Pretty much what I've come to expect.
What happened to the F-22? The fish stinks from the head, and we have a really foul head now.. a putrid head with all his blind followers.
The F-22 was killed off by John McCain and others who were all in for the F-35. I suspect the reason for dropping the F-22 is that it was too good at its job and would give America a good edge in Air-Superiority… the F-35, OTOH, seems to be partially planned-obsolesce and partially a form of corporate welfare. (All you need as proof that the Congress isn't loyal to Americans is the overwhelming passage of the Iran Deal
.)
It’s complicated, but what killed the F-22 (mostly) is the same thing that is killing the A-10 — the US can’t really afford single-mission aircraft anymore. Everything is multi-role. It’s a bit short-sighted, I know. Multi-role aircraft are a good idea in peacetime operations, and perhaps limited wars, but the minute you go into a full-blown slugging match the guy with enough air-superiority aircraft generally wins the day.
Recall that before the F-22 was terminated, they were playing with the idea of an FB-22. Trying to make a fighter bomber out of a pure air superiority platform with a relatively small internal weapons bay. “Oh, we’ll just hang the weapons on wing pylons!” Say ‘what’?
That said, while McCain hated the thing, the Air Force and its contractors screwed the pooch on this plane. Took 26 years to produce and was waaaaaaayyyyy over budget.
I like great military aircraft as much as the next guy, but this program was poorly managed in production and implementation. I suspect the Air Force got a spanking over this one.
Killed off? We have like 150 of them. Fielded and ready at bases all over. Yeah not as many as we wanted, but hardly ‘killed off’.