Golly! I can use big fonts too! Ottomaton, what you see is what supports your argument. What I see is the head of the Air Force knuckling under to what the administration wants. Whatever floats your boat. And, just an FYI, the F-22 can be configured for close air support, as well. And no one, no one, has denied that it is clearly the finest fighter aircraft on the planet, now and into the foreseeable future.
This, in a nutshell, is why the nation is going bankrupt. If they can't cut any money going to the military, how are they supposed to cut the growth in Medicate and Social Security, which affects all voters? Impossible
Just got back from Napa Valley, mostly Calistoga in the north. Fantastical! Walking around outside is like being in air-conditioning. Wonderful vino, incredible scenery, plants and flowers you hardly ever see here, or several times the size, if you do. Had a short visit in San Francisco, which I love. A great trip during a brutal Texas drought/heat wave. Wish it had been longer.
The R&D is a sunk cost at this point. You won't make the investment wiser by sticking to the wrong course of action. Besides that, I don't think all that R&D is wasted when you close production on the F-22. The things they've learned in building that one will be helpful developing the next one. The production facilities can be retrofitted to build something else. There's some loss there, but building more F-22s won't make that better either. What's the return on investment at this point on more F-22s? There's a value on air superiority, but you get diminishing returns with each additional plane you build beyond what's needed, especially if the plane is ill-suited to the jobs you expect to give it.
what wineries did you hit? I was in SF for two weeks, before and after the 4th, but only spent one afternoon in Sonoma, mostly at Sonoma Train Town, malheureusement... couple of faves near Calistoga, Ladera , which is up on top of howell mtn, Viader, a little further down, Conn Creek, which is on the Calistoga Trail, and the highly irreverent Dutch Henry. they all make smashing wines. Ladera in particular not only makes great wine, is also a beautiful facility (and small), 1890's building, one of the original, preprohibition era wineries.
The value is that it is by far the best plane. It can do the job of the F-35, but not so much the other way around. If we were to move quickly and kill the F-35 you could easily get more capability with a combination of heavy bombers and F-22's than a cost equivalent of F-35's. CAS has changed with precision munitions, and heavy bombers are carrying the load in Iraq and Afghanistan. The biggest issue being they can stay in the air for 12+ hours and in the case of the B1-B it can be anywhere on the battlefield in minutes carrying many times the ordinance of your average F-16 strike package. There will always be a place for CAS aircraft to engage using the MK I eyeball, but to say the F-35 is suited to this role is laughable. It just doesn't haul iron. I'd also like to say, that the cost of the Super Hornet is something like 50 million dollars each... and if you're looking to cut costs you do so by getting what you need to patrol the skies with the F-22 and get something cheap and still capable, to drop bombs. In short, stop spending money developing an inferior product when you can spend money actually procuring the best fighter in the world.
You are dumping all over the F-35 for no reason. They are both suited for their roles and should play them both very well.
No, it's not for no reason. Congress and the White House are debating the F-22 and what is more pertinent to the discussion than which aircraft we should purchase and how many and what are they used for? Why would you send an F-35 into a heavily defended area if you can send a cruise missile or the stealthier, longer range and more capable of defending itself F-22 or the much stealthier B-2. Then the question becomes if all it's doing is flying over uncontested airspace, why spend a fortune on a stealthy replacement for the F-16 when the big bombers are much more efficient or Super Hornets are much cheaper? To those who are saying we don't need to spend so much on the F-22, do you realize that the bill for F-35's is coming at around 200 billion in an era where one heavy bomber can drop 80+ precision guided bombs, the A-10's AC-130's will do the close up dirty work and a few more F-22's will guarantee the bombers and Warthogs operate unopposed?
lpbman makes an excellent point (he usually does on these kinds of issues), but the developing F-35 does have a couple of things going for it. There is a variant being developed for the Marines and the Brits that is a VTOL for their short-decked carriers. That version is supposed to be pretty far along (from what I remember) and is worth pursuing. There's also the conventional carrier version that the Navy really, really needs. Their aircraft are also getting long in the tooth and need replacing in the "no so distant" future. Those variants are worth getting, both for us and for our allies. They are going to take time, however, and building another 80 or so F-22's would be a win-win, IMO. They give us an adequate number to handle any combination of conflicts likely in the future over the next few decades, give the F-35 program time to continue development of a complex, versatile, if not as good performance wise, fighter that fills real needs in those two areas. It could eventually replace the export fighters our allies need in the future, just as we need to replace ours. The time frame is just extended, while we retain our clear superiority in the face of aircraft nearing the end of their useful life span. A superiority we desperately need to retain in the face of potential rivals ramping up their military capabilities. Air superiority has been demonstrated time and again as vital to war winning strategy. While it is easy to say we have that already, and we do, what most don't realize is that many of our best fighter aircraft are just about at the end of their useful lifespan. Had we not squandered our treasure (and blood) in Iraq, the ability to spend for these programs, as flawed as the development of them has been, would be relatively easy to bear. Things are far more difficult when it comes to finding the money for them, without question. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue these programs. Our national security in a world more complex, and more dangerous as time goes by, has to be paid for with an eye not only to the present, but to the future.
