Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

DarthAmerica wrote:

ls1_ftw wrote:

DarthAmerica wrote:

Why do people say this? You can predict future threats. It take considerable time and money to arm up to these levels. It's not overnight.

-DA

Russia seems to be selling a lot of their advanced Sukhois and air-defense systems to developing countries. These Sukhois and AD networks could put up quite a fight against our current F-15C/F-16C Block 52 fleets.

20 years is an eternity in political terms.

A few dozen Sukhois and a BN of S-300s does not mean squat to the USAF. Its the equivalent of the Iraqi Air Force circa 1991. Fanboys then lamented on how awesome Mig-29s and SA-6 were and the coalition slaughtered them wholesale because of SYSTEMS LEVEL DOMINANCE. Deaf, Dumb, blind, surrounded and cut off they stood ZERO chance. As weapons systems Mig-29s and Sa-6 are outstanding weapons and fully capable of fighting our planes in 1 vs 1 comparisons. But as history proved war is not like that. The same for the modern equivalent SU/S-300 hypotheticals...

It was not a joke what the US/Coalition forces faced in ODS re:IAD. It was layered, redundant, hardened and experienced. However, just like ALL THREAT IADS TODAY AND NEAR FUTURE, it was grossly overmatched by the might of the US led coalition and quite literally doomed before the first shots were fired in anger. Wars are not won at the platform level even if that's where all the media focus is. This is why when the issues of F-22 OR rates and operations cost comes up people should listen. Doesn't matter if the F-22 can shoot down 100 fighters a sortie if you can't generate enough sorties to matter due to maintenance and/or afford the cost of deploying the weapon over time.

-DA

Which ignores a few things. That being air generals at the time stating that the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 would have been significantly more challenging if a few S-300s had been present. Yes they were not. But future threats are just as important as we are committing to spending billions on an aircraft that if it goes forward will be in service over the next 30 years.

Your theory also ignores the fact that the F-22 was also designed to survive against high end SAM threats. That is super-cruise and extreme altitude. And that the F-35 and F-22 are supposed to work together. That is until fan-boys like yourself have made wild and unsupportable claims of F-35 capability.

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elp wrote:

DarthAmerica wrote:

ELP is not credible on this issue. Take the strawman arguement he's pushing about building coin aircraft rather than F-35s in his attempt at sarcasm re: "dirt wars". What he doesn't realize is that it was a dirt war that helped contribute to the demise of the soviet union in conjuction with poor fiscal responsibility. Moreover, USAF F-16s due to their versatility are conducting COIN operations after having contributed to the conventional stages of conflict. A role the F-35 is well suited for. IOW, F-35s have the survivability to fight on the first day and the flexibility to remain until the last day. Relevance throughout the full spectrum of conflict. And it is in the post conventional phases where the USA has the most difficulty when you consider that for the last 20 years we've dispatched all major conventional opponents in days to weeks but remain to this day locked in struggle in the aftermath.

Again, ELPs positions are devoid of any rational basis.

-DA

That is over $888 billion for dirt wars and for what? Relevant since the whole national discussion on the F-22 brought up the wars we are currently fighting.

Your Baghdad Bob approach and judgement of "credibility" and so on is lacking. After all, the F-35 is little different than other defense programs in that it has to first get over the big hurdle of development. Claims of F-35 capability are not "rational" because there is no finished product to demonstrate. But please continue with your nonsense.

No, it's not lacking anything. I may not be the most diplomatic poster on the site. But the information I post is actually credible, backed up and from a person with experience. Its not a "claim" of capability to state program goals. I know in your fanboy mindset that's how things work but in the real world, you have to plan based on the spec. Then you MONITOR the program through development to determine is it meets that spec. So far, the F-35 is doing that and where is hasn't done that, ENGINEERS, have been able to work out solutions. So much so that the USAF and OSD don't see significant risk in the program.

