plawolf
Lieutenant General
Wait, if only 120 out of 180 are combat coded, what's going on with the remaining 60? Thats 1/3 of the entire fleet!
F-22 Raptor Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Wait, if only 120 out of 180 are combat coded, what's going on with the remaining 60? Thats 1/3 of the entire fleet!
Bernard
Junior Member
Probably to ensure that they aren't used? So they can be activated later on as the most used airframes get retired or put on standby?
kwaigonegin
Colonel
According to ACC only about 20 or so are for backup inventory. The rest are for training/evaluation/tactics etc. like I said in my previous post the raptors are extremely limited due to the shortsightedness of the politicians, defense lobbyists and to some extend the pentagon as well.
If you take into account the MCR of the raptor, the absolute most USAF can field for conflict is maybe 100 units. Taking into account the breakdown of the squadrons, the spread etc I would say the ones you see in Japan is probably the most raptors you will ever see at a given time in a single location.
The raptor is a sad story IMHO. She is peerless today never mind when she first flew yet her hands tied due primarily to lack of HMS/HOBS and abysmal quantity to bear. I believe the raptors won't even get aim 9x until 2018 and even then it will be limited to maybe 100 aircraft at the most. The saddest part of all is aim 9x was ready around the same time the raptor came online. It was the perfect matchup!
This is ridiculous. I know hindsight is always 20/20 however they should have finish the acquisition to at least 500 copies and make them all HMS/HOBS capable right from the start. The pentagon/DOD channeled way too much $ to the JSF program and in doing so abandoned the raptor.
Yep! top down stoopidity, pure and simple, and banked it all on JSF because our international partnership was more important than buying and flying the best airplane. But, all is not lost, the JSF is quite an airplane after all, and it will do the do. Not a Raptor, but in some respects electronically, networked, all the kool tools, shes better, just not the world beater the Raptor is.
Front line Fleet : in combat units 134 : 5 Active Sqns ( 19 to 26 ) 1 ANG Sqn with 20 : 134 + 32 in the OCU Sqn : 166 and 16 in 3 OEU.
USAF have 187 F-22 : 187 series build but 4 lost and 4 pre series on 8*, 4 retired then 5 spares.
* here miss 4
The Raptor was designed with inter-operability in mind, if it were a conventional aircraft? those numbers would be so what? but the Raptor was always a force multiplier, and it will function very well with the far more numerous? (we hope) F-35s. A couple 2 to 4 Raptors change things immeasurably, and they function quite well in an AWACs roll, being rapidly able to switch roles according to General Hawk Carlisle.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
How much airframe hours do the F22 fleet have left on average?
With no replacement even formally on the drawing board, there may soon come a time when the F35 find themselves having to stand on their own, without big brother to help hold their hand.
It wasn't some altruastic concern for the well being of allies that same so much effort to shift resources from the Raptor to the JSF, but naked greed.
The F22 was never going to be allowed to be exported, and arms manufactures can always make far fatter profits from foreign exports than they can hope to extract from the US military.
In principle, the JSF made, and still makes a lot sense. Use F22 tech to make a slightly less capable mini-raptor; slightly more focused on strike missions, but still more than able to hold its own in air combat; and sell it to everyone under the sun and his dog to generate enough economics of scale to drive per unit prices down to approaching what conventional 4th gens would be going for.
But in execution, well, things speak for themselves really.
The biggest error was the Pentagon allowing the F22 budget to be raided, no stripped, to fund the JSF.
Those should have been completely separate programmes and budgets.
Cutting back Raptor numbers in the face of the fall of the USSR made sense, but what happened to Raptor numbers wasn't judicial trimming of excess fat, it was dismemberment.
The starvation of timely upgrades for the existing F22 fleet is also inexcusable and unacceptable.
The predicament of the F22 reminds me of a Chinese folk story.
A peerless warrior general was tasked to protect a castle. Unfortunately, the spoilt fratboy sons of a senior official were given command of the forces.
When the enemy attacked the castle, the general took his troops out and soundly bested them time and again.
Growing overconfident, the bothers wasted their time partying rather than concerning themselves with military planning, earning a sharp rebuke from the general.
Enraged by the 'disrespect', and determined to teach the general a lesson, the fratboys ordered the general out to battle when the enemy attacked again. But this time, rather than allow the general to return after winning the battle, they kept the gates locked and ordered the general to keep fighting.
Sensing something amiss, the enemy attacked again, were defeated and driven back, yet the general was still kept outside and ordered to keep fighting.
As the day dragged on, and the general successfully beat back wave after wave of attacks, the bothers grew bored and left the battlements to take food and refreshments back at the palace, leaving strict standing orders that the general not be let back in until they allowed it.
