Gates on the F-22: “Does Not Make Much Sense”

The F-22 is a whole bunch of things, that are all important. The debate is how many we should have. I’ll give my thoughts as a former F/A-18 pilot.
The F-22 is, without a doubt, the best air superiority fighter in the world. It is a “next gen” fighter. Generations are defined by a leap in technology and no doubt the F-22 is a leap forward from F16′s, F15′s, and F18′s. The F-35 isn’t as big of a leap, but still a next gen fighter/attack aircaft. The importance is this, in order to always assure that we control the skies of ANY conflict, we have to have the most capable fighters in the world of sufficient quantity. F22 fits the capability part, the arguement is quantity. I think its a hallow arguement to say we don’t need it “now” with the current conflicts because that is not its intention. As an air superiority fighter, it fits the bill and its the best in the world.
So lets argue the numbers. In a single axis fight, such as with China only, the number of air superiority fighters compared to theirs, generally speaking, would be about 2 to 1 (best guess as chinese production numbers are scarce). Their best fighters, SU-30′s, are comparable if not superior to our flagship F-15′s. In terms of performance is it better than the F16 and F18. Radars and missle technology is comparable. The F22 is clearly superior. Their SU-27′s are comparable to F15′s. If their production numbers reach expected high points, they would have in the future, nearly a 2-1 numbers advantage. This means we need to overcome this with superior technology but also sufficient numbers.
The main problem of maintaining technologically superior air force of today is the long production cycle for those aircraft. If we get into a no kidding fight in the air, we will have losses and if the adversary is able to out produce us with cheaper faster to build aircraft, we will not be able to sustain a conflict for long. Little lesson from WW2 Germany.
In short, our leaders need to look at the hypothetical battles, worst case scenarios, and decide what the numbers should be using that rationale, not some goofy current situation scenario.

President Obama has indicated he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act if the final bill presented to him contains $1.75 billion in additional funding for the F-22.
Big Saver. The deficit hit $1,000,000,000,000 this week, meaning a veto over $1,750,000,000 would take care of the deficit for noon until 9pm on one day.
Ryan – we scream about health care because the numbers there are thousands of times bigger. There’s no way the Dem health care plan would cost as little as 600 times what the Pentagon is asking for the F-22.

“So health care for fellow Americans is a no.
Shiny useless fighter plane is a yes.
Right wing priorities in action.”
That’s why people with common sense are neither rightwing nor leftwing. I say “no” to socialization AND overmilitarization. You’re both wrong.

“Ryan, it is the Federal Governments CONSITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT to defend the United States.”
If we really want to go back to intentions, the founding fathers were very wary of standing armies let alone a weapon designed for first strike options in a hostile country.
“Healthcare is not a federal requirement. I’m sure you will argue this, but no where in the constitution does it give that role to the federal government.”
Article 1, Section 8

“Typical uniformed liberal description of the most technological advanced fighter ever developed”
Winslow T. Wheeler is the director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information.
“Its boosters advertise the F-22 as a technological wonder — which it isn’t.
Its “stealth” characteristic is greatly exaggerated. And, while the F-22 is less detectable by some radar at certain angles, it is easily detectable to many types of radar in the world, including early Russian and Chinese models. Just ask the pilots of the two stealthy F-117 bombers that were put out of action by Serbs in the 1999 Kosovo air war using antiquated radar systems.
Worse, the F-22 depends on its radar and long-range, radar-guided missiles. Such “beyond visual range” radar-based air warfare has failed time and time again in war.
There are two problems. First, even the low probability of intercept radar in the F-22 is vulnerable to detection by enemies, especially with the proliferation of spread-spectrum technology in cell phones and laptops. The radar not only signals the F-22’s presence to enemies but also acts as a beacon for their radar-homing missiles. While both the Russians and the Chinese specialize in such missiles, our Air Force, in its exercises, insists that such capabilities do not exist.
Second, its aerodynamic performance, short-range missiles and guns are nothing special, which I observed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada when an F-16 “shot down” an F-22 in exercises.”
$350M+ a plane.

“If we really want to go back to intentions, the founding fathers were very wary of standing armies let alone a weapon designed for first strike options in a hostile country.”
Founding fathers were wary of standing armies? Wow, guess they shouldn’t have passed all those bills in the 1790′s establishing the US Marine Corps, Navy, and Army. Those crazy founding fathers and their intentions.
Designed for first strike options? It was designed as an air superiority fighter, thus the designation “F-22″. If it was designed as a strike fighter, it would have been designated “F/A-22″. The scramble to add strike capability to it is knee bending, bending over backwards groveling to satisfy ignorant military wannabe’s who ask the question “thats all it does?”.
“Healthcare is not a federal requirement. I’m sure you will argue this, but no where in the constitution does it give that role to the federal government.”
Article 1, Section 8
BS, far fetched extrapolation of the constitution to come to that conclusion.
8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
“general welfare” can mean anything anyone wants it to mean. Yet if you read the section in its entirety, you’ll notice it outlines in more detail exactly what it means by “general welfare”. It defines exactly what is the responsibility of the congress and federal government. And if you actually read the entire section, you may also notice ironically it talks about national DEFENSE.

