Posted on 11/19/2010 8:09:04 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The Air Force has apparently gotten over one of its biggest taboos: talking internally about the possibility of buying more F-22s.
Until recently, USAF was under strict orders not even to think about it, but recent developments have caused the possibility to crop up in some "what if" PowerPoint slides.
Those developments include likely further slips in the F-35 strike fighter's schedule and an upcoming defense acquisition board review of the F-35 expected to be fraught with bad news on cost.
That would come on the heels of various deficit-cutting proposals that already suggest cutting the F-35 buy.
Without F-35, Air Force fighter inventories will plummet below minimums in coming years as F-16s age out.
Extending F-22 production could be the dealmaker if F-35 foes carry the day and compel USAF to take mostly new-build F-16s instead.
The Raptors would provide the extra stealth force required to make the non-stealthy F-16s acceptable.
Also, if you’ve listened carefully, USAF has gone from saying it will retain a "portion" of F-22 production tooling to "most" and, most recently, to "all."
Gen. William Fraser, head of Air Combat Command, acknowledged last week that Lockheed Martin is filming all F-22 tooling processes as the earliest parts of production shut down, so that it can go back to production of parts—ostensibly for repairs or service life extension—in the future.
Also last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) said he might spearhead an effort to get more F-22s into the budget. But he acknowledged it could be a difficult task given pressures to rein in spending.
Gingrey complained bitterly that the Pentagon prematurely terminated F-22 production, centered in Marietta in his Congressional district, before Russia rolled out its own F-22 clone, the PAK FA, last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at airforce-magazine.com ...
I thought this was another End Times thread until I saw it was Raptor and not Rapture, lol!
Ping
That would come on the heels of various deficit-cutting proposals that already suggest cutting the F-35 buy.
I have to smile. Only the federal government could look at an aircraft development suffering from cost increases and decide that maybe backstopping it with production of an even more expensive aircraft was a good idea. Who knows, maybe it makes sense, buy one more F-22 and four more F-16s vs the cost of five F-35s???
Or buy F-15/S/E variants, The USAF have a trained workforce, spares and the platform is a good one.
It took 20+ years to get the F-22 in production. Originally they were planning on something like 1500 units, then to save money it was cut to 750, then 375 and the finally the magic number was 187.
To replace something like 1500 f-15s.
Having fewer units to defray the development costs raises the unit cost.
Remember how Obama was going to use the stimulus for “shovel ready jobs” and then they basically admitted there were no “shovel ready jobs”.
Wouldn't extending the F-22 saved some actual jobs. What about the border fence. I can't think of a more shovel ready job.
You're right there. As I understand it, the F-15 is undefeated in air-to-air combat. Why not extend the production run? Or with the F-16s. After my original post i did some quick poking around and found that what I proposed as a joke actually makes sense (fiscally). For the price of 5 F-35s you could buy one F-22 as escort and 4 F16s - and save $47 million in the process. The F-35 has suffered too much mission/requirements creep. 96 million a plane? To replace an 18 million per copy F-16?
As for the border fence, I would seriously entertain spending two weeks of vacation next spring volunteering on the border, building the fence.
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