Before you, who thus far has demonstrated complete subject matter incompetence, start calling things nonsense, get a clue about what the actual requirements are. After that start assessing the likelihood of pass or fail based on data. Otherwise stop wasting peoples time with your non technical and often irrelevant comments that are little more than sarcasm and personal attack. If you think a specific thing about the F-35 is a problem, state what it is and be specific so that we can actually debate it on merit. Otherwise stop wasting our time with these silly post of yours.

-DA

elp wrote:

DarthAmerica wrote:

ls1_ftw wrote:

DarthAmerica wrote:

Why do people say this? You can predict future threats. It take considerable time and money to arm up to these levels. It's not overnight.

-DA

Russia seems to be selling a lot of their advanced Sukhois and air-defense systems to developing countries. These Sukhois and AD networks could put up quite a fight against our current F-15C/F-16C Block 52 fleets.

20 years is an eternity in political terms.

A few dozen Sukhois and a BN of S-300s does not mean squat to the USAF. Its the equivalent of the Iraqi Air Force circa 1991. Fanboys then lamented on how awesome Mig-29s and SA-6 were and the coalition slaughtered them wholesale because of SYSTEMS LEVEL DOMINANCE. Deaf, Dumb, blind, surrounded and cut off they stood ZERO chance. As weapons systems Mig-29s and Sa-6 are outstanding weapons and fully capable of fighting our planes in 1 vs 1 comparisons. But as history proved war is not like that. The same for the modern equivalent SU/S-300 hypotheticals...

It was not a joke what the US/Coalition forces faced in ODS re:IAD. It was layered, redundant, hardened and experienced. However, just like ALL THREAT IADS TODAY AND NEAR FUTURE, it was grossly overmatched by the might of the US led coalition and quite literally doomed before the first shots were fired in anger. Wars are not won at the platform level even if that's where all the media focus is. This is why when the issues of F-22 OR rates and operations cost comes up people should listen. Doesn't matter if the F-22 can shoot down 100 fighters a sortie if you can't generate enough sorties to matter due to maintenance and/or afford the cost of deploying the weapon over time.

-DA

Which ignores a few things. That being air generals at the time stating that the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 would have been significantly more challenging if a few S-300s had been present. Yes they were not. But future threats are just as important as we are committing to spending billions on an aircraft that if it goes forward will be in service over the next 30 years.

Your theory also ignores the fact that the F-22 was also designed to survive against high end SAM threats. That is super-cruise and extreme altitude. And that the F-35 and F-22 are supposed to work together. That is until fan-boys like yourself have made wild and unsupportable claims of F-35 capability.

First of all, the only fanboy is you. When is the last time you put on a uniform, strapped on a jet or help a rifle in any warzone? You don't have a leg to stand on calling anybody a fanboy. Second, if you had any clue about geography and warfare, you would not make such nonsense statements about S-300s and Yugoslavia. But for the benefit of others. I'll show your ignorance...

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ima ... toEw_E.jpg

See that map? Ever hear of NATO? Yugoslavia was surrounded by THOUSANDS of allied aircraft and long range missiles/rockets. Not to mention naval and ground forces. Those S-300s would have had 5 minutes of fame before getting pulverized the moment the war started. You know nothing of war and are a fanboy so you reference a missile system that Yugoslavia would not have even been able to get reloads for due to being surrounded. IOW, not matter how good the S-300s were it was FUTILE. AGAIN FANBOY STOP BORING ME WITH PLATFORM NONSENSE and look at the systems level. Not only that, the USAF has a mountain of ELINT/TECHINT data on S-300s. How long do you think our EW assets would have taken to make it ineffective? You are way out of your league.

You think high and fast is the only thing that works? Another geography lesson for you...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ia_Map.png

Pick a point inside the bounds of that country. Any place on that map is within DRIVING DISTANCE OF Main Battle Tanks or ATACMs. In other words we could have driven to the S-300s and killed them. The point is overlapping capability and systems level dominance. Threat platform superiority is countered by our systems level superiority. Think ELP before you lecture people who actually fight wars.

