F-22 Raptor Cancelled

BayaWeaver writes "Slate reports that the F-22 Raptor has been cancelled by the Senate. At an estimated price tag of $339 million per aircraft, even the powerful military-industrial-congressional complex couldn't keep this Cold War program alive in these hard times. They look very cool though and have appeared in movies like Hulk and Transformers. But not to worry too much about the future of the military-industrial-congressional complex: the F-35 Lightning II begins production next year! As a side note, in 2007 a squadron of Raptors became deaf, dumb and blind when they flew over the International Date Line."

Comments

Poor Title

[MozeeToby]

Reading the title and summary would make you think that the entire program has been cancelled and the planes aren't going to be used by the US military. This is not the case. The Senate reduced the number of aircraft being produced such that no additional planes will be made. The F22 is already in service and will remain in service for quite some time.

Re:Poor Title

[Kamokazi]

The cost is also a little misleading. Additional units cost ~$130M each (which is still expensive as hell), the $339M figure is total program cost plus build cost divided out per aicraft. That number only decreases the more we produce. So if we ordered another singe aircraft, it would not cost $339M.

Re:Poor Title

[Luyseyal]

Having read about the F-35, I can see why the administration and the Pentagon would favor it over the F-22.

-l

Re:Poor Title

[bjdevil66]

The per unit cost is so high because, unlike past US-built fighters and the upcoming F-35, it is illegal to build an F-22 and sell it to another country, per Congressional mandate. Because there are no other customers available besides the US, and because the US has enough of them (for now), there's no way to take advantage of the economies of scale that could be brought to bear with continued production.

Re:Poor Title

[jpmorgan]

Interesting? Wrong more like. The cost of the program is $39,000M + 187 * $130M. The marginal cost per plane is $130M. $209M of the $339M is the upfront R&D costs, and that money has already been spent. /. should replace the new account captcha with a math exam.

Re:Poor Title

[osu-neko]

I don't know why they went with the F-22 over the "F-23" anyway. It was a better plane on many levels...

Both planes met USAF requirements. One was produced by Lockheed, the company that had recently delivered the F-117 on-time and under budget. The other by Northrop, which had suffered delays and extreme cost overruns on the B-2, and McDonnell Douglas, which was having even greater problems with the A-12 bomber (the DoD would eventually sue them over this one).

The plane may have been better, but the companies behind it where not. Since both planes met requirements and were good aircraft, DoD chose the company with the better track record.

Re:Poor Title

[c6gunner]

That's not strictly true - the F-22 has a decent internal carriage capability. It can carry two JDAMs plus four missiles internally. For strategic bombing missions that's plenty. If you want saturation bombing, get yourself a B-52 :)

But yes, your general point is correct - expanding it's payload beyond that does tend to lose you the stealth characteristics.

Re:Poor Title

[Solandri]

U.S. Imports from China accounted for about $338 billion in 2008. Exports were about $70 billion. The U.S. GDP in 2008 was about $14.2 trillion, so trade with China accounted for about 2.9% of the U.S. economy. China holds about $800 billion in U.S. treasury securities. Even if you add that (which you shouldn't since it's a dollar amount while the other figures are dollars/year, but let's do it since we're talking about them hypothetically dumping all their securities on the market), China's impact on the U.S. GDP is only 8.5%.

China's GDP in 2008 $3.9-$4.4 trillion, so their trade with the U.S. accounted for about 9.3%-10.5% of their economy.

So economically, China needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs China.

Which seems to make sense over all

[Sycraft-fu]

The F-22 is a cool plane, but there are only so many the US really needs. Reason is that they are not carrier based planes, which is how a great many missions are done these days. It also is more or less strictly air superiority, not multi-role. Ok well there is value in that, while there may not be any current threats to the US, doesn't mean there won't be. You don't have good defense, in the real world or on your computer, by staying complacent. However that doesn't mean that there is the need or reason to roll out tons of the things.

