Forum: F-22A Raptor

I'm not involved in the fighter-aircraft industry techincally, I'm not a paid lobbyist, nor am I even in the armed services... I'm merely a simple taxpayer with realistic and serious interests in US's long-term national deterrence.

I understand that with Iraq war and Afghan war expenditures and with costs to recouple damaged conventional forces readiness, the US's much needed modernization forces budget is looking flat... but with regards to F-22 in particular I must bring to your attention one aspect not publicly calculated.

The continued F-22 line can not only produce necessary air-supremacy capability in the near-term, replacing hundreds of currently deactivating legacy USAF tactical airframes, but perhaps more importantly, become a naturally seamless and economcial evolution to a future FB-22 production line, which can in turn not only reduce budgetary demands on excess future tankers, being operated under tactical conditions but also provide an economical alternative, looking forward, to the stop-gap 2018 B-3 bomber requirement..

How many billions $ therefore, could be saved from the required 2018 bomber replacement program? $10 billion? $20b?

How many billions $ could be saved from future tactical tanker refueling demands? $10 billion? $ 20 billion?

Humbly presented subject matter for debate...

God speed.

Hiya Geogen,

Well guess ya saw by now the great leaders demand that the military cut a full 10% ( over $50 Bil) from the defense budget? That little twerps true colors are coming out and I think it is safe to say you can kiss the F22 good-bye. Take our 183 and luv it. No way in hell are they gonna cut $50 bil and still keep the F22 line going.

Not to worry though. He did include something like $200 mil in his *stimulus* package for studying some nonsense about honeybees right? This guy has turned out to be a bigger friggin scam then Maddoff ever dreamed of being!!

God Speed... and yes.. we gonna need it by the time OB is done with us!!!

Driver: You may chuckle at US's and free world's rightful weakness and failures today, but you hardly gave a logical proof that more than 183 Raptors would equate to Soviet system morality or economics - sorry m8. I don't think anyone here is pleading the US bailout plan for 800 Raptors as you say - please correct my arguments if I'm wrong.. but the 183+ Raptor production line point, of this thread bro, was about likely cost savings and turning one's 'brains on' re: potential FB-22 economical deterrence/evolution.

*chuckles* The short mindeness of the American hick. If you'd care to look further then your nose you'd find that you really have 2 choices.

Go the way of the Soviets and try to support a military that your economy wont support and eventually end up with a military that opperates jets held together with rubber bands and used chewing gum.
Or try to go to something you can sustain.

Really I would love to see 800 F-22's flying overhead trust me. But if buying 800 means, that we'll run out of money by nex year and won't be able to keep even 100 flying. Then I'd prefer the 183 while keeping em up and runnin.

There's one thing worse then having a few F-22s: Having none while knowing you could have had 200 of em if you'd turned your brains on.

My point is, the Soviets went down to very different factors, the main being that their economy was in the gutter and they still tried to keep the Soviet military as it is or if possible: Boost its power.

I wasnt talking about exact figures, heck replace the 800 with a million for all I care, it´s not about the numbers that came out of my mouth, its about the point I´m trying to make.

My point is, the Soviets went down to very different factors, the main being that their economy was in the gutter and they still tried to keep the Soviet military as it is or if possible: Boost its power.

Eventually this became fatal for the soviets and they didn´t just take a few steps back, but they ended up with a military that was almost litterally held together by the rust that it generated. I´m not trying to make a point against the FB-22 because it will likely save a lot of money compared to designing a new aircraft from scratch. My point was directed at Beazz, the thing is that I actually agree with what he´s saying but at the same time am smart to know that spending more then you can afford isn´t exactly going to bring good end-results. Just look at what happened to the civilian example of this: the American housing market. Civilians decided to take out a morgage they couldn´t afford just for an extra batch square feet. They could have stuck with a slightly smaller home and would have been fine. They however didn´t and ended up not with a smaller home, but with nothing at all.

Well guess ya saw by now the great leaders demand that the military cut a full 10% ( over $50 Bil) from the defense budget?

Um no. They haven't officially released the FY10 budget request but the office of Management and Budget has stated that the Obama administration is setting a cap at $527 billion for the baseline DOD budget with war costs being funded seperately. Thus it's actually a 14 billion dollar increase over FY09 and is what Bush's adm staff "thought was a right number last february". That $50 billion dollar "shortfall" comes from a JC unpublished budget request of $589 billion which is $76 -- or 15% increase -- billion increase from FY09 which is quite a jump for one year.

BDF

Hell the $82 billion The Messiah has tagged for "wealth distribution" (i.e. taking money from productive members of society and rewarding deadbeats with it) could buy us all the F-22's we could want.

Haha yea... like his predecessor gave the ultra-rich hundreds of billions to bail them out of the sh*t they caused. Good times.... See the thing about a military is, there needs to be something left worth defending and something to tax so you can fund it. Even in the USA money doesn't get drawn out of a magic hat. It's prettymuch the Chinese that do it for ya.