Was Obama's decision to halt the F-22 program after the last current production run is over a good decision or a bad one?

Simple premise but this could be interesting.

(note: I've been called a retard for my stance on this. If you think you're being witty, creative, or otherwise sentient in doing so, you're fudgeing wrong).

With our deficit around 1.6 Trillion Dollars(and more than likely to surpass this in the future), cuts like these are very good indeed.

The F-22 is a great plane.

The problem is it more than we need. It has a hefty price tag (More than most other fighters, forget the price though), and it has more than it needs. It has too much radar absorbing material, too much technology and a cargo bay that will carry way more than you will ever use. So, yes, it is a good decision, especially with our deficit reaching some horrid number...
~Vincent

i'de rather see the money spent elsewhere so good work Obama. America has problems more important then making a shiny new plane.

I say it's ok
You guys have many raptors now. No other plane an compete with it at the moment. Only other foreign plane that would be able to is the Berkut, but it's still not in production.
Even without the raptors you still have the strongest air force in the world.

So yes i ay Obama did well. Plus migt only last until the recession is over


PD: Plus, what the hell?! The F-35 Lighting ll is alot like the raptor. Might be only a watered down version of the raptor, but still it's probably one of the best fighter aircraft available. Then we have the F-15, one of the most sucesful fighters ever (and the rdar invisible Silent Eagle is about to get into production). Not to mention the F-16, F/A 18 and the other jets you have.

Naw man. The F-35 is an F-22 that does more than kill planes.

Even after the recession is over their will be heavy government spending to get people back in employment, and also when it gets added on the debt, it collects intrest too.

Meh, investing on weapons is pretty stupid, as clearly satirized in Dr. Strangelove.
Why do you build more weapons? To tell the enemy "Don't attack us", what does that generate? It makes the enemy build more weapons, and what does that make? It makes you build more weapons, better and more advanced, what for? To scare them off, and they don't want to be scared, so what do they do? They try making better weapons, and so do you, and so do they, and then you, and then they, and then you, and then they.. ad infinitum.

It's just the best, most expensive way to make use of science, isn't it? To make the best, most expensive, fastest, scariest machines to kill each other!

Its great fun to watch though isn't it.

No it's not because the F-22 is a piece of shizzle in real combat.

Okay, awesome. It can shoot down planes from 25074074209764820678430 miles away. But it could only manage a draw against an F-16. A freaking F-16. A plane that went into production before the F-22 was even designed.

It's like your grandfather forcing a draw in a boxing match against you. It's fudgeing pathetic and everyone will call you an idiot. Except for the OMGLOLF22LOL.

Which seems to be porn for the Department of Defense and neocons everywhere.

I Dunno watching other countries be pathetic is pretty entertaining to me.




Thats why i like watching British News.

You do know that in this case, the experience of a pilot also counts right?.

And I think for example the F-15 strike eagle is as capable as the F-22. Except you don't see the F22 coming.

The F-22's LPI is pretty lame.

It only is helpful against heat-seeking missiles. Against radar-guided missiles...good luck.

It's not as obvious for radar-guided missiles because of the weapons bays being closed up and all. But still.

I think the f22's best weapon is getting radar lock on the thing is damn difficult oh and i bet it won't do well in a dog fight there's the compromise
Back on topic i think obama did a great job you don't need THAT many raptors

Well the F-35 is gonna beast the F-22. F-22 were just a really good advancement in plane technology.

The Lighting is basically a baby export version of the raptor. Also more versatile. Think of it as the F-16 is to the F-15

Since we already have over a hundred of these things and the Defence Department suggested cutting them, I don't mind much.



I miss the F-14. We love you Tomcats!

Since there isn't any other fighters (or Air Forces, for that matter) that are better than us I think it was a good idea. What they need to invest in is better self-defense (body armor and the like) for our soldiers.

Yeah, I think that the Army is in desperate need of equipment that works. Sure, their equipment is great, but why not make it available to all of our soldiers?

It was a simple decision. Save money by not buying something that is not necessary. This is probably as far as bipartisanship will allow anything to pass.

