You raise very good points. We as a nation aren’t good at predicting the next war. That’s why I want to fill the skies with Raptors, and give grunts whatever tools they need to keep safe.

We would have 100 raptors disassembled and being reverse engineered by the Chinese… but our pilots have better training.

However – The Chinese are seeking parity with our pilots. Give them 5 or 10 years, about the time we’ll get into a war with them… it won’t be pretty.

You need better pilots and air craft… it’s not an either or option.

Besides, do you think Obama would “invest” money in future weapons systems? No. He’s not going to push for any fighter beyond the Raptor, which our scientists should be working on right now…

Not to mention, who will want to work in R&D if you’re never going to build any more planes. It becomes a self-fulfilling, mutually reinforcing process which cannot be reversed in a timely fashion by a future administration.

We see this going on with our nuclear weapon R&D, which multiple articles have documented will become virtually defunct in a few years as those with experience die off, as we refuse to fund weapons modernization. And since Obama has written that he wants to ban nuclear weapons, continued inaction may well serve his purpose by default – at least regarding the U.S.

(BTW, I was not connecting the F-22 to fight Osama; rather my “post 9-11″ reference was referring to a world outlook of complacency under Clinton particularly that 9-11 should have shaken us out of, but we seem to heading back to.)

Please know, that the F-22 is already in the inventory. Based on past performance, it will get cheaper and better and eventually replace the F-15. It has unique and amazing design specs. It will be around for many decades.

At some point within that time-frame, the cost of maintaining, upgrading, or replacing F-15′s will equal or exceed the cost of procuring F-22′s. Another administration will probably be making that decision.

In the mean time, if your concern, like everyone’s, is 911esque world terrorism, then I would submit that overwhelming numbers in cutting edge F-22′s won’t help. The F-22 is an air superiority platform and functions off the notion that the enemy has advanced air power. Osama and his minions don’t command an Air Force.

Oh, by what you are saying todays F-22 variants may not be the best suited variants for war in 2020, and to allow these current models to limited the force come 2020 we should not expect the same superiority as they F-22 enjoys now.

On the other hand, once the F-22 is sorted out, it’s pretty cool that it can target and kill multiple aircraft before those aircraft even see them in the combat envelop. That’s a force multiplier worth factoring in.

I’m for measured development of the F-22. In the near term though, I agree, that a quantitative response is money better spent.

That said I concur with what Civil wrote above, you just never know if this will be the last purchase allowed when you have a Leftist Dem in charge of the purse strings.

I defer to others here a RedState who understand military contracting and weapons development, which I don’t have the background. However, you do make a what seems from my inexperienced perspective a reasoned case for limiting this round of purchases of the F-22 on “gamma testing” grounds – that we’ll be better off viewing the first generation as a debugging tool so that future F-22′s can do much better rather than buying the first model version up front.

So here’s the question: do you really believe that the current Adminstration headed by Obama really has any intentions to continue to develop the F-22 with an eye towards future purchases of an improved model – or is their intention to shut down the pipeline completely, asserting that the U.S. will never need more than the current numbered purchased?

If the former, then this decision to limit purchases is arguably a good investment in our future. If the latter, then we’ve got a big problem brewing down the line, and we’d better stock up now before the plug is pulled.

Now neither of us are privy to the inner counsels in Washington, but given the history of past post-Vietnam Democratic administrations, such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and the way they defunded military programs to raise funds for domestic programs, my gut and the evidence to date tells me that these new guys want to shut down the pipeline, since I’ve reading much more the arguments that we don’t need this plane.

You’re the first person with the argument you’ve presented, but you aren’t forming Administration policy.

Especially when I see who are the civilian people making the decision, and how many subscribe to to the anit-military 70s America as an imperialist power view, given that many come out of that era, which I had to live through too – so I recognize the language and phrases. Along with my hearing in the background the view that the “military-industrial complex” is responsible for starving social programs, and that if we cut them off at the knees, the “peace dividend” would be enought to bring a social utopia.

This puts in me in awkward spot, as how to sort out between what may be an optimal approach and the realities of the guiding philosophy of our Washington leaders – both in the Administration, as well as the same Congress people who railed against funding the military when they last held unrestrained power.

Essentially, it’s a matter of distrust. And in this post 9-11 world, that’s a bad spot to be in.

An important factor is that maintenance and flying time uncover design weaknesses. (all new platforms have them) These are addressed and logged for the current build. They are ultimately incorporated in the next major build (new suffix) along with further mission capability requirements.

With the current deployed force build of just under 200 aircraft , all this will be sorted out and upgrade costs will be lower because of a reduced fleet to retrofit. When the next order occurs, (and they will) changes and upgrades will be incorporated in that build. Many of the current Raptor aircraft will undergo a complete upgrade to a new model. I’ve been involved in complete model upgrades for F-111′s and they cost almost as much as a new aircraft…in that case anyway…but they were a “unique” (meaning dog) case.

The sunk costs on engineering, fixtures, and manufacturing along with known changes/fixes usually reduce upgrade / build costs yielding a cheaper, better aircraft.

Replacing an aircraft like the F15, is not just a matter of decommission. It also involves huge costs for conversion of maintenance, processes, training. peculiar equipment, etc. to deploy the replacement aircraft. The current reduced deployment of Raptors, will still drive this and ultimately bring the cost of the next generation down.

The F-22, is poised to be the F-15 replacement. Right now it’s a matter of messing with the full roll out timeline. All military weapons platforms have a development time (even after deployment) measured in decades, not years. Future orders are inevitable… unless the platform is a complete dog.. not likely in this case.

I would be BSing if I stated, as fact, that a slower build and deployment would yield substantial savings. It may or may not. Military contracts and costs are complex and difficult to predict. I do know that cutting the production right now won’t hurt our mission readiness and may help the next build to be far better and cheaper.

The training required for new pilots and to maintain the best of the best in experienced pilots puts many hours on life-limited airframes over the years. These things wear out and once the line is shut down, producing new ones will be next to impossible.

Ntrepid
Proud Member for 4 Years and 10 Months

And it would be a repeat of the way we won the Cold War – force them to spend themselves into bankruptcy in order try try to respond to our capabilities.

So, with that said, are you saying that regardless of the per unit cost being lower it would be more expensive in the long run because of maintenance costs?

If so, does that take into account the increased per unit cost if we were to do short orders spanned over 10-20 years?

And would there be any comparable saving created to cover the costs by decommisionig the F-15′s and the maintenance costs incurred by them.?

The down side was that they fell below a 40% combat ready rate, sometimes hitting 20% (lots of 12 hr. shifts to improve this) But it got sorted out, and today, the F15 holds the record (see Jane’s) as the most successful air superiority fighter. F-15′s now maintain a pretty good combat ready rate…but that took almost 20 years to achieve.

The F-22 is beyond amazing. In one exercise, a single Raptor defeated multiple F15s. The problem, as most of you former zoomies must know is that combat worthiness depends on combat readiness. The Raptor will likely need a decade to mature.

So, a force of just under 200 aircraft will help keep costs down as further development eventually yields a C, D, or E model that is mature, cheaper and more reliable. In the mean time, and under the short term threats we currently face, let the Eagle keep flying and buy the time needed for the Raptor to completely replace the F15 as our first line air-superiority fighter. It makes good financial sense and opens the door for great future F-22 contracts.

I have associates that work on the Raptor program. so news of any cuts affects them. But they are all great engineers and will be deployed on other programs, some already have been.

For the reasons I touched on. I think the downsized F-22 program makes sense and ultimately will give America, a mature ultimate fighter, at a reasonable cost.