Aircraft Vs Super Thread VI

[Vifam7]

Nice PAK-FA pic: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia---Air/Sukhoi-T-50/1775641/L/

A canopy bow plus a brace on the top. Rearward vision does not look good too.

Looks like the canopy does not offer good all around vision.

Edited September 11, 2010 by Vifam7

[David Hingtgen]

So, just how fast can you go in a Blackbird with the landing gear down?

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Nice PAK-FA pic: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia---Air/Sukhoi-T-50/1775641/L/

What are the 2 'air-intake' like apertures at the front base of the vertical stabs for? Reminds me of the YF-21's cannon muzzles in a way.

[F-ZeroOne]

What are the 2 'air-intake' like apertures at the front base of the vertical stabs for? Reminds me of the YF-21's cannon muzzles in a way.

I don't know, but as a guess intakes for electronic systems or similar. The Russians also put chaff/flare launchers on the early MiG-29s in that position...

[David Hingtgen]

My vote would be for avionics cooling. A less likely option would be afterburner coolers like the F-8.

[VF-19]

Two more shots from the CF-188 crash that were posted over at ARC by areophoto. I still think that pilot is the luckiest guy in the world to have gotten out of that crash.

[David Hingtgen]

Your weekly PAK-FA pic---great shot of the belly camo: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia---Air/Sukhoi-T-50/1776617/L/

[Graham]

Your weekly PAK-FA pic---great shot of the belly camo: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia---Air/Sukhoi-T-50/1776617/L/

Sweet! Somebody has to make a 1/72 die-cast replica of this soon.

Russia has the best paint schemes. USAF & RAF paint schemes are so boring these days.

Graham

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

Sweet! Somebody has to make a 1/72 die-cast replica of this soon.

Russia has the best paint schemes. USAF & RAF paint schemes are so boring these days.

Graham

Agree, the Russians have really nice camo (because of the GIUK gap/Siberian/Artic target operation areas?). USAF & RAF might not be as nice but they sure beat the PLAAF which has hands down the most boring schemes.

As for that PAF-FA, the engine nacelles really spoil the look of the camo.

[David Hingtgen]

It's a Flanker thing--their engines are very hot, and thus you can't paint that area. The F-15 has a similar effect (more noticeable on the bottom), as does the F-8.

[David Hingtgen]

F-15's look so much better when they're not plain ghost grey...

[Uxi]

That reminds me of the idea I've seen some folks gave wrt F-22 production... keep producing airframes, etc but just don't make them stealth. That way we get good replacements for F-15's, that don't need to be in the first wave, and possibly exportable. And it keeps the tooling, etc alive in the event a need was shown for a real F-22C. Oh well.

[Nied]

MBDA unveils new clipped wing Meteor for the F-35. This is the biggest deal for the UK, I'd love to see if Lockheed could combine this with their recent work to carry six AMRAAMs internally. Just imagine Fleet Air Arm Lightning IIs with four Meteors and two ASRAAMs all internal. Throw in F136s for power and back it up with E-2Ds or AEW V-22s and the Royal Navy would have the most potent carrier air wing outside of the US.

Uxi I don't think your idea would be very workable. Stealth isn't some box you can just chose to not install, it's built into the airframe through shaping, precision construction and structural materials. You could probably save a small amount of money by omitting some of the coatings, but the rest would require changing how you build the aircraft in the first place. Any savings would likely be eaten up by the re-designs required and you'd be ditching most of the tooling in the process. Besides the real expense of the Raptor lies in it's engines (which make up a good quarter of it's price IIRC) and it's dead end avionics system. Replacing either of those would also require a re-design that would negate any potential savings before the first "budget" Raptor got off the ground.

[David Hingtgen]

Hey Nied, I just recently read that the F-22 (and I think F-35) use Firewire---true?

[Nied]

Hey Nied, I just recently read that the F-22 (and I think F-35) use Firewire---true?