Not really if you have like 10 su-31 flying around (these costs the same as a f22) you've gotta be kidding if you think the f22 will even have the slightest chance.

i think it was a good decision the f22 is medicore at best vs the russian fighters in dog fight situation

Note: The Royal Navy's F-35s will carry the new Meteor missile, which will be available in 2013.

I think the F-22 just lost. Period.

Well the f22 just costs too much to be able to be really effective in the quantity vs quality debate

Yeah, it does.

The F-35 costs about 60% of one F-22.

Well the chances of allied forces going against eachother is quite low we need russian built vs american built and it's just not cutting it for me. anyways i think the f22 costs way too much
2. the f35 comes in 3 variants the third f35c i think is the STOVL variant which again should cost ALOT so it depends which type do you mean?

The F-35C will undercut the F-22 by more than $40m.

And it's the expensive one.

well that would make the f35c 100 mil which is still almost 3 times that of a su 27
I doubt it's actually costs what it's worth . The only reason for stealth is to foil EARLY warning system that means its not gonna be able to hide all the time , the enemy should be able to intercept it
I also wanna note the s400 (i think that's what it's called) has a deployment time of 3 minutes

As Finway said, the U.S already has 145 of these planes. Really, I'm sure that considering that this is the world's most high-tech piece military hardware, I fail to see why more is needed. The U.S is the world's leading and only superpower. Their current hardware is sufficient in my mind to keep that standing. So I'm sure no one will miss scrapping projects like the F-22 and the Boeing YAL-1. (Yeah, that's an actual Laser plane! )

I think usa just need like a special force of these they costs far too much

They make good missile intercept planes.

Because everyone's got cruise missiles they're gonna shoot at the US any given second

@Sagara: The F-35C costs about $140m flyaway, not much more than an F-16C. The thing about it that the Sukhois lack is expandability. It has the expandability of an F-16 and then some. Also the stealth is effective at close range as well as long range against infrared (heat-seeking) missiles

And hallo thar Phoenix long time no see

@ demon gelly i thought infrared aren't use so often anymore and in close combat the after burners are USUALLY on effectively turning the plane into a huge heat beacon . the only stealth ability would be the mach 1.4 supercruise
I think there's a min range on the stealth. I believe the reason the su-s and mig-s aren't very upgradable is because the russian already took everything out of the design .
yes the f22 is a very good plane but is it worth the money ? no

Well Russian planes can carry radar-guided weapons, but most commonly they use heat-seeking (infrared) missiles, hence, the F-22 was designed with those in mind.

But who said we'd always be flying against Russians? Or Russian planes? Iran exports their fighters. Their F-18 knockoff often carries radar-guided knockoff missiles...

Well who are you planning to fight against?
like english planes or swedish planes? no russian designs . Oh and i heard the russian are swapping to laser guided missiles .
But i think the f22 will only ever be used to it's full capability against other powers like russia or China you don't need a MG to knock out lil fishes

I noted that Iran has largely knockoffs of Western planes. That's what I was thinking of. Also, Iran exports their planes to other countries.

Iran has F-14 tomcats and some russian planes
. Still the Tomcats are mostly not capable of flight because the US, the only other user won't sell them parts.Obviously

Correction: Iran is the only user.

The USN retired theirs in 2006 I believe, if not 2004.

I'm not sure of the date exactly, but 2006 sounds about right. The Tomcats were my favorite, if not for performance, at least for looks.

Yeah. They were only cut for maintenance costs' sake.

Wait, what?

Why is the F-18 replacing the F-14?

We all loved the tomcats sad that it can't stay there forever
I think the fF18 replaced the tomcat because *from a book* the maintenance cost of the tomcat was literally sky high

The F22 raptor is the plane we would be using in a perfect world, however, in reality, it is very expensive, bigger than it needs to be, stealthier than it needs to be, faster than it needs to be, and quite honestly, there is no real need for it. we should be spending our money on making bigger and better F15/F16 etc.

Lordy.

I just read about the F-16XL. Why wasn't it expanded on?

27 hardpoints? WTF?!

EDIT: 27 hardpoints makes the F-35 and F-22 look like Maisto models. The F-22 has 8 (thinking off the top of my head...that may not be the correct figure) and the F-35 has 10.

