F-22 How Many does the US Need?

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F-22 How Many does the US Need?

Post by GZR_Sactargets »

Washington Times
September 9, 2008
Pg. 23

Maintaining Air Superiority

Congress must fund more F-22s

By Phil Gingrey

The F-22A Raptor is the key to America's air superiority, and we need more of them. Recently, however, some have argued otherwise. Many of the dissenters suggest that Congress is considering continuing F-22 production for simple, political reasons. I respectfully disagree.

Continuing the F-22 production is not a political nicety for the Air Force or for the defense of our nation. It is a necessity and the current program of record - 183 Raptors - is woefully inadequate to fulfill the National Military Strategy. This means that after accounting for test and training aircraft, and aircraft in maintenance, only about 100 Raptors would be immediately available for combat. Remember that numbers do matter, given that the F-22 will replace the original force of some 800 F-15 A-D Eagles.

Every campaign analysis study shows the need for significantly more than 183 F-22s. In fact, the Air Force Sustaining Air Dominance study concluded that 381 F-22s is the "sweet spot" for a balanced fleet of fifth generation and legacy fighter aircraft required to support Air Force mission requirements. Even if the Air Force procures all 381 F-22s, it would still require a "Golden Eagle" fleet of 177 F-15C/Ds to supplement the Raptor fleet and fill the fighter inventory through 2025.

It has also been suggested that the F-35 could act as the "affordable" fifth generation fighter. While the F-35 will complement the F-22, it cannot replace it in the air-to-air superiority mission.

Some critics believe that legacy fighters that are largely more than 25 years old, such as the F-15 and F-16, can be sufficiently upgraded and that will be good enough. They believe that in a cost-constrained environment, continued procurement of the F-22 would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, the reality is that these legacy fighters are vulnerable to current and future threats, including those posed by Russian and Chinese advanced surface-to-air missiles such as the S-400 / S-500, HQ-9, SA-20, and proposed 5th generation fighters like the T-50 and XX-J, which are not hypothetical by any stretch of the imagination.

The fact is that the F-22 is exceeding the Air Force's operational expectations everywhere - from Red Flags and Northern Edges to Air Expeditionary Force deployments. Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap Jr., speaking to Jane's Cityforum Washington Conference, points out: "We must do more than just assess the likelihood of conflict occurring at a particular point on the spectrum; we must also calculate the magnitude of the potential loss." While we must continue to plan and equip for the conflicts in which we are currently engaged and those we can reasonably expect, Maj. Gen. Dunlap makes the case that it is absolutely imperative that we have the conventional (non-nuclear) means to deter and defeat the existential threat the enemy that would have the ability to end the "existence of the United States as anything we would recognize ... The magnitude of the potential loss is just too great to make national security decisions based simply on the expected frequency of conflicts where the stakes are not as great."

We don't have the ability to accurately predict the global political and military scene that will face us a generation from now. The F-22 is an utterly essential component in assuring we maintain our asymmetrical advantage well into the future: "The F-22 is the finest [air superiority] fighter in the world. It is by far better than anything else that is out there and better than anything on anyone else's drawing boards. We're very lucky," says Lt. Col. Michael Hernandez, an F-22 pilot.

One need not look further than the current conflict between Russia and Georgia to see that future potential conventional military threats are very real. It is our responsibility as a nation to ensure that the military we procure today will be a force available and ready to defend America and our interests for the next three decades. We simply must do all that we can to have our troops prepared to defend our freedom with the best possible equipment in order to shorten wars and save lives.

In recognition of this, the House Armed Services Committee acted appropriately by providing funds for advance procurement to continue the F-22 beyond the program of record. Despite this, decisions made in the coming weeks during Senate consideration of the fiscal 2009 National Defense Authorization Act - and during conference negotiations with the House - could ultimately determine the fate of the program.

