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

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

As I mentioned before (way before the very conveniently timed post article came out) the F-22 problems regarding MX have been flatly overblown by F-22 critics.

From AFA’s daily brief:

The F-22, Bagel and a Smear: The Washington Post’s putative exposé of the F-22 and all its shortcomings, printed on its front page Friday (and picked up as gospel by various wires and blogs over the weekend), was riddled with inaccuracies, according to the Air Force, Lockheed Martin, and our own investigation. The Post said only 55 percent of the F-22 fleet is available for missions “guarding US airspace,” but as we reported recently, the F-22’s combat air forces mission capable rates have been climbing slowly but steadily, and in late June stood at 62.9 percent, according to Air Combat Command. On Friday, Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-22, said in a statement that the MC rate “has improved from 62 percent to 68 percent from 2004-2009 and we are on track to achieve an 85 percent MCR by the time the fleet reaches maturity,” or 100,000 hours, which should take place next year. The company also said that the mean time between maintenance—the number of hours an F-22 flies before it needs service—rose from 0.97 hours in 2004 to 3.22 hours in Lot 6 aircraft (Note these benefited from the Raptor Reach and RAMMP programs). The Post claimed a figure of 1.7 hours. Direct maintenance man-hours per flying hour have dropped from 18.1 in 2008 to 10.46 in 2009, “which exceeds the requirement of 12,” the company added. The Post used out of date figures from 2004-2008 when the rates were higher because the F-22 was a new system. The Post also trotted out the old school criticism of stealth that it is somehow “vulnerable to rain,” but the company noted that the F-22 is “an all-weather fighter and has been exposed to the harshest climates in the world—ranging from the desert in Nevada and California, extreme cold in Alaska, and rain/humidity in Florida and Guam—and performed magnificently.” The information quoted by the Post “is incorrect,” the company said flatly. While the Post led its piece saying that the F-22 costs more to fly per hour than the F-15 it replaces, it didn’t say whether it had factored inflation or fuel prices into that cost and neglected to point out that the F-15 has no stealth coatings to maintain. An Air Force public affairs spokeswoman said the Post did not contact the service for comment on the story before publication. The F-22 passed Follow-On Test and Evaluation Testing in 2005, and in FOT&E II, in 2007, USAF’s test and evaluation outfit rated the F-22 “effective, suitable, and mission capable,” despite the Post’s claims that it “flunked” those evaluations. The Post attributed most of its information to unnamed Defense Department sources.
—John A. Tirpak


And the Air Force’s Take: The Air Force also objected to the Washington Post’s loose interpretation of F-22 statistics, and the paper’s portrait of the fighter as overly expensive, unreliable, and ineffective (see above). Generally, according to USAF’s analysis of the article, the Post either used outdated data or exaggerated problems that have long since been corrected. The Post quoted a variety of F-22 glitches from Government Accountability Office reports issued seven years ago, when the F-22 was still in development. In a four-page rebuttal provided to the Daily Report of 23 claims the Post made in its hatchet job on the F-22, the Air Force dismissed the Post’s claim that the F-22’s stealthy skin maintenance issues are somehow due to rain, and the service said that the Post was wrong in saying the trend is that F-22 has gotten harder and more costly to maintain. “Not true,” the service said. The rates “have been improving.” The Air Force said the Raptor’s cost per flying hour is not much greater than that of the F-15—$19,750 vs. $17,465—and the F-22 is a far more powerful and capable machine. The Post had claimed a cost of more than $40,000 per flying hour. Likewise, whereas the Post claimed the fleet had to be retrofitted due to “structural problems,” this claim is “misleading,” USAF said. Lessons learned from a static test model were applied to production of new aircraft and retrofitted to earlier aircraft; a normal part of the testing and development process. One problem the Air Force owned up to: The F-22 canopy’s stealth coatings last only about half as long as they’re supposed to. The service said the program has put some fixes into play and “coating life continues to improve.” The Air Force also confirmed Lockheed's contention that the mission capable rate had risen over the years to 68 percent fleetwide today.

