Bye-bye, F22?

astanley

astanley

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Andrew Stanley
And other programs... from http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/06/gates.budget.cuts/index.html:

CNN.com said:
Among other things, Gates called for production of the Air Force's most expensive fighter, the F-22 Raptor, to be phased out by fiscal year 2011.

He also called for terminating a proposed fleet of 23 presidential helicopters estimated to cost more than $13 billion. The proposed fleet, he noted, was originally projected to cost $6.5 billion. It "has fallen six years behind schedule and runs the risk of not delivering the requested capability," he said.
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Cheers,

-Andrew
 
Suffice to say, the mere loss of jobs is not reason enough to avoid policy in the current environment.

For more, I'd have to go Spin Zone, and I just don't do that.
 
dmccormack said:
...until the affected contractors and subcontractors run to their local congressional offices and let the Representative know what will happen to "hundreds of jobs in your district."

Stay tuned...
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Not likely to be a problem with the helicopters, considering they're, um, un-American. :rofl:
 
Trapper John said:
Supposedly, the plan includes accelerating production of the F-35, for a total of 2,443 units. Sounds like a lot, but I don't know how many F-16s we have, either.

The plan says stopping the F-22 after 187 units, but I don't have any idea how many were planned originally.


Trapper John
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Considering our air superiority even before the F-22 was on the radar (haw haw), I think we're fine as long as the maintenance cost of our current fleet doesn't outweigh the cost of building new fighters.
 
As much as I hate to say it, manned combat aircraft are obsolete. The next war will be fought with UAV's and robot technology. Hello Terminator.
 
wbarnhill said:
Considering our air superiority even before the F-22 was on the radar (haw haw), I think we're fine as long as the maintenance cost of our current fleet doesn't outweigh the cost of building new fighters.
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They seem to do fine modernizing some aircraft to extend service life (B-52 and C-130 come to mind). But wasn't there a problem with wing structure on some F-15s? I guess I don't know enough how they evaluate new versus modernization.

But I think you have a good point, in that having superiority is the goal, not just "running up the score" on the opposition...


Trapper John
 
Anthony said:
As much as I hate to say it, manned combat aircraft are obsolete. The next war will be fought with UAV's and robot technology. Hello Terminator.
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IMHO, UAV's would be sitting ducks for a manned aircraft to blow away. You can't dogfight with a UAV, because no matter what, there will always be a slight lag between the video feed to the pilot, and the pilot's inputs back to the plane.

That said, the newest generation of fighters is now quite capable of maneuvers that would kill the pilot, so I think we're somewhat at the end of the line in terms of manned fighters too.
 
Trapper John said:
Supposedly, the plan includes accelerating production of the F-35, for a total of 2,443 units. Sounds like a lot, but I don't know how many F-16s we have, either.
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Yeah, it calls for 2443 F-35 units by 2011, and there are only two flying examples now. They're going to have to have Cirrus show them how to ramp up production.

As as military pilot, would you rather fly the twin-engine F-22, or the single-engine F-35? I'd sure rather have that extra engine, especially when deep inside hostile territory or over water. Disregarding "turbine reliability" statistics, the military is a harsher environment than civil aviation.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
As as military pilot, would you rather fly the twin-engine F-22, or the single-engine F-35? I'd sure rather have that extra engine, especially when deep inside hostile territory or over water. Disregarding "turbine reliability" statistics, the military is a harsher environment than civil aviation.
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I'd rather have the F22, but I'm not sure what they were thinking when they designed a $140 million fighter. That's twice the cost of, for example, a EF2000. Twice the capability? Hardly.

-Felix
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Yeah, it calls for 2443 F-35 units by 2011, and there are only two flying examples now. They're going to have to have Cirrus show them how to ramp up production.

As as military pilot, would you rather fly the twin-engine F-22, or the single-engine F-35? I'd sure rather have that extra engine, especially when deep inside hostile territory or over water. Disregarding "turbine reliability" statistics, the military is a harsher environment than civil aviation.
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If I'm a military pilot, I don't care who's paying the tab, so that's really not such a good question.

The F-16 pilots I've met don't seem to be all frowny-faced because they only have one engine, though...


Trapper John
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Yeah, it calls for 2443 F-35 units by 2011, and there are only two flying examples now. They're going to have to have Cirrus show them how to ramp up production.

As as military pilot, would you rather fly the twin-engine F-22, or the single-engine F-35? I'd sure rather have that extra engine, especially when deep inside hostile territory or over water. Disregarding "turbine reliability" statistics, the military is a harsher environment than civil aviation.
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The F-16 seems to have done just fine on a single engine...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You can't dogfight with a UAV, because no matter what, there will always be a slight lag between the video feed to the pilot, and the pilot's inputs back to the plane.
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That isn't an issue if the UAV has autonomous tracking, in which case, it doesn't matter how much lag there is. Autonomous would be better anyways. A computer can make quicker, smarter decision faster than any human as long as it is programmed right.
 
wildwobby said:
[snip] A computer can make quicker, smarter decision faster than any human as long as it is programmed right.
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As someone who's been writing software for 30 years and autonomous and semi-autonomous behaviors for 10, I'd have to quote Shakespeare: "Aye, there's the rub!". Real autonomy - even in the relatively forgiving environment of air (Yes, I'm a pilot, but there's a whole lot less to run into in the air. Also no cover & concealed work, etc. etc.) is really hard. That's why most all of the "robots" the military uses are actually remotely piloted, not even semi-autonomous. (Actually, I think our Frankenstein complex has something to do with it as well.)

