High cost may slow Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor

Dallas Morning News ^ | August 29, 2006 | RICHARD WHITTLE

[sukhoi-30mki]

High cost may slow Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor

11:14 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 29, 2006

By RICHARD WHITTLE / The Dallas Morning News

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. – Neighbors of this history-laden airfield are getting used to a new sight: a plane roughly the color and shape of a giant arrowhead that takes off with a throaty roar and disappears in a hurry.

Built partly in Fort Worth, the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22 Raptor is the Air Force's newest, fastest, stealthiest and most potent fighter jet. In a two-week exercise in Alaska this June, the Raptors of Langley's 27th Fighter Squadron racked up a record of 241-2 in mock battles with older U.S. fighters, according to Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, the squadron's commander.

[Last Dakotan]

The way I see it, if it costs less than 120 times what a F-15 costs it is worth it. (241/2)

[stm]

One of the only drawbacks to this aircraft is the smaller load of weapons it can carry since everything is held in internal bays. There are no external hardpoints.

[ryan71]

How many could we buy if we diverted the money from the UN?

The F-22 is a much better investment.

[cripplecreek]

I've read that they can be fitted with less stealthy weapons pods for the stand off type weapons. The concept as I understood it was to get within rage, fire the long range weapons, dump the pods and disappear.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Huh???The Raptor can be readily fitted with 4 external hardpoints for tanks or weaponry,though that would affect it's stealth & agility adversely.8 internal hardpoints,combined with it's range is more than sufficient for it.

[RightWhale]

In a two-week exercise in Alaska this June

Saw some F-16s, but no F-22s. Guess cloaking is part of the new design.

[adorno]

The way I see it, if it costs less than 120 times what a F-15 costs it is worth it. (241/2)

However, we'll probably lose more F-22s to accidents or poor maintenance than to any round-to-air missiles or even to aireal combat.

It seems like every year we hear about an accident with an F-16 or some other military aircraft.

If the F-22 wasn't built perfect, then it too will have it's accidents and maintenance related mishaps. Every time an F-22 fighter crashes you're going to hear people cry out with a loud "OUCH!".

Two or three of those lost in accidents per year would be the equivalent of many F-16s.

[tet68]

Hey, I know, if we buy twice as many, we can get a price reduction, too bad congress can't figure that out.

Congress," They're so expensive, we'll only buy half as many, but that makes them even more expensive so we'll have to buy less than that....."

Eventually they'll get to the point of buying only one,
very ezpensive aircraft.

[mississippi red-neck]

If they would take the billions they are stuffing in Haliburton's pockets and wasting in Iraq they would have enough money to buy another hundred or so.

[MisouriMule]

You can Buy 3 F-15's with an Absolute 100% Perfect record of surviveability and Kill rate or 1 F-22.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

Only time media gives a crap about the cost of something is when it involves the military.

[CodeToad]

Considering that we still have superiority over anything else with such birds as the F-15, why not keep the F-22 program around and even advance that but also keep producing F-15s and improving those as well. I'd hate to see advanced aircraft not be developed but I'd also hate to see us with too few birds due to high costs.

It isn't a kill ratio that makes the aircraft so great once a seriously superior kill ratio has been established, it is getting those birds to every place they need to be around the globe. Too high a cost means fewer birds.

[Eagle74]

US war fighting doctrine begins with first obtaining air superiority. If we lack for enough F-22's to gain that air superiority, all the rest of our war fighting strategy collapses. Also, while the F-22 is way better than anything else at the moment, other nations will start closing the performance gap, and then we are going to need a lot more of them. With that said, UAV's are the wave of the future and manned fighters may be on the way out. UAV's without the need for life support, or g-force restrictions, are more nimble and potentially stealthier and definitely more expendable.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

"High Cost May Slow Public Education Union Dues"

"High Cost May Slow Spending on Abortions"

"High Cost May Slow Human Embryo Cloning"

[SauronOfMordor]

The Raptor can be readily fitted with 4 external hardpoints for tanks or weaponry,though that would affect it's stealth & agility adversely.

Tanks are OK as long as you can drop them before you get close to the bad guys area, without any residual fastenings that would affect your stealth

[SauronOfMordor]

Congress," They're so expensive, we'll only buy half as many, but that makes them even more expensive so we'll have to buy less than that....."

Honest accounting would separate out development cost from per-unit manufacturing costs, the former to be paid up-front rather than amortized per-plane. But honest accounting is alien to politicians

[em2vn]

The price per plane I recently read was four hundred and thirty one million dollars.
Will post a link if I am able to find it.

[RoadTest]

I love it when these aircraft articles are so well illustrated. Thank yoou.

[stm]

You're welcome. I have seen several of these aircraft landing in section at Montgomery AL's Maxwell AFB. They are impressive.