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Pages/default.aspx

After refuting many of the points in this skewed article myself, I'm glad that the AF and LM are setting the record straight. Hopefully people will stop citing it as a source on here...lol

eleanordriver wrote:After refuting many of the points in this skewed article myself, I'm glad that the AF and LM are setting the record straight. Hopefully people will stop citing it as a source on here...lol

Human beings can be stupid, gullible creatures, often, so somehow I doubt this rebuttel will go anywhere near stopping the onslaught of BS atricles from the meda or make up for lost reputation. I predict these same 'articles' will be used for years to come by suppossedly reputable news companies.
The Raptors repuation is completely destroyed from the point of view of the general public, no two ways about it.

I think we should ask ourselves; why they would want to hurt the repuattion of the F-22?
Bias agenda, supporting Obama and Gates in ending the program?
Maybe...

Maybe they're Obamanites? Those who will always support what the current administration no matter what, who are clearly unable to think for themselves.

shep1978 wrote:The Raptors repuation is completely destroyed from the point of view of the general public, no two ways about it.

You're right, recently we could see many articles trying to discredit F-22 capabilities.

In reference to F-22 maintenance problems we could see that everything is on good way and improvements are constantly made.

Regards

This LM & AF "correction" has nothing to do with setting the record straight, it has everything to do with picking the numbers that support your opinion and trying to make an impression that you've countered your opponents arguments.

Axure wrote:This LM & AF "correction" has nothing to do with setting the record straight, it has everything to do with picking the numbers that support your opinion and trying to make an impression that you've countered your opponents arguments.

The very same can be said for virtually all the media reports, they have a clear cut agenda too and its not just news...

eleanordriver wrote:I think we should ask ourselves; why they would want to hurt the repuattion of the F-22?
Bias agenda, supporting Obama and Gates in ending the program?
Maybe...

This is old behavior on the part of the media. To them, the only real defense "reformer" is one who cancels programs and cuts the budget. They trashed the F-15, M-1, and AH-64 in their early days as wasteful pigs, and all have become world beaters.

Gates' motives are hard to know. Obama's are not hard to know.

Loader2088 wrote:This is old behavior on the part of the media. To them, the only real defense "reformer" is one who cancels programs and cuts the budget. They trashed the F-15, M-1, and AH-64 in their early days as wasteful pigs, and all have become world beaters.

Sure, but can you really argue that the RAH-66 or Crusader was a good idea? That the A-12 was going to be successful without devouring the budget? The media has been instrumental in getting some things fixed that otherwise would have been neglected, like Walter Reed's problems or armor shortages in Iraq.

I would much rather have the media be skeptical of everything than skeptical of nothing.

It seems Senator John MaCain is not an F-22 fan either:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01863.html

lamoey wrote:It seems Senator John MaCain is not an F-22 fan either:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01863.html

Yes, quite sad that he would lend his credibility to undermining future air dominance. One wonders how he could have forgotten what it's like to be shot down in a fighter/attack type in an air war by weapons of a competitive quality to your own. We don't want a "fair fight."

[quote="BDF"]USAF/LM rebuttal to the Post’s hack job on the F-22

As I mentioned before (way before the very conveniently timed post article came out) the F-22 problems regarding MX have been flatly overblown by F-22 critics.


Hope ya don't mind BDF but I posted this over on SP as well. This is also being discussed there.

Beazz

LoL Beazz bro.. is something on your pc end not allowing you to quote a quote? LoL, for some dang reason it seems to never hit just right? Hmmm.. maybe you could just try a quick post edit and make sure that quote show'd up the right way? Not sure.. no biggie, you know.

Prinz - We could all agree perhaps, no matter from which country, that our respective media sources could be fully critical and autonomous in doing so without intimidation.. but unilaterally skeptical? That is more editorializing involving pre-conceived and ideological biases and not so much revolving around standard critical examination?

These analogies are quite silly really. The simple analogy here is that any crazy car nut would love to have a Bugatti Veyron in their garage, but how many can actually afford it??? I am pretty sure every pilot would love to get there hands on an F-22 for "the thrill of it". But the plain and simple truth is that it's faults and expense outweigh it's advantages. When it flies nothing can touch it. But it's economics of scale put it down pretty hard. By the way, if you find a cheap Bugatti to operate, I'm all ears.......