[rquoter] U.S. Senate Votes to End Production of F-22 Fighter By Gopal Ratnam and Tony Capaccio July 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate voted to end production of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-22 fighter jets at the 187 now on order after President Barack Obama threatened to veto any measure containing money to build more. Senators voted 58-40 for an amendment striking $1.75 billion for seven more F-22s from a defense spending measure. The amendment was sponsored by Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and John McCain of Arizona, the panel’s ranking Republican. “The time has come to end the F-22 line,” Levin said on the Senate floor before the vote. “This is a difficult decision but one we are comfortable with.” Obama said he is “grateful” to members of the Senate who voted to end production of the F-22. “At a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, this would have been an inexcusable waste of money,” Obama said at the White House. The overall measure authorizes $680.4 billion for spending by the Defense Department in fiscal 2010. The Senate plans to pass the legislation later this week. It must be reconciled with the House version passed June 25 that provides $369 million as a down-payment for 12 more fighters. Lawmakers seeking to continue production of the fighter argued that ending it would cost thousands of jobs. “We are told that there are at least 25,000 direct jobs and 95,000 indirect jobs at stake” if the production ends, said Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut, where F-22 engines are made. ‘We Do Not Need’ The president, in a letter to Levin and McCain on July 13, said he would veto any budget bill that contains money for more F-22s. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military leadership “determined we do not need these planes,” he said. The bill the Senate is considering authorizes spending. The Senate and House committees that appropriate money for approved spending haven’t acted on the Pentagon’s budget. Lockheed will “support the U.S. government’s final decision on the F-22 program,” company spokesman Jeff Adams said in an e-mail. Lockheed fell $6.98 or 8.5 percent to $75.13 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. United Technologies declined $1 or 1.8 percent to $53.97. Boeing rose 82 cents or 1.9 percent to $43.02. Gates, in a July 13 letter, told lawmakers that the Pentagon preferred the F-35 Lightning II or Joint Strike Fighter, also made by Lockheed, because it’s a “half-generation newer aircraft than the F-22 and more capable in a number of areas such as electronic warfare and combating enemy air defenses.” Buying F-35s The Defense Department plans to buy 500 F-35s during the next five years and about 2,400 over the life of the program, Gates said. If the Pentagon is forced to buy more F-22s it will come at the expense of other Air Force and military programs, Gates said in the letter. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail that Gates understood that “for many members this was a very difficult vote, but he believes the Pentagon cannot continue with business as usual when it comes to the F-22 or other programs in excess to our needs.” Ending the F-22 program wouldn’t be a negative for Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed because the company will more than make up for it with rising production of the F-35 or Joint Strike Fighter, said James McIlree, a New York-based analyst with Collins Stewart LLC. Efficiencies “If you fund the F-22, you might end up taking money out of the F-35 to pay for it,” McIlree said. “You can get manufacturing efficiencies with F-35 volumes. The more you take away from F-35, the longer you wait for the margin improvement on that program.” He recommends buying the stock. Todd Harrison, a defense analyst in Washington, said the F- 22’s capabilities weren’t the central issue in today’s vote. “This debate was about whether having more F-22s is worth having less of something else,” said Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Pratt & Whitney, a unit of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp., makes the F-22 engines in Middletown, Connecticut. About 2,000 jobs there are tied to the program. If no more F-22s are ordered, Pratt & Whitney “would be required to halt orders from our long-lead suppliers in months,” company spokesman Matthew Perra said in an e-mail. “As this production requirement is satisfied, we will scale down our workforce as required.” Northrop, Raytheon Los Angeles, California-based Northrop Grumman Corp. and Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co. co-produce the F-22 radar system. Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, where Chicago-based Boeing Co. builds part of the F-22 fuselage, decried the attempt to stop production. “If we end the F-22 program, we are cutting a link in technology that we will not be able to repair overnight,” she said. Three labor unions -- the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the United Steel Workers and the AFL-CIO -- pressed senators to extend production. The plane supports 25,000 direct jobs and 70,000 indirect jobs in 40 states, the unions said in letters to senators. “Ending the F-22 will result in immediate layoffs,” R. Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the Machinists union, said in a July 9 letter. The Machinists union said in a statement today it will “continue fighting for additional funding” for more F-22 planes. Export Version Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican who voted to fund additional F-22s, said in a statement the plane’s supporters in Congress will continue to press for an export version that U.S. allies may be interested in purchasing. Gates had denied the Air Force’s request to buy 60 more F- 22s and said Congress’s desire to continue making the fighter is a “big problem.” “To be blunt about it, the notion that not buying 60 more F-22s imperils the national security of the United States, I find completely nonsense,” Gates said June 18. On July 16, the defense secretary told the Economic Club of Chicago that backers of the F-22 were using “far-fetched” arguments about its utility to prevent the Obama administration from curtailing production. “If we cannot bring ourselves to make this tough decision, where do we draw the line?” Gates said. The F-22 was designed at the height of the Cold War to counter the Soviet Union. [/rquoter]
Just wait till the F-35 climbs up in costs. We will be buying planes that cost almost as much but offer less performance.
