I was checking out the latest Air Force news and this article is a jaw breaker:
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,88282,00.html?ESRC=airforce-a.nl
I don"t know what to think about it yet. Since the Air Force has cut back it’s initial orders, Lockeed Martin needs to look for other buyers. I guess we’ll see what happens.
I suppose you guys can start your “What If” versions of the F-22 in other national markings.
Later on…
Tom [8-]
mmhhh, that’s a very expensive toy. As the article states, there are not a lot of countries which can afford such an aircraft. As a rule of thumb I would think that only the countries that where willing and able to pay for F-15’s can afford it’s replacement.
But “what if”'s are always nice: how about this little scenario:
India is an up and comming economy, it currently uses a lot of different fighters like the MiG-29, Mirage 2000 and Su-27. In 2010/2015 al of these fighters wil be to old. To replace them all and standardize the fleet India makes an package deal buying JSF and F-22 I (for India). In this way it can finally establishe itself as a new super power.
I would hope so!
This is not really a surprize, as I recall, it became clear toward the end of the prototype stage that the Raptor was going to be a much more expensive procurement than initialy thought and the America itself was going to reduce the planned number it was intending to take on.
This situation would naturally leave a huge amount of investment and development costs to offset.
Really the only way would be to offer it in some form on the export market.
As for the comment of a “watered down” version, this is sensible from various aspects, not just American security intrests, different nations have different defensive needs and mandates. Take for example Switzerland, it has Hornets, but they are optimized for interception, their mud moving capability is non existant. Why pay for the full package when you’re only going to use certain parts?
The Raptor is most certainly one very expensive package, so to see any decent sales of the type, it really has to be made as a pick-and-choose systems deal for anyone even remotely considering buying them.
I think there are some nations that could get the full Raptor package, maybe even subsidized if geographically and politically the nation represents a strong intrest for America. Israel certainly comes to mind, and considering the sabre rattling going on with China these days, Japan or even Australia might be considered potential candidates for a full Raptor package.
Raptor on the export market should came as no surprize, it really is the only way to make it come close to monetarily paying for itself.
I’ll buy one, what the heck.
Hm yeah I’d agree it’s not too surprising. The fact that the U.S. isn’t buying enough makes me wonder if we should building all these high-tech aircraft, and just go with designs similar to the A-10; cheap, easy to repair, and extremely reliable. However I really wish the U.S. would stop selling it’s technologies to other countries. Maybe to definite allies, but when they start selling to countries that aren’t definite allies, that is not good. I know I’m probably not giving enough solid proof for my argument, but when we start selling to middle eastern countries and countries that are in disagreement with our form of government, that’s just asking them to use our technology against us. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s the way I feel about it. And I sure hope they don’t sell them to Russia… ever notice how the communist copied most of our aircraft, from the F-15 to the B-1?
I really don’t see too many buyers for even a “dumbed down” F-22. Most of our European allies are either getting the Eurofighter (Typhoon) or waiting for the F-35 so they can replace their F-16s. The only other countries I can think of that might be able to afford it are the Saudis, and maybe the Japanese depending on how they react to the North Korean threat. 10-15 years down the road, maybe the Israelis or Australians would consider it, but the production line will probably be shut down by then unless the USAF convinces Congress to buy more, which is doubtful considering the current and projected budget cuts. I think its more likely that alot of current F-15/F-18 users turn to the Typhoon as their next generation fighter.
Remember when the US sold F-14s to Iran? The USS Vincennes accidentally shot down an airliner thinking it was an Iranian F-14.
I’m not sure who would buy them either… Most of the capability comes from the electronics, so without that, it’s basically a big overpriced fighter. At least I hope they wouldn’t give them the same electronics. With all the improvements on 16, it looks like that will keep going for sometime in foreign sales. Dave http://www.dpdproductions.com - Featuring the NEW ‘Military Aircraft’ Photo CD -
The F22 is also stealthy and can supercruise and has thrust vectoring. It’s not purely electronics.
Ok I’m an armor guy. Tank commander in Desert Storm. When I started crawling around the knocked out and abandoned vehicles, I and my fellow explorers got pissed, reeaallyyy Pissed. Inside some of the tanks we sat across from were american fire control components and sights. You might think its OK for an American company to supply who they want to but when its your butt on the line you don’t want to face your own equipment. You expect to fight chinese or older soviet equipment, not your own. You get the feeling you were betrayed. My expectation is that I go into combat with the best equipment available and I am going to use that advantage as one of my tools to win. When that advantage is compromised I become angry. I could imagine the anger that a pilot would feel if his squadern members were killed by an American made F-22. I’ll quietly dismount my soap box now. Greg.
