Posted on 07/18/2009 6:24:01 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
If a Secretary of Defense cuts an expensive, Cold War-era jet from appropriations, does anyone in Congress notice?
The answer is, of course, yes. The jet in question is the F-22, which has never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. The United States Air Force has 187 of these jets, which cost $250 million each. The plane has reliability problems too, costing upwards of $40,000 for every hour flown and needing 30 hours of maintenance for every hour it flies. It cannot operate for more than 1.7 hours without a “critical failure,” according to an internal Pentagon report.
Some members of Congress wants the Defense Department to buy seven additional jets for a total of $1.75 billion. Supporters of the purchase are from both sides of the aisle--they exemplify "post-partisanship" more than Barack Obama. They include liberal Democrats such as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, who want to protect jobs by Lockheed Martin, as well as hawkish Republicans such as Saxby Chambliss who argue that the additional jets are necessary for national security, even though the Cold War ended almost twenty years ago. The jets were designed to fend against Soviet MiGs. China has nowhere near the air capability that the U.S. already has—both in technology and numbers.
President Obama has threatened a veto over the appropriations bill over the purchase. Senators John McCain and Carl Levin introduced an amendment cutting the item from the appropriations bill.
But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates drew the line in a speech in Chicago on Thursday:
The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity… is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk that I will not take and one that I cannot accept. He's right. Defense spending like this is indefensible--except in Congress.
For more info: Full Text of Gates' speech to Economic Club of Chicago
The numbers in this article are out of date. The WaPo did a similar hit piece, using data from the first year of the F22’s deployment.
I know. Thanks for pointing it out.
Senators McClain and Levin...two individuals who are far, far past their shelf life!
Considering that the F-15, F-16 and the newer models of the F-18 are now outclassed by the newer versions of the Sukhois, which are being fielded in ever increasing numbers by the Chinese and Indians, and
considering that the several versions of the F-15 were recently grounded due to bulkhead cracks as in being worn out, and
considering that we generally keep our fighters in service for several decades (which is why they wear out and need to be grounded), we need something to replace the old inventory we are retiring: the F-22 the current ultimate air superiority fighter with demonstrated multirole capability,
considering those things and more, what Gates says is a lie.
It is being force-fed a multirole capacity that it was not designed for reasons of political relevance. It is a Cold War-era fighter with a Cold War-era data architecture that will not accept the most current weapons systems without massive software upgrades and even that may not be enough to field those weapons.
The F-22 serves an important role as the sole 5th generation air superiority fighter in our inventory. If it has problems then it needs more funding to iron those problems out. What we cannot afford to do is cut back on one of the few legitimate government functions, military defense, so that we can waste more money throwing cash at single mothers, union thugs, and the assorted quasi-criminal cronies that hang around Washington. To paraphrase an old saying, billions for defense, not one penny for welfare.
This guy, Luke Johnson, is a student at a small private Liberal Arts College East of Los Angeles, and never has his facts straight.
Good point
RE :” billions for defense, not one penny for welfare.”
And Back on planet earth.....
We will never face a tougher foe than the Afghans.
Obama promises.
The ‘Rats have made clear that America will cede all influence in the 21st century and become a banana republic. As such, we have no use for a system as advanced as the F-22.
Lets just all forget about it and go to Walmart and buy some cool made in China stuff, you know lead based kiddie toys and badly made shirts.
Yeah, that will help.
You left out that it is an overpriced and overpraised piece of junk, mostly a political pork jobs program. The cold war is over period!!!
We risk starting a new Cold War if we let our enemies reach technological parity. Striving forward for ever greater military capability is its own reward in advanced technology and assuring our security.
Glad you agree, spending money on an overpriced POS that would not last five minutes in superpower combat engagement is not new technology.
There is no such thing as a “cold-war” era jet when talking about the F-22.
If you control the skies, you win.
The F-22 controls the skies.
It IS that simple.
The Raptor has never killed an enemy in combat. Until it does all it controls is friendly airspace.
Revised: 21 September 2007 Published online: 3 July 2008
Abstract It is considered an approach to development a form of information subsystem of self-guided antiaircraft controlled missiles (ACM) of promising antiaircraft missile systems (AMS). Author’s viewpoint about mentioned problem is based on long experience of theoretical researches in this application domain and development works of integrated homing heads (HH).
There is no defense system to stop a computer guided air to air are ground to air missile. A plane with a human in it cannot fly fast enough are turn fast enough. Period.
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