I hadn't heard that myself but I wouldn't be surprised. I think the bigger issue with the Raptor's avionics is that all of it's software is written in some proprietary language that Lockheed came up with back in the early '90s, it makes for a huge bottleneck for the plane. Any new hardware that could be integrated has to be thoroughly tested to ensure it will actually run with the wonky software Lockheed wrote, and it's expensive and time consuming to write new software for it (there's only so many people who know the software language so there's only so many people you can throw at the problem, and anyone who does can charge a premium for their services for the same reason). That's why they're having so much trouble integrating new weapons with the F-22, they have no trouble getting it to physically carry the ordinance but getting the computer system to interface with it properly has been a big headache (same with JHMCS integration or a proper data link).

That's the big thing the F-35 has going for it, it's all open architecture written in C++ so there's millions of devs out there who can write software for it as long as they have the proper security clearances. And before anyone suggests just putting the F-35's computer into the F-22, they actually looked at that last year as part of a proposal to sell it to Japan: it would have added over $100 million to the flyaway cost. I haven't seen much about the JASDF wanting to buy Raptors since.

[Noyhauser]

Uxi I don't think your idea would be very workable. Stealth isn't some box you can just chose to not install, it's built into the airframe through shaping, precision construction and structural materials. You could probably save a small amount of money by omitting some of the coatings, but the rest would require changing how you build the aircraft in the first place. Any savings would likely be eaten up by the re-designs required and you'd be ditching most of the tooling in the process. Besides the real expense of the Raptor lies in it's engines (which make up a good quarter of it's price IIRC) and it's dead end avionics system. Replacing either of those would also require a re-design that would negate any potential savings before the first "budget" Raptor got off the ground.

I think its much more likely that they would like to invest in the next-gen fighter fighter program instead, with an IOC around 2025 or so. There just isn't the money for anything but the F-35 and UCAVs in the budget.

Moreover the nature of defence production has changed in the past two decades so that once you cancel a program, its much harder to restart it. Saving the "jigs" doesn't really matter because you have a massive supply chain of subcontractors who custom produce parts for a fighter. Given they are limited in their scope and are one or two points removed from the government, the sub-contractors will often just close down a part line after production is over. It doesn't happen for a lot of parts, but you only need a few parts missing to massively increase the cost of restarting production.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Image request, can anyone post images here of the following? Haven't seen much of them:

1. ASF-14
   
2. Tomcat II(just heard about it recently unless it's another name for Tomcat 21)
   
3. Quickstrike F-14
   

The reason I am asking is because I have only seen the schematic and desktop model for Tomcat 21, not much else, if at all(and 1 schematic of the ASF-14 but I don't remember where, I think it's from World Air Power Journal from the 90's).

[Nied]

Neat video of operations on board the Kuznetsov. It's been theorized that this same filming session produced crazy cobra bolter David posted a while back. More interesting to me is the sorry state of repair of both the Kuznetsov and his airwing, It's a good thing he's in dry dock now for a re-fit. I've also heard they'll be replacing the Su-33 with Mig-29Ks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tKOw3xjiLs&hd=1

I think its much more likely that they would like to invest in the next-gen fighter fighter program instead, with an IOC around 2025 or so. There just isn't the money for anything but the F-35 and UCAVs in the budget.

Indeed the Air Force has quietly started it's Future Air Dominance Fighter program to replace both the F-22 and F-15E, it's still in the earliest of stages at the moment but IOC is projected to be 2025. I've already posted several pictures of the Navy's F/A-XX concept to replace the Super Hornet and I wouldn't be surprised if the two programs get folded into each other in the future as there's a significant amount of overlap in the requirements. Hell we could even bring the UK and France in to replace the Typhoon and Rafale.

Moreover the nature of defence production has changed in the past two decades so that once you cancel a program, its much harder to restart it. Saving the "jigs" doesn't really matter because you have a massive supply chain of subcontractors who custom produce parts for a fighter. Given they are limited in their scope and are one or two points removed from the government, the sub-contractors will often just close down a part line after production is over. It doesn't happen for a lot of parts, but you only need a few parts missing to massively increase the cost of restarting production.

