Air Forces F-22 Raptor stealth fighters that the flying branch resorted to desperate measures to ensure it could fly enough F-22 sorties.
It underscores how few Raptors the Air Force possesses, and how fragile the fleet could be if it ever sustains major losses in wartime.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
So many were broken and in for repair that those could not be rescued. Those that could fly away did.
We have something far more worrisome for the Chinese!
Thanks man
Add you own post man FR is getting too boring!
Yeah I know, but nonetheless, there are more than a few professional voices that said the Boeing plane was superior - I forget all the reasons and VTOL was not the issue, looks aside.
With our without the Raptors that we have we are probably screwed in a conflict with the chicoms. There never were enough Raptors. The program was cut short too soon to make the fleet material in a real conflict.
We are kidding ourselves.
Those were interesting videos PF.
Thanks
“cost considerations”
No, POLITICAL considerations that jacked up the costs.
F-22 production “supported over 1,000 subcontractors and suppliers from 46 states and up to 95,000 jobs, and spanned 15 years at a peak rate of roughly two airplanes per month.”
That’s insane. They made this part in this state, that part in that state, and spread everything out as much as possible, with assembly in yet another state, to make it so you’d have to vote against your own state’s economics interests to vote against the aircraft. Your car would cost $250,000 if they produced it the same way they did this aircraft.
The F-22 would have cost a FRACTION of what it did if you streamlined production and assembly, but the Pentagon went with the strategy of playing to the politicians. If Congress had any damn patriots left, they would have demanded the production and assembly be streamlined from the beginning and then FULLY FUNDED the original request for 750.
Or with the afterburners engaged too long.
“Yeah I know, but nonetheless, there are more than a few professional voices that said the Boeing plane was superior - I forget all the reasons and VTOL was not the issue, looks aside.”
The problem was that the Air Force issued ground rules for the Fly Off and Boeing couldn’t Compete.
They couldn’t even accomplish parts of the Fly Off without stripping parts off of the plane.
As Flyers say. If the plane looks right its going to fly right. No Amount of technology in the Boeing plane was going to make that bird fly any better.
It would have taken Boeing years longer just to improve the planeform so it could compete in the fly off never mind reach I.O.C.
Bkmk
Well, Congress holds the purse strings. Sucks I know, but the framers did that for a reason, so Im good with it.
The Pentagon has to play the game, so do the contractors.
You’re good with projects that are vital to the national defense of the United States being subject to political games that make them cost so much that we can’t afford them and have to cancel them?
I’m not good with that. I value frugal spending, wise investment, and strong national security. The games that were played with the F-22’s production accomplished none of those goals.
Your objections aside there was more to the issue than you recant. But there is no point in discussing those as it is all moot
This cost relationship between military and civilian aircraft is roughly similar to that which prevailed during WW II and in the Fifties. To me, this suggests that the R&D and production costs for US military aircraft are broadly reasonable.
For both the USAF and commercial airlines, the greater costs are in an aircraft's lifetime of expenses for housing, maintenance, and operation, and in crew and command training, salaries, and benefits. The airlines and the Pentagon alike want smaller crews and more capable and efficient aircraft that are cheaper to base and operate. Neither the USAF nor the airlines want a future of swarms of aircraft that are cheap to produce but ferociously expensive to man and operate. On the whole, they want fewer but better aircraft that have high readiness and can withstand sustained sortie rates.
Even so, I agree that the F-22 needed a production run of no less than 750. The USAF is in a bind because of the Obama DoD cancellation of F-22 production at the current inadequate level. The USAF is compensating by keeping legacy aircraft in service and buying a few more, with better, more accurate bombs and missiles, and autonomous recon and combat aircraft. This is driving a wave of innovation that is finding buyers in allied air forces.
You, me ,everyone, has to pay for everything! Uncle Sugar doesnt produce a damn thing, except bills to pay.
Im all for paying the bills that need paying. Especially where our security is concerned.
And youre right; games are played, theyre always played and always will be..
Its not that Congress holding the purse strings that is the problem; its the people IN Congress thatss the problem.
“with better, more accurate bombs and missiles, and autonomous recon and combat aircraft. This is driving a wave of innovation that is finding buyers in allied air forces.”
But I don’t care about allied air forces. Alliances are always temporary and they need to fund their own militaries. I care about America’s military and I want us to be DECADES ahead of every other adversary on Earth. Heck, I want us to be decades ahead of all our friends too. That’s why we refused to sell the F-22 to anyone. Better bombs and missiles are great, and we should absolutely be developing and deploying them.
Autonomous aircraft are a HUGE risk. The Chinese start hacking into those and it’s game-over on combat day. I understand there’s a lot of potential there, but for the next three to four decades, we need talented pilots in the seats of the most sophisticated aircraft on Earth. I never want it to be a question of whether we have more planes and pilots than China or Russia. I want the question to be: do Russia and China have more planes and pilots than we have missiles?
You’re welcome. And they do exist. I’ve been following them for about 10 to 12 years. I’m a pretty skeptical person and I didn’t believe it at first, but after seeing over 200 videos of them on YouTube I’m not skeptical anymore.
When Trump announced the formation of a Space Force, the media made fun of him but they don’t know what he knows, that we have a nuclear powered craft with anti-gravity characteristics that can fly up to Mach 9, in atmosphere and out of atmosphere.
There’s all kinds of stuff on both the internet and YouTube should you ever want to study the TR3-B Aurora, Astra and Black Manta, the three code names for its different variants.
In brief, the new approach is to have multiple defense contractors competing to quickly design and prototype new fighter jets. Every five to ten years or so, the USAF would pick a winner, buy a relatively small number of aircraft, and then start a new design competition based on lessons learned and a reassessment of defense needs. This would have the major defense contractors constantly designing and producing new fighter aircraft.
That would be similar to the methods used in WW II and up through the early Sixties. The result was many models of new aircraft, a highly competitive environment in defense aviation, and rapid technological progress.
Tyler is firmly in the Democrat camp as are more and more of the posters. It is OK to hit DJT, but any comment made hitting Dems, no matter how factual, will be deleted.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.