Thats generally why I say its no surprize to see the Raptor being marketed to foreign customers.
Sad as it is, it all comes down to money and profit. Seems you’re a first hand witness to that priciple, gjek.
Israel won’t get the F-22. Officially, they cannot afford it but the reality is, some of their defense ties to the Chinese have a few people in Washington apprehensive.
Saudi Arabia won’t get the F-22 either. In fact, they’ve announced they’re going to go with the Typhoon.
Australia considered the F-22 before signing onto the JSF program. However, due to delays and overruns, their continued participation in the JSF is in the air - no pun intended. If they pull out of the JSF, I predict they’ll go with either an F-15E derivative, the F/A-18E/F or the Typhoon.
Japan is a potential Raptor operator. Right now there are no plans to permanently base American Raptors in Japan (the nearest would be in Alaska), so it might not be a bad idea for the Japanese to have some in the zip code. The U.S. and Japan have been working on improving their defense ties in recent years.
Blame the procurement process an elected officials for the high cost. Politicians looked at this supposed “Cold War weapon” (never mind every weapon we have is a Cold War weapon) and thought “Why do we need this expensive fighter, there’s no Soviet Union.” So the funding during the EMD phase was cut back and as a result, that slowed down said phase. As a result, the per unit cost increases. Next year Congress looks at the price tag, gasps and the cycle repeats. The same thing happened during the B-2 program and that’s why we only have 20 of those (only 18-19 in actual service as one is a test aircraft at Edwards and one has been retired to the Air Force museum) And it doesn’t help that some press articles have stated that the cost per plane is upwards of a quarter billion dollars per copy when the current sticker price is in the $130M area. And that huge overall pricetag for the program? Guess what, most of that money has already been spent during the EMD phase. So if you cancel it now, you aren’t going to get it back, you’re not going to free up that funding and you’re right back to square one in needing an F-15 replacement that is better than anything else out there.
[i]Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command:
“People look at 183 and say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of airplanes,’” Keys told Defense Daily in an interview earlier this month. “But you have got a couple squadrons doing pilot training, some birds doing test, which is very important, and some in the weapons school working on advanced tactics. Now you are down to 126 airplanes that are actually going to go to war.”
“Then you start building orbits,” he continued. “You have two in orbit, two going to the tanker, and two coming back from the tanker. Two taking off. Two recovering, etc. You divide that into 126 and then you say, ‘Man, I am not putting up very many orbits.’ And then if I have got to put up orbits in two parts of the world, pretty soon you are a little short.”[/i]
And fewer Raptor numbers mean that the airframes that we do get, will accumulate airframe hours much quicker than a fighter normally would.
381 Raptors are needed to equip 10 Air and Space Expeditionary Forces fully and meet its future global demands for air superiority and ground attack. We’ve been cutting back our forces constantly since 1991, yet the number and length of deployments have gone up in that same amount of time.
So the F-15 isn’t going away anytime soon. The Air Force is still working out how to upgrade it’s legacy aircraft. The F-15E will become the cornerstone of the legacy force.
BTW - The Su-27 was the Soviet answer to the F-15, which in turn was a response to the MiG-25, which was very similar to the A-5, which interstingly had a lot in common with the British TSR.2. And the F-35B has some remarkable similarities to the Yak-141. Everyone copies everyone.
That’s true, but on the other hand the Comanche was also canceled very late in it’s development. So the decision makers do make these kind of decisions. They could still cancel the F-22. Who knows?
How do you think the USSR got its technology for the MIG-29 and SUU-27 radar and missile system. It was copied from the F-14A that Iran gave the Russians. Iran was our allies when we sold fully capable F-14’s to them. Later it bit us in the rear.
I don’t know how far along the Comanche program was in relation to the Raptor. But, someone in DC made that decision to (a) help pay for a current “excursion” (b) Comanche would not be relevant to the current conflict and (c) the program didn’t fit in with his vision of what the Army should be. It was straight up, pure politics. I won’t say who it was, but here’s a hint - “Gummie Bear.”
I wasn’t the biggest supporter of the Comanche, but nor was I in support of it’s termination. That’s because I didn’t know enough about it to decide one way or another. But after learning a little more about it, I think the Army will suffer in the long run. The ARH is supposed to be an interm project, and we all know how cheap and capable those turn out to be [;)]. And sure, they could kill off the Raptor program - but they wouldn’t get their money back and the Air Force will be coming right back to them asking for more money to upgrade their Eagles and R&D for a new Eagle replacement.