I think you might be overstating this a tad, they've already dealt with similar issues during the production of the Raptor without much issue (the Air Force was able to switch the CIP over to a COTS design for instance), and there are other ways around these kind of roadblocks as well. (I read a story the other day about a company that bought up a large amount of E-2 landing gear struts when the DoD was drawing down its spares inventory during the '90s, they're now the prime contractor for that part on all new build E-2Ds while Northrup-Grumman spools production back up).

Edited September 21, 2010 by Nied

[Noyhauser]

I think you might be overstating this a tad, they've already dealt with similar issues during the production of the Raptor without much issue (the Air Force was able to switch the CIP over to a COTS design for instance), and there are other ways around these kind of roadblocks as well. (I read a story the other day about a company that bought up a large amount of E-2 landing gear struts when the DoD was drawing down its spares inventory during the '90s, they're now the prime contractor for that part on all new build E-2Ds while Northrup-Grumman spools production back up).

Well, not exactly. I might have been overstating it if it was any other program than the F-22, but that program made some really bad management decisions that was the cause of its continuing troubles. Basically the fighter's contracting method operated much like a work-sharing program between LM, Boeing and General Dynamics (which later became LM-Fort Worth). Really LM handed out subcontracts to various major fighter manufacturers not on the basis of their expertise but on their position as major defense manufacturers. What the F-22 did was created a unnatural and very specialized manufacturing structure for the fighter. For example, Boeing makes the wings and aft fuselage of the F-22 in Seattle, where its never really produced such products. Boeing itself produces the wings of the Super Hornet in the old McDonnell Douglas facilities in St Louis and NG manufacturers the aft fuselage in El Segundo. The latter two places are where there is proven expertise, and they would likely remain for some time. With the F-22 program killed, the glue that binds that program's unwieldily manufacturing structure is gone and those parts are less likely to survive for very long. Will Boeing retain a production facility for F-22 wings in Seattle when its not being used for any other program? Maybe, but many other companies won't.

Moreover replacing subcontractors will be difficult because of how tightly the F-22's manufacturing information was controlled compared to other fighters. On other fighters like the F/A-18E/F what you note is true. Many of them will keep their manufacturing structure in place for longer because they are already market leaders. For example NG El Segundo facility are contracted to produce the center and rear fuselages for F-35s in addition to the F/A-18E. The F-35 is much better in this regards than other models; its got a very open and flexible subcontractor system to ensure that you can have multiple producers. BAE systems produces the wings and empennages for the JSF; it also does so for the Eurofighter.

In reality the F-22 wasn't a well managed program and this will adversely affect how long it remains viable to resurrect. Given the problems with it, I suspect that the Air Force would rather see another fighter using better management methods produced in the future.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Noyhauser

[Nied]

Well, not exactly. I might have been overstating it if it was any other program than the F-22, but that program made some really bad management decisions that was the cause of its continuing troubles. Basically the fighter's contracting method operated much like a work-sharing program between LM, Boeing and General Dynamics (which later became LM-Fort Worth). Really LM handed out subcontracts to various major fighter manufacturers not on the basis of their expertise but on their position as major defense manufacturers. What the F-22 did was created a unnatural and very specialized manufacturing structure for the fighter. For example, Boeing makes the wings and aft fuselage of the F-22 in Seattle, where its never really produced such products. Boeing itself produces the wings of the Super Hornet in the old McDonnell Douglas facilities in St Louis and NG manufacturers the aft fuselage in El Segundo. The latter two places are where there is proven expertise, and they would likely remain for some time. With the F-22 program killed, the glue that binds that program's unwieldily manufacturing structure is gone and those parts are less likely to survive for very long. Will Boeing retain a production facility for F-22 wings in Seattle when its not being used for any other program? Maybe, but many other companies won't.

Moreover replacing subcontractors will be difficult because of how tightly the F-22's manufacturing information was controlled compared to other fighters. On other fighters like the F/A-18E/F what you note is true. Many of them will keep their manufacturing structure in place for longer because they are already market leaders. For example NG El Segundo facility are contracted to produce the center and rear fuselages for F-35s in addition to the F/A-18E. The F-35 is much better in this regards than other models; its got a very open and flexible subcontractor system to ensure that you can have multiple producers. BAE systems produces the wings and empennages for the JSF; it also does so for the Eurofighter.