Americans - and the Russians and Chinese - will be watching.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, Georgia Republican, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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Post by GZR_Sactargets »

From AF Daily Report 10 Feb 09

Not Less Than 250: That's how many F-22s the United States needs "for the good of the nation and the world" to shore up its conventional deterrence capabilities for the next 20 years, writes Rebecca Grant in a new study she authored for the Lexington Institute. The F-22 is crucial for conventional deterrence because it gives the US the ability to conduct tailored, proportional air strikes in the face of evolving threats and also to gather valuable intelligence information over defended areas that otherwise "lock out" other airborne assets, she states. The US would be taking a risk by halting F-22 production now and could see its policy options cramped in coming decades by the limits of its own military power, Grant says. "If the F-22 fleet remains stuck at 183 aircraft, it will put future conventional deterrence abilities at risk," she writes. Commanders may not have enough of them to defeat threats with confidence and "the overall life of the fleet would be used up years before it should be, due to heavy tasking," she states. The Obama Administration has until March 1 by law to inform Congress whether it intends to keep Raptor production going beyond 183 aircraft.
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Post by MIKE JG »

Wonder if LM has a "buy 10 get an extra one for free deal" going these days.........
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Post by GZR_Sactargets »

Maybe someone is less confident about an F-22/F35 mix??
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Post by MIKE JG »

Tough times right now. Not exactly like our country has extra cash to spend. Of course being the government, they can always just print more money.

Maybe the F-35 isn't living up to expectations. I keep reading things like too heavy, too little power, etc.
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Post by GZR_Sactargets »

From AF Daily Report 12 FEB 09
A Quality Product: With just slightly more than two weeks to go until President Obama must choose whether to keep the F-22 in production, Lockheed Martin is portraying the airplane as a model program exceeding expectations. Larry Lawson, Lockheed's program manager, told the Daily Report yesterday that nearly half of the F-22s delivered last year had zero defects—an "unprecedented" achievement in fighters, he said. "There are some fighter programs ... that have never delivered a zero-defect aircraft," even at maturity, Lawson said. (Note his emphasis on "never") And, none have been as complex as the F-22. The learning curve is the highest ever seen for a fighter, costs are down about a third from early lots, and the Raptor has enjoyed wild success in Northern Edge and Red Flag exercises, he said.

F-22, For the Record: Late last year, the F-22 was verbally trashed by Pentagon acquisition chief John Young, who charged that the Raptor wasn't meeting key performance parameters and was turning in mission capable rates of only about 60 percent. Larry Lawson, Lockheed Martin's F-22 program manager, declined to rebut those remarks directly during an interview yesterday. However, he displayed a chart showing that the F-22 meets all KPPs and exceeds about half of them, including range, top speed, acceleration, and radar detection range. The aircraft's mission capable rates are coming in around 70 percent—which is the Air Force's overall fighter average—but they don't have to meet that level until the aircraft reaches "maturity," which is around 100,000 flight hours. Young dinged the F-22 for needing too much maintenance, but the program is on track to meet a specification that calls for three hours mean time between maintenance at maturity in 2010; it's at 1.8 hours now. In exercises and simulations, the Raptor racks up a 30:1 kill ratio, vs. 3:1 for the F-35, and slightly better than 1:1 for the F-15. All other fourth-generation fighters in US service score a tossup against foreign fighters. Lawson also noted that the F-22 program received two performance awards from the Pentagon in 2008—the Secretary of Defense Performance-Based Logistics Award, and Collaborator of the Year.




Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Keeping the F-22 going will preserve about 90,000 to 95,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly, Lockheed Martin program manager Larry Lawson said yesterday in an interview. It's a great stimulus package, he said: The money takes effect immediately, and there's no uncertainty about how many jobs will be affected, or how much it will cost. The F-22's parts are made in 44 states, with big clusters of employers in Texas, Georgia, Missouri, Washington state, and California. Although final assembly is in Marietta, Ga., the majority of F-22 jobs are in California, Lawson noted.

No Special Deals: The Air Force hasn't asked Lockheed Martin for any special pricing on another three-year multiyear procurement of the F-22, company program manager Larry Lawson reported yesterday. The F-22 will be judged on current costs, which stem from the current multiyear deal. The flyaway unit cost of a Raptor is $140 million, Lawson said during an interview, and could go down some more. However, given that the F-22 is replacing about 880 F-15s, it's a relative bargain when factoring the highly increased survivability it offers over fourth-generation fighters, he said. (Note: New-build F-15s cost about $100 million apiece, based on the most recent sales to Singapore and South Korea.)
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