:: AF Leaders Prefer More F-22 Raptors ::

| Thursday September 9, 2010

AF Leaders Prefer More F-22 Raptors

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Prodded specifically by the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman for their personal opinions, USAF Secretary Michael Wynne and chief Gen. T. Michael Moseley allowed that their own preferences would be for additional F-22 Raptor fighters and an alternative Joint Strike Fighter engine.

07-03-2008 - Washington -- The top two Air Force leaders repeatedly stressed their support for President Bush's fiscal 2009 budget request and outyear defense budget planning. Moreover, during the Wednesday hearing in front of the SASC they noted profound efforts to "salute smartly" in response to all budget-making guidance from White House and Pentagon superiors.

But explicitly asked by Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to offer their personal assessments, Wynne and Moseley made clear their own desires for more Raptors and an alternative JSF engine. The Air Force leaders suggested the SASC chairman ask them for their personal opinions after Levin grew momentarily frustrated with their hesitation to respond to his direct questions on the issues.

The secretary said he believes the minimum number of Raptors needed to meet future requirements is probably the previous estimate of 277. Moseley stated that he personally does not believe that the official Defense Department plan for just 183 of the Lockheed Martin-made fighters is enough.

"No, sir," the chief of staff told Levin when the senator asked him.

Both men also allowed that a second JSF engine could be a smart move by Washington, citing engine experiences with F-16s. Wynne acknowledged that the "business case" for a second JSF engine undermines such an effort on that specific cost analysis, but the question for defense leaders and lawmakers might be more one of confidence in meeting capabilities rather than strict budget concerns.

"Affordability can't always be the rule," the secretary said.

Indeed, highlighting redundancy and reliability above cost concerns played a major role in Wynne's explanations for more Raptors, in light of planned JSFs, as well as another JSF engine. He recalled being able to rely on F-16s when F-15s had to be grounded after longeron failures were identified last fall following an F-15 crash.

Moseley said the Air Force tries to craft its official budget request following affordability guidance provided from above, but it also stands ready to answer where further dollars would be best spent. "We owe you what we believe it takes," the chief also said.

Regarding an alternative JSF power plant, Moseley suggested that the Air Force's concerns revolve around protecting the JSF program to roll it out to the other armed services and allies in time, rather than necessarily scuttling efforts toward a second engine.

Both men maintained that the service should get an additional $20 billion annually over proposed budgets in order to truly meet all the demands placed on it, including matching growing needs from burgeoning land services, which the air service leaders said they support.

Source: military.com
Photo: USAF

COMMENTS:

nice and simple, BUY MORE RAPTORS!!!

J.L.Estevez | posted on Mar 21, 2008 @ 03:17

With all I know, the 22 seems like a dream... i'd like to see it in action.

James Fineron | posted on Mar 22, 2008 @ 06:19

Its no dream, I have seen it in an airshow performing at Hill Airforce Base in Utah, the jet was unreal, I would not want to be in a dog fight against it..end of story!

T.C | posted on Mar 24, 2008 @ 22:20

i haven't seen it in action much (except for the fictional transformers movie) but from what i've read it sounds pretty unbeatable. it's the most compact, most agile, has the best tracking system, the largest radar range, longest missile range, and on top of that it's invisible to radar! the only weakness i have found is it's speed; it's slow, it's max velocity is only about mach 1.8, but, it can reach it's peak velocity with all it's weapons and most of it's fuel. oh, and it only has enough bullets for 4.8 seconds of continuous fire.

