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Reply With QuoteFrom memory the other airframes are literally not capable of being upgraded to the full capability of the other airframes.Originally Posted by highsea
A bit like the T1 Typhoons cannot be upgraded to the same standards as the T2 and T3 airframes.
Usually the tooling is cut up at the end of the run. There is talk about preserving the tooling for the Raptor, but no funding as yet.
Restarting production would be expensive- maybe 500-750 million if you preserved everything. Depends on how long you wait.
Raptors are like B-2's. We lose one, it's gone. There's no replacing it.
From memory the other airframes are literally not capable of being upgraded to the full capability of the other airframes.
A bit like the T1 Typhoons cannot be upgraded to the same standards as the T2 and T3 airframes.
AFAIK the frames coming off now are still block 30, which is tape 3.1. Tape 3.2 will bring them up to block 35, due for cert. end of this year. So the 146 can all be brought up to the same standard, it's a funding question. If they make the 3.3 tape, that would probably be tagged block 40, but it isn't funded at all.
The block 20 frames don't matter, they will never see combat.
For a crappy billion a year we could keep the line warm and put out 5 new jets a year. Hell, they could find that in the seat cushions in the Senate.
But Obama hates the Raptor and everything it represents. He wouldn't even give a speech in front of one at Elmendorf, he made them take it away and put an F-15 in it's place.
Why does he hate the Raptor?
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.
Fixed that for you.
Because it won't win the war in Afghanistan, and it's expensive. Those are the problems, in that order.
I'm sure this has been asked before, but how many F-35's are due to be built? Don't the F-22 and F-35 more or less have the same mission?
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.
Very different mission, actually. The F-22 is the replacement for the F-15C, while the F-35 is the replacement for the F-16, old F-18s, AV-8 Harrier, and theoretically the A-10 (in another 15 years or so). F-22 is almost strictly air-to-air, F-35 is air-to-ground with solid self-defense capability.
Among all the partner nations, there are several thousand F-35s scheduled. Most of those will actually be built, I think.
Frankly, Obama has ceded the entire defense procurement strategy to Gates. If Gates told him we needed 180 more Raptors, we would probably get production dribbling on and off like the C-17.
Him too, but my opinion is that he's a yes man to Obama. It wasn't Gates that made them switch out the jets at Elmendorf before Obama would give his speech.Fixed that for you.
Which is cheaper to the taxpayer- the next F-22 off the line or the next F-35?
But wasn't the F-22 outfitted with a whole bunch of air-to-ground avionics and hardware to make it a "multi-role, multi-purpose" fighter?
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.
Not really. F-22's role is fairly limited in ground attack to SEAD and small targets like AC on the ground. It's primarily an air superiority, SIGINT, SEAD, EA, "kick-the-door-down" platform. The block 35's will integrate ground avoidance software for low-altitude attacks, but that isn't really the mission.
The F-35's, dark greys, and Super Hornets are the ground pounders.
May be because Gates is one of few people who knows Raptor's true cost/effectiveness?
Highsea, you expect F-22 to perform SEAD using SDB?F-22's role is fairly limited in ground attack to SEAD
Never fight a land war in Asia.
Of course. Both SEAD and DEAD. SEAD doesn't require hard kill, but F-22 can do high resolution ground imaging, and with ALR-94 can act as it's own organic RIVET JOINT. It can self-designate targets faster and to a higher degree of precision than anything else out there (with the possible exception of the EA-18).
SDB-II will add moving targets similar to the HART-JDAM for Super Hornet. Then you have the JDRADM possibility to add mini-harm capability to AMRAAM.
F-22 can operate cooperatively with EA-18 if needed, but it's the best platform in the world for penetrating modern air defense networks and surviving. Not only that, but it can be in and out of the battlespace before the defenses can even detect and respond to it's presence.
True, but Gates put the bullseye on the F-22 before Obama announced his candidacy for President.
In Afghanistan.
Boeing might have had something to do with it. I hear that Lockheed Martin is currently out of favor due to the F-35 boondoggle.
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