I would just like you to know that i did not giggle like a little girl when i read this.

yeah you're right, my mistake

I meant like the only other user...ever




well i would say it wasn't fatser than it needed to be, seeing the F-15 strike eagle is faster



a plane with 27 hardpoints? they can destroy a small country's airforce with that

While a temporary cut in the F-22 programme is a good idea for a little bit, the production must be resumed immediately following the recession.

The US Air Force still has hundreds of aging F-15C/D interceptors. Their structure is slowly developing cracks, their engines are worn and their systems are out of date.


From what you've written, I see that you don't know crap about aircraft so please don't act like you do. F-15s and -16s are no longer being purchased. They are not stealthy and do not have a future with the USAF. They were designed to fight World War III, not carry out secret, surgical strikes to kill some terrorists. They are being purchased by foreign nations such as Poland, to boost their air forces before 5.0 generation aircraft are available.
The F-16 and F-15 are 4.0 generation aircraft, designed to combat the newest fighters entering service in the Soviet Air Forces in the late 1970s. While the F-16 ain't leaving soon, F-15s are done. They are fine aircraft but, as I previously said, they are aged. The perfect replacement for them is the F-22. Even though they are lagging behind, China and the Russian Federation are close to developing their own stealth aircraft.

The US needs to begin production of the F-35 as well.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add:
We need to focus on making new systems to make the jobs easier for Army and Marine ground units. Such things as new body armor and deadlier rounds (the 5.56x45mm is a pellet compared to the 7.62x39 used by most "bad guys" today) will help decrease fatal casualty rates in Iraq an A-stan.

Actually it's the F-16 which is leaving soon. All of your F-16 will be out of service by 2025. And while it's true the F-15 are aging, it's the F-15C/D variants. The F-15E also known as the strike eagle will be in service past 2025. Should be noted that this, together with the latest blocks of F-16 are a step between 4.0 and 5.0. The F-16 is an awesome plane and it has been upgraded as much as the Eagle. But it's a more economical version of the F-16. Much like the F-35 will be of the F-22.


Point made, F-15 are not going out soon.

what, and you can't make them stealthy with a simple modification to the design?

because you need to be super stealthy, against an enemy that has no radar.

and aren't many militant countries still using those planes?
isn't north Korea's air force stocked mainly with migs?


excuse me, but didn't we stop using the larger 7.62x52(or what ever) because it was uncontrollable in automatic fire?
Russia stopped using their AK-47, and switched to the AK-74 because of the recoil didn't they?
in my opinion, the 5.56 is a fine round, it may be smaller, but it's still very lethal.
and I don't think the united states just adopting a new round, all of a sudden would be a good idea, that would just throw the whole nato standardazation down the drain, if anything, it should be an international decision.

so, you apparently have time to spell out "Russian federation" instead of Russia. but you can't type out Afghanistan?

No, NATO and Russia do not use the 7.62mm round, but currently, many terror organizations do, because it's still very inexpensive to acquire.

Your last point is rather useless.

I agree with your second point. I don't know why we're putting so much money into developing stealth. But then again, as I stated previously, it's well attuned to avoiding heat-seeking missiles, and SAMs are as a rule heat-seekers. Terrorists have plenty of SAMs.

First point, no, it's not very likely or possible. The entire plane would have to be redesigned and that doesn't make much sense. However, seeing as the F-16XL is still an experimental design, I'd bet money that stealth could be put in that thing for a certain amount of money.

The F-16XL has been around for a while. It was a competition against the F-15 strike eagle, and the later won. It was scrapped for a while and they are testing it out right now hell knows for what


and BTW

The next version of the F-15, the F-15S Silent eagle, will be stealthy, which is awesome because the F-15 is one of the most succeful fighters ever.

Yeah, that's half the reason the F-22 was suspended (though judging from Obama's language, it's dead as a doornail). The other reason was related to the -15SE as well, and that is that the F-15SE will be shizzleloads cheaper.

$140-160m = why lord why

i understand that. but just because they are using that round, why does that require us to?


it's not just possible to cover it with radar absorbent material, to make it sleathy enough for our current operations?

and also, why are we trying to outmatch our own planes? are we in a civil war or something?


oh wait, someone sort of already responded to you for me.