the fro | posted on Mar 30, 2008 @ 00:57

To, the fro

The f-22 is a great plane, but don't oversell it either. It is a heavy fighter larger and heavier than an f-15, it is NOT the most agile, the su-30 with moveable forward canards and thrust vectoring engines beats it easily. However, note that this plane was not made to be a turning dogfighter like the f-16. This plane was made for high altitude long standoff range air superiority, at which it excells and is by far the best of the current planes around today. I wonder about its stealthiness, it is an 8 lobe design unlike the 4 of the f-117, and while it IS stealthy it is not as stealthy as an f-117. You mention the gun, many designers and armchair pundits, have been saying that guns on fighterplanes are obsolete, for what 50 years now? the f-4 did not have an integral gun. But pilots want a gun on the plane, and who is it thats risking his neck flying the plane anyway, designers should listen to em more. The f-35 B and C versions won't have a gun either. In a recent alaskan exercise an f-22 out of (simulated) missles actually made a (simulated) gun kill, I'll bet that was a suprise to some of the pundits. An on board gun will also be useful for taking out small but important, UAV's that aren't worth wasting a full up air to air missle, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You mention the speed, Hhmmmm, the quoted figures seem to change everytime a site or somebody quotes them, why its allmost as if (gasp) the USAF is trying to keep it a secret or something! Way back in the eighties when the USAF was surveying pilots about what they wanted in a new fighter the pilots reportedly said an "f-15 with stealth." The F-22 was clearly designed with this input in mind. I'll wager that the max supercruise speed is somewhere in the mach 1.7 range, but the top speed on full fuel gulping afterburner is in the f-4 phantom cl. of mach 2.1 or so. This is just my guess based on the exterior appearance of the inlets and that at higher speeds air friction heating would likely burn off the stealth coatings.

You are right about the radar it IS really good, and you are right about the missle range, though only at max speed and altitude.

There are many who believe that the importance of the hard turning dogfighting figherplane is ending, with the introduction of helmet mounted sights for sidewinder type heat seeking missles whose ranges are increasing to 12mi+ and thus becoming beyond visual range missles.

The f-22 project began over 20 years ago and it has been a very expensive, complex and difficult project. But history shows us that some national defensive goals need to be larger than life, if the nation is to survive in a hostile world.

walter | posted on Mar 31, 2008 @ 08:53

The F-22 is by far my absolute favorite. But I do disagree about the SU-37 Super Flanker being "easily more maneuverable." I think that those 2 planes would be a close dogfight. But as mentioned, the F-22's "fire and forget" ability knocks out any competition in the world today. Missile lock rings loud when the F-22's missile enters the enemy's radar range, not when the F-22 itself enters range. By the time the proximity alarm rings the F-22's missile hits your plane in about 2 seconds. Not even enough time to say your prayers. (The trick is to remain an ALLY of the United States of America!) -NinjaHound

NinjaHound | posted on Apr 02, 2008 @ 04:20

Guys seriously it really doesnt matter if what fighter can stand up aginst another fighter. What country in the world would be willing to go heads up agianst another country's top fighter (USA and Russia). Dogfighting is just simply too expensive. From the armnaments to the fuel it consumes to the aircraft itself. Besides the improvements made in AA tech significantly decrease any future engagements. If we want to win wars build more planes with better ATG capabilities and better bombs. As a disclaimer im not saying that the fighter isnt that important but the idea of a superior fighter taking over the skies is just propaganda the US and Russia is using.

PJC | posted on Apr 02, 2008 @ 16:31

PJC, you are an idiot.

Grimm | posted on Apr 16, 2008 @ 22:32

If you dont think cannons are useful, check your history of Korea. They first thought cannons would be useless and missles would be the only way to fight but they learned the hard way and put them back in.

bao | posted on Apr 17, 2008 @ 17:39

I seen the F-22 at Langley and what an awesome plane it was
i turned on a dime, climbed 90 degrees without using afterburners. When i was coming on the base at the gate the plane was taking off about 2.5 miles away and it was shaking the car and man it was loud even with the windows up. I cant wait to join the Air Force to fly it because this is really my favorite plane. It would be hard to see Russia or China beat this, I think they are just going to copy it like they always do; stupid F@Gs. I hope they read this article because their Suckois are in for a rude awakning.

GJ | posted on Apr 17, 2008 @ 20:57

Ummmm, bao, that wasn't Korea... It was Vietnam. Korea didn't see many missiles, because they weren't very good at the time. All the best aircraft use only guns.

