Guysmiley wrote:And I thought the game console fanboys were funny. Rooskie fanboys are 10x more entertaining. The REAL reason Raptor production was kneecapped was because the U.S.S.R. s%^& the bed and folded like a cheap suit, we were left without a reason to build 800+ stealthy air superiority fighters anymore.
GS,
The real reason the F-22 was prematurely kneecapped was because it was needed to spend every available Tacair relevant procurement appropriations dollar on the F-35 program. Nobody is talking about needing 800 F-22s. But 260-300 units (with about 150-190 being block 35 variants the ones intended to serve beyond 2020), is/was a reasonably calculated tactical number to support.
However it was the unfortunately ongoing, well-intended but flawed stay-the-course cannibalizing JSF program and nothing else (in a budgetary environment of decreasing buying power) which forced by default, things such as prematurely capping the F-22.
Avon -
Thanks for those pertinent links. And as for 'Time-to-Alt-Climb' records go... put me in the group waiting for the day to see an appropriately clean F-15C with GE-132 power make that attempt

The Super-Viper has not yet begun to concede.