What would have been the per unit cost of F-22....

[sferrin]

Yep, they killed it just as the curves were flattening. A lot of the media people who killed it then went straight after the f-35.

Just as I said they would. It was utterly predictable. All those whining about needing a "true multirole aircraft" started attacking the F-35 as soon as the F-22 was killed. Pierre Sprey, Everest Riccioni and Bill Sweetman (LowObservable) were some of the worst in that regard. The first two thought anything more capable than an F-16A (no BVR, no 24/7 attack capability) was a "Gold Plated" waste of money.

[XanderCrews]

What would you rather have: 100 F-35 and no loyal wingmen, or 72 F-35 and 72 loyal wingmen?

The answer is, "it depends." Don't we need to know the capabilities and capacities and other factors along with our strategic and tactical aims and mission sets and other assets as well?

The US GAO once advocated cancelling the Super Hornet since we were going to have F-35s before you knew it and thus SHs would be a redundant capability.

take a deep breath, you've got shiny kit syndrome and are throwing it into multiple threads. seeing as this is the F-22 thread, we never even fully replaced the F-15s with the F-22 like we had planned. one step at a time. don't get rid of near term advanced capacities, in the HOPE of future capabilities filling the gap while being stuck with aging and increasingly obsolete capabilities. Especially when UCAVs and other things like loyal wingman are supplements, not replacements



we also need to understand the limitations and enemy counter tactics of UAV/UCAV they have their limitations, and the people who have been using them in actual war the last couple decades understand this.



Also you should post about this in the Finland thread for some reason. Loke, In multiple threads your posting about programs that are still in their infancy that you declare done deals. Its like the Gripen NG threads on Keypubs in 2010 -- remember that? remember your lets say "definitive" posts about what the Gripen NG would do and what it would be as if it had already arrived?

I guess you haven't learned much

[XanderCrews]

I think Congress should have been cancelled instead of the Raptor. What morons . And wasn't it Rumsfeld at the center of it?

All. Gates.

[XanderCrews]

Yep, they killed it just as the curves were flattening. A lot of the media people who killed it then went straight after the f-35.

Just as I said they would. It was utterly predictable. All those whining about needing a "true multirole aircraft" started attacking the F-35 as soon as the F-22 was killed. Pierre Sprey, Everest Riccioni and Bill Sweetman (LowObservable) were some of the worst in that regard. The first two thought anything more capable than an F-16A (no BVR, no 24/7 attack capability) was a "Gold Plated" waste of money.

As predictable as the sunrise. I said at the time there was no argument that was applied to F-22 that would not subsequently be applied to the F-35 as well, And I was right.

[Fox1]

Cancel Congress? Hmmmmm. Now there is the best idea I've heard in a while! I'd feel better about handing their role to a group of 3rd graders and letting them run it as a class project. I bet they would make much wiser decisions and actually get something done.

It was actually Robert Gates that oversaw the end of F-22 production as defense secretary. Rumsfeld served before him and was infected with an acute case of light-itis. His idea was taking our army, built for the Cold War mission of fighting WWIII on the plains of Europe, and transforming it into a lighter, much more mobile force. That spawned the FCS, which ultimately ended up getting cancelled. But I don't remember Rumsfeld being particularly hostile toward the F-22. But he wasn't particularly successful as defense secretary because of what happened in Iraq. The insurgency that he hadn't adequately planned for became the main focus of his from 2003 onward.

Robert Gates took over for Rumsfeld sometime in Bush's 2nd term, I recall. When the Bush admin left the White House, they left the decision up to the incoming Obama admin as to whether to continue F-22 production or not. Gates was retained by Obama and they quickly halted F-22 production at 187 airframes. Gates had a singular focus on buying military hardware that was useful only for COIN, since that is the kind of fight we were engaged in at the time, and that is the kind of fight he envisioned for us going forward. All the while, China was rapidly starting to build up their forces. Soon thereafter Russia re-emerged as a major player on the world stage. And now today, our military is once again planning to fight WWIII against near peer nations. Therefore I can only conclude that Gates and Obama were terrible visionaries, as both the Russia and China issues were emerging before he ever left office! So much for not needing cutting edge technologies, huh? That strategy did not age well.

But that is enough said about this topic. You could write volumes about things our government should have done, yet didn't. And of course the reverse is also true.

[mixelflick]

Cutting planned production numbers, building more... I wonder, do they every ask the PILOTS of said aircraft about such key decisions? I mean, they're the ones taking it into a life or death sitation.

Also, curious to know what Gates' background is. I wouldn't doubt it if the only thing he's ever flown is a kite..

[hogwild]

And could you imagine how beneficial those aircraft could have been when it comes to keeping China in line? Somehow we constantly shoot ourselves in the foot with short sighted decisions.