That said... Vietnam proved that AT THE TIME, radar-guided missiles were just too lousy. Although the heat seakers were good, the radar-guided missiles failed to kill more than a handful of enemy.

And that said... The first Persian Gulf War was almost enturely BVR engagements! Were there any gun kills at all, guys?

I think the F-22 rules, and I think less than 200 F-22s is stupid.

RAC | posted on Apr 27, 2008 @ 00:31

To RAC

You are right that in vietnam the results of over hyped radar guided missles was disapointing, however remember that the biggest problem was that idiotic rules of engagement required US aircraft to visuallly identify enemy aircraft, this can only occur well inside the visual range engagement envelope. This left the BVR optimised f-4 phantom and its RGmissles at a large disadvantage against aircraft specifically optimised for visual range dogfighting.

In the PGwar aircraft were vectored in at long range by AWACS and given clearance to fire at long range. No plane ever ran out of missles and there were no aerial "ambush" suprises due to the opponents ineptness at battlespace planning and controll. Naturally you are not going to see any gun kills, and there were so few aerial combats that few pilots or planes ever fired any missles either.

Anyway regardless of weather a gun is obsolete, every survey of pilots that fly modern planes into harms way shows that they want a gun on the plane. Modern guns and ammo seem to weigh about the same as a single RGM, so why not have one? Or how about a single barrel revolver cannon in 20mm, it would weigh much less than half that of the 6 barrel vulcan gatling on the f-22.

Yes we need more f-22's but we also need the f-35 into full rate production soonest, currently there insn't enough money for both. Congress needs to stop being morons and raise the total defense spending to what it needs to be, which is at least 50% more than what it is now.

walter | posted on May 03, 2008 @ 05:53

The F-22A is really an awsome aircraft but we need to beef up spending on our ground troops well. Right now no one in the world dares to go head to head with the USAF not just because they know they wont stand a chance but they know they'll kill more Americans if they wait for the ground troops come in.

PJC | posted on May 05, 2008 @ 22:22

i heard theres a "black out button" where if some how some one can track it on radar ( right now you can't) and lauches a missle at it, the 22 can hit 22g (almost 13000 mph) and do a automatic u-turn to avoid the missle, then gets back on course and flys normally,but it causes the pilot to blackout from such intense speed though, pretty cool!

jack | posted on May 13, 2008 @ 04:02

The Black Out Button doesn't actually make the plane go 13,000 mph, although that would be hard-core. The Raptor's maximum indicated airspeed is ≈1400 mph.

To understand what the B.O.B actually does, you first have to understand G Forces. Right now, at normal gravity, you are experiencing 1G. If you were on a roller coaster and you dropped straight down, you would have 0Gs (free fall). Conversely, if your chair suddenly shoots up, you feel "pressed" down into your chair. You would then experiences Gs greater than 1.

In a high-performance aircraft such as the F-22 or any other fighter, the pilot experiences extreme amounts of Gs when maneuvering at high speeds. For example, if he is flying straight and fast, and quickly pulls back on the stick to pitch the plane up, he will feel pressed into his seat, and is probably experiencing upwards of 9Gs. (9 times his body weight) The G Forces affect the inside of your body, so if you aren't careful, your blood can pool down in your legs, because your heart is not strong enough to pump blood up to your head when the blood weighs 9 times more than normal. Therefore, fighter pilots clench their lower muscles and use a special breathing technique to avoid "G-LOC," or "G-induced Loss Of Conscience" because not enough blood goes to your brain. So what the B.O.B. does is puts the plane into a 22G U-Turn to avoid the missile, and then flies straight and level in autopilot until the pilot wakes up from G-LOC, which usually only takes a few seconds once blood starts flowing back to the brain.

So Jack, you were mostly correct, except for the "13000 mph" part. I hope that is possible in a fighter some day, but right now, the control surfaces would rip apart from the 13000 mph airflow over the plane.

Michael | posted on Mar 29, 2010 @ 00:26

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Can the JSF fill the gap of non-produced F-22's?

yes

47%

53%

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