In reality the F-22 wasn't a well managed program and this will adversely affect how long it remains viable to resurrect. Given the problems with it, I suspect that the Air Force would rather see another fighter using better management methods produced in the future.

I'm actually not at all worried about the major sub assembly manufacturers (unwieldy and poorly thought out as they may be). The tooling for them is exactly what's being saved as the production line is shut down, and in the event of some kind of crash re-start would likely be re-constituted in a more rationalized manner. It's the much smaller manufacturers that produce the parts for those sub-assemblies where you'll run into problems. I don't see much problem with taking the warehoused tooling from the Center Fuselage production facility in Ft Worth and setting it back up next to the final assembly line in Marietta, but you might have trouble after the facility that made bulkhead 336 in Tuscaloosa went out of business three years ago. The flip side of this is that those sub-sub-assemblies are much simpler and thus are easier to re-source, the problem is the money required to get production of those parts re-started. If my memory serves me correctly that was the source of most of the cost of restarting production when RAND studied this problem last year.

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, not exactly. I might have been overstating it if it was any other program than the F-22, but that program made some really bad management decisions that was the cause of its continuing troubles. Basically the fighter's contracting method operated much like a work-sharing program between LM, Boeing and General Dynamics (which later became LM-Fort Worth). Really LM handed out subcontracts to various major fighter manufacturers not on the basis of their expertise but on their position as major defense manufacturers. What the F-22 did was created a unnatural and very specialized manufacturing structure for the fighter.

Based on that description - standard European practice then?

Edit: oh, sorry, ignore that, just read the bit about BAE and the Typhoon. Thats what I get for going for a cheap laugh!

Edited September 21, 2010 by F-ZeroOne

[Noyhauser]

I'm actually not at all worried about the major sub assembly manufacturers (unwieldy and poorly thought out as they may be). The tooling for them is exactly what's being saved as the production line is shut down, and in the event of some kind of crash re-start would likely be re-constituted in a more rationalized manner. It's the much smaller manufacturers that produce the parts for those sub-assemblies where you'll run into problems. I don't see much problem with taking the warehoused tooling from the Center Fuselage production facility in Ft Worth and setting it back up next to the final assembly line in Marietta, but you might have trouble after the facility that made bulkhead 336 in Tuscaloosa went out of business three years ago. The flip side of this is that those sub-sub-assemblies are much simpler and thus are easier to re-source, the problem is the money required to get production of those parts re-started. If my memory serves me correctly that was the source of most of the cost of restarting production when RAND studied this problem last year.

I think its a slightly greater issue than that. The RAND study listed resourcing as a production problem; according to its survey 20% of vendors would likely have an issue with restarting production after a two year hiatus and 44% might have an issue (20~49% chance of them having an issue.) Its not insurmountable, but the fact that most of the F-22's parts (particularly the avionics which accounts for 50% of its cost) were custom built with now obsolete technology, does make re-sourcing a significant issue.

Moreover, tooling is important, but the point I was getting at with my reply to yours was the issue surrounding the loss of human technical ability at the major contractor level (like LM Fort Worth or Boeing Seattle) and below. Capabilities aren't just the physical (machine) capability to produce something but must include the humans who operate that machinery. Because of the poorly thought out production decisions, Boeing isn't going to maintain a whole cadre of employees in Seattle waiting to produce F-22 sub-assemblies when that facility isn't going to be used for anything else. Instead, these employees will be moved to other projects and will be unavailable for re-hiring. The RAND survey predicted only 13% of the workforce would remain under a stop-restart scenario; it could be as low as 1%. Thus to restart production LM and Boeing will need to train new individuals, who are completely inexperienced and less efficient at producing something compared to a pre-closedown worker. If it was produced at a dedicated facility: El Segundo or St Louis, then more of these individuals maybe rehired to restart production (at less of a cost.)