The F-35 is more suited to a larger scale production because it is multi-role, and carrier capable. Thus with it likely to come out soon (next year if they remain on target) it doesn't make sense to produce a ton of F-22As. The F-35 also has the advantage of having a good deal of support from other nations, which helps pay for R&D and will also bring unit costs down in the form of increased orders.

So it makes sense to keep the F-22 around for when top-notch air defense is needed, it doesn't make sense to keep building them if an all around more useful plane is going to be coming out. Use what is complete, and use the research from the project on other projects (like the F-35).

Re:Which seems to make sense over all

[Sycraft-fu]

They blow up other aircraft :D.

In terms of what makes a good air superiority fighter these days, it is a number of things:

1) Stealth. If the enemy can't see you, they can't shoot at you. Thus if your aircraft has a low radar signature and thermal signature, you have an upper hand. That was one of the big design characteristics of the F-22A. You'll notice that it very rarely has weapons on the outside. The missiles are instead kept in internal bays. The bays pop open, eject a missile and close quickly. Makes it a hard aircraft to find.

2) Maneuverability. Even though you aren't dodging bullets any more, dodging is still important. This is in part because no matter how good a missile is, it can still be fooled and evaded. However it is more because to get a missile off, a plane has to have another plane in its sights. So you need to maneuver behind the other guy, then he can't shoot you and you can shoot him.

3) Communications. This is important for any military vehicle, but particularly fighter craft. A bomber can very well be given targets back at the base and then sent on its way. It follows a pre setup flight plan, unless it has to evade enemy fire. Not so for a fighter. Your objective is to track the enemy fighters/bombers and engage them. More, you want to approach them in such a way they don't notice you. Well having an AWACS tell you where to go via radio is good. Having the AWACS directly cross link target and navigation data to your computer is better (the F-22A does this). Having fighters than can then take over and act as mini-AWACS in the event an AWACS is lost or unavailable is even better (the F-22A does this too). You need to be able to locate targets and coordinate an attack.

4) Speed. Part of what makes a good fighter good is the ability to be where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. If you've incoming attack craft, you don't have the luxury of waiting. You need to hit them before they are in range of their target. Means your craft has to be able to go extremely fast when needed, even if that means having less payload.

So it isn't as though multi-role craft can't play fighter, and indeed they do, it is just that you can optimize a craft for the fighter role. Same deal with a bomber. The B-2B is a good example of a pure bomber. It can't defend itself, it is slow, it is larger, etc. All it does is drop a LOT of bombs, and do so unnoticed (hopefully).

The F-35 should hopefully be the jack of all trades. Should be a good fighter, good bomber, good attack craft and so on. However as such it is likely to never be quite as good a pure fighter as the F-22A.

Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug

[interkin3tic]

if 187 Raptors aren't sufficient to achieve that in some future conflict

Which conflict would that be? It's not the ones we are in now, which we're going into astronomical debt over. I don't know who has an air force that would rival us, but I'd guess China and North Korea. Either way, we can't afford it even with these cuts. In fact, I think/hope we can't afford to fight ANY more unilateral wars against ANYONE.

Any war/conflict in which 187 raptors is insufficient is a war our economy is also insufficient for.

Re:R&D

[hardburn]

So one F22 (properly maintained and competently piloted) is equal to how many old F16s?

Many. In war games, single F-22s often take out entire squadrons of F-16s before they're even seen on radar.

http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041831

Re:Bad move

[Bassman59]

Thank you, Congress, for sacrificing the nation's safety so you can buy up the problems of those who make bad decisions. Not going to sacrifice power for their bad decisions, t.

Actually, the people who were OPPOSED to continued F-22 production include the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force, and other top brass. The only people who are FOR the continued production are members of Congress whose districts include the defense contractors who build the plane, and those contractors themselves.

IOW, the MILITARY does not want any more of these planes.