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Enthusiast Joined: Sep 29, 2005 Posts: 24 Status: Offline

December 13, 2005 - The U.S. Air Force plans to change the designation of the F/A-22 Raptor to "F-22A" in the near future according to an article on DefenseNews.com.

According to an article by Gopal Ratnam and Michael Fabey on DevenseNews.com, the U.S. Air Force is changing the designation of the F/A-22 Raptor to F-22A. The move was announced on December 12 by Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley in a speech to the Air National Guard senior leadership conference and is expected to be officially announced by the Air Force in several days.

In the article, Loren Thompson, an analyst for the Lexington institute, is reported to have said that the decision was "unanimous among Air Force and senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld" and that "Air Force officials were feeling a "little expansive" after the Raptor survived attacks during the QDR debates; they decided they didn’t need the extra “A” to persuade the administration and Congress to buy the airplane."

See: http://www.f-16.net/news_article1529.html

Original source: http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F= ... &C=america

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Everyone watch and mark my words. The F-35 will soon be renamed the F/A-35. It will be used to safeguard the F-35 program in Washington with words like, "We desperately need an aircaft whose primary mission is ground attack and CAS. The F-22 primary is air superiority with a secondary CAS and we need a jet that has CAS primary and air superiority secondary." Ahh the wonderful world of politics and government spending.....

Actually, I've wondered for a long time why the 22 got the A and the 35 didn't. Look at the jobs they're going to do and that makes no sense at all. Oh and Hallelujah, the 22 did not deserve or need the A.

LordOfBunnies wrote:

Actually, I've wondered for a long time why the 22 got the A and the 35 didn't. Look at the jobs they're going to do and that makes no sense at all. Oh and Hallelujah, the 22 did not deserve or need the A.

It was all politics to keep the program alive and let the Raptor drivers have something to do in a war besides orbit in a racetrack and punch holes in the sky. And since the outbreak of Desert Storm the Viper guys have exponentially exceeded the real combat time of the Eagle drivers and everyone knows it. Those are the two real factors that pushed the "A" designator.

Thats cause real fighters do all the work!

But I'm happy they dropped it. I always thought it was dumb that just cause it could drop a couple a JDAM's it suddenly was an attack role A/C too. I wonder if there'll ever be an F-22B? The F-22 is already so far ahead of anything else out there and it's expected to be the last manned air platform in the fleet untill the UCAVs take over... Seems like developing a new line of them would be expensive. And the AF has only convinced congress to buy 180... so how will they ever get a B model?

-Aaron

Enthusiast Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 58 Status: Offline

Quote:

Everyone watch and mark my words. The F-35 will soon be renamed the F/A-35. It will be used to safeguard the F-35 program in Washington with words like, "We desperately need an aircaft whose primary mission is ground attack and CAS. The F-22 primary is air superiority with a secondary CAS and we need a jet that has CAS primary and air superiority secondary." Ahh the wonderful world of politics and government spending.....

actually not a bad little trick specially when the retards in washington always justified the axing of the raptor (after 60billion allready spend) by saying that an immature program (dev. cost 40 billion) would be just as good as the raptor specially after the former had almost all its problems sorted out while the latter just had its problems imerging.

TenguNoHi wrote:

I wonder if there'll ever be an F-22B? And the AF has only convinced congress to buy 180... so how will they ever get a B model?

-Aaron

Funny you should mention that. The F-22 was never supposed to have a suffix and never have different blocks. They were all supposed to be identical and interchangeable - all 300+ of them. Looks like they are laying the groundwork to break that program rule too. So my guess is that before too long here you'll see a "B" model. It won't be a two seater though. It will be a Block 20 (assuming current production would be Block 10's) just because it differs so much from the "A" model.

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

Too funny. EA-22. Yeah, Jumper is ok most of the time in my book, but the "A" thing was dumb. JSF has the word "strike" in it's name so no problem if ever that was a worry. Too many PowerPoint warriors in the Pentagon that think up stuff like this. Almost as dumb.... but not quite as dumb as when ACC took over big bombers... all the sudden the 2nd Bomb Wing couldn't have such a limited name and had to be named 2nd Wing to go with multi-mission wing ideas. The name went back a couple years later. Killed a lot of trees over that one just in office stationary. Nice thing about the civilian world is when someone comes up with a stupid idea like that, is you can just fire them and you are done with them.

More political correctness.

I too totally agree that if there is an aircraft that should earn the "F/A" designation is the F-35 JSF.

Oh well, I guess my old "F-22" patch collection will now become applicable again and my "F/A-22" patches will soon-to-be collector's items. Doh

It wouldnt surprise me if in a few months they start calling it the P-22. Rolling Eyes

Sorry im

TenguNoHi wrote:

The F-22 is already so far ahead of anything else out there and it's expected to be the last manned air platform in the fleet untill the UCAVs take over...

-Aaron

I hate this kind of talk. (Im not attacking you here, Aaron) but it doesnt seem right that a machine can take over the coolest job in the world. How in the hell is the Air Force gonna get people to sign up to fly a UCAV?

anyway, i think the truth of the matter is that the "renaming" so to speak serves no purpose, like its been said before, just for the dudes in washington to feel like they are one top of the program, and making a difference by limiting the number of planes that are bought.

Ok, recruiting scheme for UCAV pilots: You rent a convention center in a major city. Next you announce a star wars convention at that convention center. Third when enough nerds have come into the convention center, you lock the doors and start asking who wants to fly them. You tell them its the most advanced flight sim in the world all space aged and stuff. Ok just kidding, but a UCAV pilot doesn't need the fitness a fighter pilot does. A lack of caffeine tolerance is also a plus.

People will do it because there is a long line of people with the "I want to serve my country but I dont want to die" attitude out there. I should know cause there a few I have to work with. Ya suck it up and get over it. I have very strong ideals so I have never been a big fan of respect for this oppinion but perhaps others feel different.

-Aaron

Elite 2K Joined: Jan 14, 2004 Posts: 2815 Status: Offline

LordOfBunnies wrote:

a UCAV pilot doesn't need the fitness a fighter pilot does. A lack of caffeine tolerance is also a plus.

Then why are they all rated officers?

You buy the next round Bunny. Wink

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Yeah, they could get away with dropping the "A", but it will still carry JDAMs.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Hoooooray!

All here please note that the Viper was never designated "F/A-16".

Stupid USAF is the worst service for political correctness and crazy marketing before Congress.

See my diatribe about the SLUF versus Warthog on another forum. More there if we get a response.

The buy of the Raptor( quantity) makes all of us sick (we who know what the real requirements are in terms of maintenance and actual combat capability). Remember that each time you cut a few bucks from the overall package and reduce the total buy that the unit cost goes up much more than what you "saved" in the "cut". The original bid back 20 years ago (yes, boys and girls, twenty friggin' years ago) was for 35 million per copy in 1985 dollars. Go look it up.

Tengu is right on. We don't need a plethora of designations unless the total mission is dramatically different - the EF-111, for example.

later,

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Forum: F-22A Raptor

Airforce to Drop the 'A' in "F/A-22"