[Army Air Corps]

“We don’t need no new-fangled fighters” ping.

[Polybius]

How could a few thousand white Europeans, from the 16th Century to the early 20th Century dominate the Americas, Africa and much of Asia?

By having far superior weaponry, not by having white skin.

There is a lesson there.

[mcshot]

This is so upsetting. I know the Raptors are expensive but owning the sky is essential. These libs, Gates included, want to be part of another gubmint via casualty of war.

[Steve Van Doorn]

When are we gong to wake up?
When Red Dawn becomes a reality?

[Secret Agent Man]

IT still won’t be enough for them to beat us. It will still be a plane made in China. Hell it will still have melamine and lead issues, I’m sure.

[Pontiac]

China will be capable of deploying an advanced fifth generation fighter comparable to the U.S. F-22 within eight years, years ahead of previous Pentagon assessments.

I guess we need to start looking for Chinese spies in the F22 development team.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[TwelveOfTwenty]

This is looking more and more like the Carter years. We were hearing the same about the Soviet's Backfire bomber in the late 70's.

Here's to hoping we have at least one more Reagan Recovery in us.

[Gabrial]

Letting the Chinese leapfrog us in the technology will bring very bad things down the road.

[Clintonfatigued]

Thanks, Bill Clinton./heavy sarcasm

[rbosque]

The Chicoms own our debt, why not give them the skies too Obama!

[GraceG]

When the current admin is done they will buy us all giant foam hands with two fingers up with “We’re #2” on them.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks sonofstrangelove.

"There's only one possible response -- *cancel* the F-22 program now, before we waste more money on it!"

[DoughtyOne]

We need more F-22s. There’s no doubt about that in my mind. I don’t think China’s verson will be nearly as good as ours, but... who really knows.

You don’t wait until the enemy has caught up to you or has passed you to take action.

We need to take Congress back this November, then fully fund another four to five hundred F-22s.

You don’t deter the enemy, by convincing him you are giving up.

[HardStarboard]

The saddest part is that Obama/Gates totally shut down the F-22 line instead of maintaining a 7 plane per year production rate which would have preserved the tooling and, more importantly, the trained skill set to ramp up if necessary.

Restarting the line from scratch will be virtually impossible - and even if successful - terribly costly.

[Nowhere Man]

I would buy more F-22's as much as I can and to fill the holes budgetwise, I'd also go with the F-15SE, an upgraded F-15, the SE mean "Silent Eagle." Too bad we didn't keep our F-14's flying, even today, they are a technological marvel. I'd even reconsider the F-20, an upgraded, higher tech, F-5 to save money. That's the trouble, we are hurting budgetwise and I don't think we can have all the F-22's we want although instead of stopping just below 200, I'd go for at least 300 and use the F-15SE and F-20's to cover the gap and possible recommission the F-14's. I'd toss in more F-16's and for the Navy, F-18 Super Hornets

I think though, before the military suffers, we need to cut all the entitlement programs but with Bammy in there, not likely.

I'd cut bait on the F-35 JSF, it screams "JUNK" to me and I'd go with the F-22's along with uprating current, actually 1970's/1980's era, planes along with new and improved models.

[puppypusher]

We are going to Rue the day the Boy president canceled the f-22.

There should have been many more produced before that line was shut down.

[chiefqc]

With all the money saved when mac daddy canceled this he was able to purchase an entire mountain of hand sized rock that the military can throw at the enemy as they are shooting at our troops.

[C19fan]

I think this is BS. The only thing China has been good at in terms of weapondary is copying and stealing.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in defending his decision to end production of the F-22, stated last year that China "is projected to have no fifth-generation aircraft by 2020."

Well, they probably weren't planning to until we canceled the F-22 and they saw an opportunity.