-DA

Quote:

So much so that the USAF and OSD don't see significant risk in the program.

Refer to my thread, Reality of F-35 Procurement: http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-12721.html

The risks that the GAO sees in the program are not with the airframe itself or it's capabilities, but the schedule and cost of development.

And the GAO is only one side of the equation. With the issues identified, they can be resolved to satisfaction. You guys are throwing stuff hoping something sticks!

Quote:

You guys are throwing stuff hoping something sticks!

Nope, just giving you the sources of our concerns. I hope the F-35 is a success - as a matter of fact, I know that it probably will. For the plane itself to miss would require the program to FUBAR in epic proportions. But I am not naive as to think we'll get it on time and on budget. We'll probably get it more on time, and less on budget.

How is that relevant and in what context.

-DA

Sigh...

You said the program has little risk - when in reality the risk is much greater than you assume. Most new weapons systems have quite a bit of risk associated with them. So this is no surprise - the a/c will ussually make it out on the other end. The initial costs however, are for the most part understated. The a/c might end up costing more than what we expect today - indeed, it has already experienced cost growth issues. We just don't know. If we did, we'd have 100% confidence in all programs and wouldn't even start programs that would fail. And yet some programs DO fail. Why? Because we don't have a crystal ball to see the future (though they are working on it in Area 51 Laughing

). Now, I am not saying the F-35 will fail - to be honest with you, the program is well underway, and I don't know of any other program that has come this far along and then failed. However, while the risk that the a/c might not perform as expected is relatively small, the risk of cost growth is relatively big - which basically means that it'll probably end up costing more than what we think it will. That's my point.

If Toyota announced that they were building a hybrid economy car would there be a danger of cost going up to that of a Lexus? Why not?

-DA

The F-35C is the third installment of the strike fighter and costs $60 million per aircraft, according to John Kent, a spokesman for the F-35C program. The $60 million price tag is based on 2002 cost estimates and is likely to be adjusted for inflation when the planes are eventually delivered to the Navy, the company spokesman said.

Spudman told me the figure quoted in 2002 was $48 million.

Perhaps. I don't know or care as long as the price in in the ballpark. The F-35 HAS TO BE cheap in order to sell. It's affordability is its key design goal. And by cheap I'm not just talking procurement cost. I'm talking about operations and support as well. The combination of all of those things must be similar or better than legacy platforms. If it isn't, I'll be the loudest critic. Keep in mind that totally separate from whether or not the aircraft actually does it's job. But it can't cost a fortune to operate this platform and expect to sell them abroad to allies.

EDIT: it would be cool if LM wired them at some point for the option of autonomous operation including air to air refuel. Probably a bit too late for the current design to incorporate but it would add some interesting options if the aircraft subsystems and plumbing could also handle extended durations assuming the materials science was cheap enough.

Imagine an F-35C on a 24 hour CAP having only to refuel every 4 hours or so. That would effectively make that F-35C the equivalent of 3 to 6 manned versions of the same fighter. IOW, a 15 million to 20 million dollar fighter all things considered using 2002 prices.

-DA

That would be formidable if they can make it happen. I guess my overarching point is, as long as the price increases don't get out of control, it's worth it. But we obviously have to guard against that. There has been such an unstoppable upward trend in fighter a/c prices with increases in capability that it's just hard for me to believe the same won't happen to the F-35. However, even I'll admit it has WORK to do to catch up to the Raptor in that respect: it was originally thought the F-22 would cost about $50 million. That figure ballooned to over $140 million, and that's just flyaway cost. The F-35 WAS designed to be cheap but, as I said before, cost estimates rarely survive real life, much like plans rarely survive contact with the enemy.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

USAF/LM rebuttal to the Post’s hack job on the F-22