John
 
flyingcheesehead said:
IMHO, UAV's would be sitting ducks for a manned aircraft to blow away. You can't dogfight with a UAV, because no matter what, there will always be a slight lag between the video feed to the pilot, and the pilot's inputs back to the plane.
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I know of at least one defense person that considers UAV to be just like a missle.... expendible.
 
wsuffa said:
I know of at least one defense person that considers UAV to be just like a missle.... expendible.
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..and at their cost..you'd run out in a major conflict if they were being dropped left and right with them inflicting no damage.
 
wsuffa said:
I know of at least one defense person that considers UAV to be just like a missle.... expendible.
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But you make up for the lag by being able to pull twice the g's because of no meat in the plane.
 
Anthony said:
As much as I hate to say it, manned combat aircraft are obsolete. The next war will be fought with UAV's and robot technology. Hello Terminator.
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This is what I've been thinking, Anthony. Do you really think that's possible? [serious question]
 
Anthony said:
Has any U.S. aircraft been tried in combat against an equal enemy since Korea?
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Wow. That is an -awesome- point. Still, I thought the F-22 was obsolete, but now I'm not so sure.
 
jtheune said:
But you make up for the lag by being able to pull twice the g's because of no meat in the plane.
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Besides, human reaction times are generally in the 200-300 ms range and the round trip signal transmission delay at 100 nm would be more like 1.2 ms so I can't see how the signal delay would matter. Of course if they did something foolish like run the signals through a geosynchronous satellite we'd be talking 450 ms which would be very significant.
 
gismo said:
Besides, human reaction times are generally in the 200-300 ms range and the round trip signal transmission delay at 100 nm would be more like 1.2 ms so I can't see how the signal delay would matter. Of course if they did something foolish like run the signals through a geosynchronous satellite we'd be talking 450 ms which would be very significant.
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More like 560 ms -- I doubt they're that foolish though--but it wouldn't surprise me.
 
gismo said:
Besides, human reaction times are generally in the 200-300 ms range and the round trip signal transmission delay at 100 nm would be more like 1.2 ms so I can't see how the signal delay would matter. Of course if they did something foolish like run the signals through a geosynchronous satellite we'd be talking 450 ms which would be very significant.
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The guys flying Predators in Iraq are in Vegas. At least, some of them are. That's why I think the delay is significant...

However, it sure is good for troop morale. When they're done blowing up bad guys, they stand up, put on their jacket, walk out the door, and drive their car home to the wife and kids. Beats the hell out of being deployed, I'm sure! :yes:
 
Anthony said:
Has any U.S. aircraft been tried in combat against an equal enemy since Korea?
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Air Defenses over North Vietnam were pretty much state of the art. Mig 17s and '21s weren't exactly obsolete either.

The navy downed a couple SU-27s in the 80s with F-14s.

Iraq had modern Soviet and French fighters as well as modern Soviet and French SAMs. The USAF was flying some of the same airframes over Iraq that it flew over North Vietnam.

U.S. aircraft have been tested against roughly "equal" enemy aircraft and consistently come out ahead. Suggesting it hasn't happened since Korea is wrong. The reason they've been successful is the training, experience, intuition and motivation of the CREW in the cockpit. Most of which, our enemies autonomus UAVs can't match with the current technology.

As a military aviator, I would never want to go into a "fair" fight against an "equal" enemy if I had a choice. I'd want any and every advantage I could get and wouldn't care how much it cost. Unfortunately, fiscal and political realities often prevent any equipment advantages and leave only advantages based human factors. That sometimes ends up costing lives but politicians don't think of that ahead of time. Only time and the next fight will tell.

I was talking with an executive from Lockheed yesterday and he said the cancellation could cost a 100,000 jobs. Not good news for the locals here in NW Atlanta.
 
^^^^^^^^


All good points, but I would disagree that air to air equipment was equal to our aircraft. Maybe ground based air defenses were state of the art, but if used properly, the F-4 and other U.S. planes were far superior.

My point is that even with the best equipment if the ROE are too restrictive like in Vietnam, we will lose. We are too concerned with fighting politically correct wars instead of winning. I don't see that changing with this administration. (not going SZ mind you)
 
Anthony said:
^^^^^^^^


All good points, but I would disagree that air to air equipment was equal to our aircraft. Maybe ground based air defenses were state of the art, but if used properly, the F-4 and other U.S. planes were far superior.

My point is that even with the best equipment if the ROE are too restrictive like in Vietnam, we will lose. We are too concerned with fighting politically correct wars instead of winning. I don't see that changing with this administration. (not going SZ mind you)
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Mig-21 vs F-4 is a pretty good match up. Same for F-15 vs Mig-29.

I'm with you 100% on the ROE. Unfortunately, politicians don't beleive in the maxim "Negotiate with the enemy with you knee in his chest and your knife at his throat."
 
maddog52 said:
...
I'm with you 100% on the ROE. Unfortunately, politicians don't beleive in the maxim "Negotiate with the enemy with you knee in his chest and your knife at his throat."
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Should they? Saber-rattling didn't do too much for Kaiser Billy, and there's no country on earth (nor has there ever been) with the resources to conduct gunpoint diplomacy.
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
Should they? Saber-rattling didn't do too much for Kaiser Billy, and there's no country on earth (nor has there ever been) with the resources to conduct gunpoint diplomacy.
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I'm not talking diplomacy. I'm talking fighting after the diplomacy has failed. Once committed to a fight, overly restrictive ROE and denying your troops any advantage is a recipe for failure.
 
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