These two issues combined will dramatically increase the unit-cost. With a managed shutdown and restart the cost of 75 new fighters will increase the fly-away cost of the F-22 by 30%: from 139 million to 179 million each. At $179 million, the USAF could buy two, if not three F-35s, (depending on the final production costs of the JSF.) Thats the economic and strategic trade off faced by the SECDEF, which is probably why he came down so decisively on the closure of the F-22 line.

My guess is that most of the tools will be destroyed but some for some high-use parts will be saved. That way they can maintain the present fleet at an reasonable cost.

Edited September 21, 2010 by Noyhauser

[Nied]

I think its a slightly greater issue than that. The RAND study listed resourcing as a production problem; according to its survey 20% of vendors would likely have an issue with restarting production after a two year hiatus and 44% might have an issue (20~49% chance of them having an issue.) Its not insurmountable, but the fact that most of the F-22's parts (particularly the avionics which accounts for 50% of its cost) were custom built with now obsolete technology, does make re-sourcing a significant issue.

Moreover, tooling is important, but the point I was getting at with my reply to yours was the issue surrounding the loss of human technical ability at the major contractor level (like LM Fort Worth or Boeing Seattle) and below. Capabilities aren't just the physical (machine) capability to produce something but must include the humans who operate that machinery. Because of the poorly thought out production decisions, Boeing isn't going to maintain a whole cadre of employees in Seattle waiting to produce F-22 sub-assemblies when that facility isn't going to be used for anything else. Instead, these employees will be moved to other projects and will be unavailable for re-hiring. The RAND survey predicted only 13% of the workforce would remain under a stop-restart scenario; it could be as low as 1%. Thus to restart production LM and Boeing will need to train new individuals, who are completely inexperienced and less efficient at producing something compared to a pre-closedown worker. If it was produced at a dedicated facility: El Segundo or St Louis, then more of these individuals maybe rehired to restart production (at less of a cost.)

These two issues combined will dramatically increase the unit-cost. With a managed shutdown and restart the cost of 75 new fighters will increase the fly-away cost of the F-22 by 30%: from 139 million to 179 million each. At $179 million, the USAF could buy two, if not three F-35s, (depending on the final production costs of the JSF.) Thats the economic and strategic trade off faced by the SECDEF, which is probably why he came down so decisively on the closure of the F-22 line.

My guess is that most of the tools will be destroyed but some for some high-use parts will be saved. That way they can maintain the present fleet at an reasonable cost.

WE ARE LOUDLY AND ANGRILY politely and thoughtfully AGREEING! At least for the most part. I'm not going to argue that re-starting production of the Raptor is a good idea at the moment, because I can't make that case. I do think that it has certain capabilities that despite it's glaring deficiencies would be good to have in reserve should the need arise in the future, but I'm under no illusion that it would be cost free (we've both cited the RAND report). You're absolutely right about the "brain drain" issue, however considering the manner in which the tooling will be preserved, I wouldn't be surprised if in the event of an unexpected threat presenting itself that justifies re-starting production that the line would be set up in a more rational manner (likely at the facilities you mentioned). I'm also not worried about the avionics, most of the parts used are either readily available or easily modified from civilian or military sources (the processors used in the computer are just several networked PowerPCs which are nigh ubiquitous in various integrated computers, and after a bit more research David is right that the databus is an offshoot of Firewire). I think the place you are going to have problems is the stuff I mentioned above, finding a new source for bulkhead 336 after Tuscaloosa Bulkheads has gone out of business, or a new source of main gear struts after Consolidated Struts and Oleos switched to making toasters. In the end this is all academic since it's unlikely a threat will emerge to justify the expense of a re-start, but it is fun to ponder.

[Uxi]

Oh I know that ship already sailed. Most of the "savings" in a non-stealth 5th Gen fighter would be in looser QC, etc as well as any actual spray coatings, etc. Think of it kinda like how Intel treats their chips (they don't actually have lines of Extreme Edition processors, for example, the cream of the crop that can take more abuse just get their prices augmented and backed by Intel, etc). The cream of the crop would be the stealth models while less worthy models off the line. If it doubled production, for example, price per plane for all of them would go down since alot of the cost is in R&D being amortized. Even if it was 10-15% of total price reduction per plane, would be significant.