But China was our great and trusted friend, who could have possibly guessed that they were gaming everyone and really following the Darkside? Absolutely no one saw that coming. In truth I don't think RAAF would have wanted F-22A, it would not have been ordered.

We would have been much more interested in F-15Es ... or ... Superhornets. We went for Superhornets because they looked like Hornets, and we're not allowed to have the really good stuff - no naval nuclear reactors for you!

RAAF barely wants a strikefighter fleet today for that matter, they only have 95 of them. Oh hang on, they sold some to Canada, so not real sure of the correct number today. Rest assured, the number of strikefighters in RAAF service currently, is incredibly dismal.

Don't be alarmed this is absolutely normal for ADF, we are not allowed to have a real military force, token only, can't be upsetting the neighbors by having a real defence capability. That's not polite.

This morning I was pondering the Israeli air force's ORBAT, and that the country currently has a military budget 2/3rd the size of Australia's, yet their air force operates well over 300 strikefighters today.

Such is the marvel of RAAF capability development planning and that finicky cost analysis stuff. That stuff will trip you up every time.

RAAF and ADF would have gone for F-35A even if F-22A were available, they would not have wanted Raptors at all, especially if it was cheap.

If the F-22A had cost 4.7 times more than projected and did not work well at what we need it to do, then this would have been a far more attractive fighter prospect for ADF's capability planners and about 80 of them would have been acquired because they're totally wrong for RAAF's full-spectrum range of roles, and they would have thus delivered almost none of the capabilities required, in a real-world fight, and we would have been left desperately ill-equipped, and under-equipped, and incapable of hitting much, if a really big-bad wolf ever appeared over the horizon.

And the sad thing is, I'm not even exaggerating.

Meanwhile we had total fruitloops like Kopp calling F-22A a tactical bomber, which is an easy mistake to make, if you ignore that the then jet had no known ground targeting capability, at all.

Fortunately RAAF completely blew it, and bought a much cheaper F-35A instead, that can actually do every conceivable strikefighter role/task RAAF will ever need to perform. It is just a pity they do not cost $320 million USD each. If they did Canberra would have bought 300 of them.

But as it is, the current top brass of RAAF are actively trying to convince ScoMo not to buy any more F-35A, as something massively better just might come along some day, and then all we will have is 100 F-35A and 35 Superhornets for some garnish.

Amazingly, I'm not even exaggerating.

Bold emphasis mine.

Canada is buying 25 Legacy F-18 A/B Hornets from RAAF. 18 flyable airframes, the remainder for parts. To be upgraded to CF-18 specs and added to the fleet.

Canada really finds dual engined aircraft very attractive. Our large Arctic component coupled with SAR(Search And Rescue) services that don't get the support of the government (equipment/money) etc. that the excellent people people that crew these assets deserve, makes for very long survival times for downed aircrews.
I remember back during the CF-18 selection that two engines were pretty much a make or break so far as selection. There's much of that thinking this time around. Military aircraft engines and systems have come so far over the last 3-4 decades perhaps single engine craft could suit Canada. Oh if only Canada could have bought some F-22's, We MUST get something new for the RCAF. A saving grace is that the 138 CF-18s are carrier capable aircraft that were forced into exclusive land based operations since we got them in 1981.. The lack of the pounding that carriers ops delivers has saved these airframes, along with the intensive upgrades that were completed a few years ago.

A question.... When first fielded, was there any sort of A/G targeting capability for the 20mm Vulcan (EDIT Of the Raptor?

peace
Hog

[BDF]

General observations. Comparing the Raptor costs to anything in full rate production is highly problematic. First, the Raptor line was designed for 36 or 48 a year; I can't remember now. It never had a formal production ramp and never got close to FRP. I've seen interviews from PO officials at the time stating they believed that they could unit costs down to the ~$100M mark. Estimates varied from $80M to $110M a year had they been allowed to ramp to FRP.

The F-22 really came under fire from Rumsfeld and in particular Gordon England in the mid 2000s. Some of this was Rumsfeld's "transformational" ideas but quite frankly IMO a lot of this came from the cost pressures associated with invading Iraq. From a modernizational perspective OIF was a massive albatross around the neck. It sucked funds from the acquisition budgets that would've gone towards modernization.

That being said, IMO the real goat during this timeframe was Gordan England. I don't recall the reasoning but he hated the Raptor and tried like hell to kill it. There were several pentagon studies that looked fleet requirements and none of them agreed with his decision so he kept them classified and withheld them from Congress, much to their ire. Apparently the bare-bones minimum those studies came up with was 260 jets.

Its unfortunate that we're here now. I'm hoping we can get enough airframes out of NGAD this time around.

[XanderCrews]

Its unfortunate that we're here now. I'm hoping we can get enough airframes out of NGAD this time around.

Would you like the bad news now or in 20 years?