While they partied in the palace, the general fought on, until finally, exhausted and slowed from numerous minor wounds, he was overwhelmed and fell.
Moral collapsed amongst the defenders, and the castle fell the next day.
The F22 was peerless when it entered service, and remained so for an impressively long time. But with the lack of timely upgrades and the progress everyone else has been making in the years since it entered services, what was once an unassailable lead has been gradually, but inextricably pegged back.
With rival 5th gens almost certain to become operational within a handful of years, the F22 is fast reaching a point where it might not only meet a match, but actually end up as the underdog.
It already is in some respects compared to the F35 thanks to the gulf that has been allowed to open up between the two in terms of radar and avionics because of the lack of timely and meaningful upgrades for the F22.
With no replacement even formally on the drawing board, there may soon come a time when the F35 find themselves having to stand on their own, without big brother to help hold their hand.
It wasn't some altruastic concern for the well being of allies that same so much effort to shift resources from the Raptor to the JSF, but naked greed.
The F22 was never going to be allowed to be exported, and arms manufactures can always make far fatter profits from foreign exports than they can hope to extract from the US military.
In principle, the JSF made, and still makes a lot sense. Use F22 tech to make a slightly less capable mini-raptor; slightly more focused on strike missions, but still more than able to hold its own in air combat; and sell it to everyone under the sun and his dog to generate enough economics of scale to drive per unit prices down to approaching what conventional 4th gens would be going for.
But in execution, well, things speak for themselves really.
The biggest error was the Pentagon allowing the F22 budget to be raided, no stripped, to fund the JSF.
Those should have been completely separate programmes and budgets.
Cutting back Raptor numbers in the face of the fall of the USSR made sense, but what happened to Raptor numbers wasn't judicial trimming of excess fat, it was dismemberment.
The starvation of timely upgrades for the existing F22 fleet is also inexcusable and unacceptable.
The predicament of the F22 reminds me of a Chinese folk story.
A peerless warrior general was tasked to protect a castle. Unfortunately, the spoilt fratboy sons of a senior official were given command of the forces.
When the enemy attacked the castle, the general took his troops out and soundly bested them time and again.
Growing overconfident, the bothers wasted their time partying rather than concerning themselves with military planning, earning a sharp rebuke from the general.
Enraged by the 'disrespect', and determined to teach the general a lesson, the fratboys ordered the general out to battle when the enemy attacked again. But this time, rather than allow the general to return after winning the battle, they kept the gates locked and ordered the general to keep fighting.
Sensing something amiss, the enemy attacked again, were defeated and driven back, yet the general was still kept outside and ordered to keep fighting.
As the day dragged on, and the general successfully beat back wave after wave of attacks, the bothers grew bored and left the battlements to take food and refreshments back at the palace, leaving strict standing orders that the general not be let back in until they allowed it.
While they partied in the palace, the general fought on, until finally, exhausted and slowed from numerous minor wounds, he was overwhelmed and fell.
Moral collapsed amongst the defenders, and the castle fell the next day.
The F22 was peerless when it entered service, and remained so for an impressively long time. But with the lack of timely upgrades and the progress everyone else has been making in the years since it entered services, what was once an unassailable lead has been gradually, but inextricably pegged back.
With rival 5th gens almost certain to become operational within a handful of years, the F22 is fast reaching a point where it might not only meet a match, but actually end up as the underdog.
It already is in some respects compared to the F35 thanks to the gulf that has been allowed to open up between the two in terms of radar and avionics because of the lack of timely and meaningful upgrades for the F22.
Good points, frat boy story is true, BHO team are the original frat boys, girls, and undecided folk??? Now, to be very honest, we are far more altruistic than you might imagine? We have invited our partners to build parts of the airplane, and allowed them to adapt the airplane to their own weapons, we have shared the work-load and the profits, most folks don't really do that?
Back to your hours question, we have "beat on these girls" no doubt, but now there is a conservation effort on-going to make them last. The bright star here is the Raptor team who thoughtfully have preserved "all the production tooling". So there is an ongoing study, and at some point the SLEPs will begin in earnest, like our B-52s, RC-135s, etc, etc, the Raptor will be loved on for a long time, and also to your credit, you realize how good the F-35 actually is?? its no Raptor, but it is the superior of every other 5 gen on the planet with regard to L/O, and Networking for situational awareness.
The Raptor will not meet a peer for a long time, probably not until folks begin to get serious about a six gen bird, possibly not even then. To understand this phenomena you would have to have intimate knowledge of the design process of the Raptor, forged in the heart of the "KOLD WAR"? and it was designed to be a "singing sword?" sweet, and strong. So, if we can get an A team back in leadership, we will be OK.