“Raptor has a 100 to 1 kill radio”
In what theater?

“Founding fathers were wary of standing armies? Wow, guess they shouldn’t have passed all those bills in the 1790′s establishing the US Marine Corps, Navy, and Army. Those crazy founding fathers and their intentions. ”
That must be why the Continental Army was disbanded rather than formalized….
President James Madison: “…to support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system;… to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics – that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe;…” – President James Madison, First Inaugural address, Saturday, March 4, 1809.

Also one other point on the radar thing.
If the F-22 has it’s radar off, getting data link from AWACS, it can deploy the AIM-7 Sparrow radar homing missile, essentially shooting down an aircraft without ever turning its radar on. Difference between the 22 and our current inventory, its far less detectable further out and can get in close enough to deploy it.
It must also be explained that if the 22 has a bunch of external stores, such as pylons for missiles, CATM’s, etc, it gives off a larger radar signiture. If it is using only its internal bay, it’s far less detectable by radar.
Speed and angle plays a part as well. It’s complicated but we train to take advantages of its strengths.

Philip Coyle, a former director of the Defense Department’s Operational Test and Evaluation Office, points out that the Air Force has spent two decades trying to get the F-22A right and meet the high expectations set for the fighter.
The dilemma is not a lack of time to find and fix problems.
“What you see now is poor design and reliability,” Coyle said.

“A year ago(in 2006), Air Force Times reported that F-22A structural problems could cost $1 billion to fix. But after further tests, the Air Force now estimates the fixes will be in the millions of dollars, although a final estimate for labor and parts has not yet been calculated, Moore said.”

“”A year ago(in 2006), Air Force Times reported that F-22A structural problems could cost $1 billion to fix. But after further tests, the Air Force now estimates the fixes will be in the millions of dollars, although a final estimate for labor and parts has not yet been calculated, Moore said.”
Every new aircraft has developmental problems. The service life of the F-16 and F-18C was supposed to be through 2040. They have recently found structural cracks in the rear stabilitors, shortening the life to 2020. The fix would cost millions per aircraft.

“Hamilton was the first to propose the modern vision of the General Welfare clause and his opinion has since been affirmed by the Supremes.”
Hamilton had no concept of a “nanny” state.
In depth, its principle is that it wouldn’t benefit any single group. Yet, single payer healthcare benefits only a small percentage of the population (by design, so they say), meaning the uninsured, and paid for by another group (the wealthy supposedly). Sorry, but that is against the meaning of “general welfare” as it doesn’t benefit all people, only a portion, thus it is contrary to the intentions of our founding fathers.

“Which means we do not need another $65B in fighters that no longer have a role to fill.”
Um… I guess you didn’t read my post below in its entirety. Instead of reposting it, look at it below involving China. I’m not going to go in circles with you.
“So are you saying we can’t believe the proposed long service life of the F22 given the problems we have already encountered?”
Service life is a direct relationship with money invested. The H-46 is a 1950′s airframe still flying today. It’s service life was supposed to be over with long ago. Money and the lack of replacement has kept it flying.
The service life of F16′s and F18C’s can be 2040 and beyond, we just have to pay for it. Kind of hard now though since the production facilities were shut down.

So are you saying we can’t believe the proposed long service life of the F22 given the problems we have already encountered?
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Yeah, I guess its kinda like we should not by into the the ‘promises’ about the proposed benefits from the great “Stimulator”, the Enery/Climate/No its a jobs bill, and the healthcare bill.

The F-22 is notably superior to the F-35 in air-to-air combat, but this is its only selling point. The issues are first whether there is a scenario in which this difference can matter (there is) and second whether this scenario is credible (not really). There are actually two scenarios where this could matter, one involving any number of Russian PAK/FA fighters, which currently do not exist and have been delayed due to flight problems. In 5-10 years, however, the Russians could have a large enough operational fleet of these planes to overwhelm a mixed fleet of F-22′s and F-35′s. Not that they would, and not that we don’t have other weapon systems that could shoot them down well before they become a threat, but we would lose our unquestioned air combat superiority. The other scenario is a large-scale attack with several hundred Sukhoi flankers, which outperform everything but the F22 and F35 and which are almost evenly matched against the latter plane. see http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-170209-1.html for an analysis of this second scenario. Neither is particularly likely, but as one who supported killing this project, the data makes me think twice about whether we might not be better off with a few hundred more f22s. Perhaps we could use this threat of killing the program to get Lockheed to reduce the cost of these machines, effectively killing the argument that f35s are better because they are equivalent (they are not. they are slower at cruise speed and less agile in close combat) and cheaper.