Gates may as well have pulled a Cheney and destroyed the "jigs" since he killed the program just as dead. Barring a hot war with Russia or China, which is extremely unlikely, the F-22 fleet will only shrink from here on out.

[Nied]

Oh I know that ship already sailed. Most of the "savings" in a non-stealth 5th Gen fighter would be in looser QC, etc as well as any actual spray coatings, etc. Think of it kinda like how Intel treats their chips (they don't actually have lines of Extreme Edition processors, for example, the cream of the crop that can take more abuse just get their prices augmented and backed by Intel, etc). The cream of the crop would be the stealth models while less worthy models off the line. If it doubled production, for example, price per plane for all of them would go down since alot of the cost is in R&D being amortized. Even if it was 10-15% of total price reduction per plane, would be significant.

Gates may as well have pulled a Cheney and destroyed the "jigs" since he killed the program just as dead. Barring a hot war with Russia or China, which is extremely unlikely, the F-22 fleet will only shrink from here on out.

Two problems:

A) Fighter production doesn't work that way, if you want to loosen construction tolerances you have to change the jigs, use less precise milling instruments, etc. which kills both your rationale and your cost savings.

B) The airframe itself just isn't a big factor in the cost of the Raptor, making up maybe 30% of it at most. So even if you cut 15% off of the airframe manufacturing costs you've still only shaved 4.5% off the total cost of your Celeron-Raptor.

The big driver of the Raptors cost is it's avionics systems, and as we've already covered because of the way they were designed they simply do not lend themselves to being monkeyed around without spending a lot of money. That leaves the engines, you could replace the F119s with the latest F110 or F100 versions but then you'd lose supercruise and a degree of maneuverability without TVC. You could potentially cut engine costs in half for 11% savings overall, but you'd end up with essentially an F-35 with crappier avionics and less payload (and still more expensive).

The fact of the matter is barring a hot war with Russia or China, there's nothing we need more Raptors for that couldn't be done better by the 1.5-2 F-35s we could buy for the same price.

[David Hingtgen]

We need Raptors for all those intl air force beauty contests---the F-35 sure won't win.

[Warmaker]

It just boggles my mind how the F-22 program has lawndarted for various reasons. The years of work, ungodly amounts of money poured into the program, ungodly costs per jet... and the Raptor's hit the brick wall. So much for those fancy recruiting posters highlighting the F-22. The Air Force can't even get enough Raptors to replace even half the F-15 Eagles they were intended to replace. It's a huge bust, IMO.

[David Hingtgen]

It really does come down to avionics. Nothing seems to hurt military programs more the past 20 years. Everything else takes so long to come to fruition that their designed-as-cutting-edge-military-spec electronics-----are so obsolete by the time they come out that they both can't be upgraded and are incompatible with everything else, and are surpassed by cell phones... Same issue with the ATC system---they're paying thousands of dollars each and bidding against collectors on ebay for individual mint, rare vacuum tubes to keep them running. They're so old it costs a tremendous amount to keep going---but just can't be upgraded to more modern stuff without spending billions/trillions to competely overhaul.

(I just read recently that when the F-111E/F came out, there was a proposal to increase the memory from 16K to 32K, on the grounds that it was a now-or-never opportunity---USAF said no, they wouldn't ever need any more and it'd be a waste of money. Well, that's why we had to get rid of all our F-111s after Desert Storm, as we couldn't upgrade them to take JDAM etc---would have cost untold millions to retrofit the avionics now)

If I ever get my own country, the air force and navy equipment is SO going to be written in C++ and have USB ports... (of course, that has the problem of being 1000x more virus-prone, too--I was thinking of literally having locked covers over the USB ports--they wouldn't be used for daily mission upload/downloads etc, only upgrades)

PS---upgrading the F-14 to use JDAMs was a one-chance thing for each plane. If power was interrupted or the cable wiggled loose during the re-write, the plane would probably never fly again--the avionics were NOT designed to be upgraded in that manner. It's considered lucky/amazing that every attempt worked.

[Ghost Train]

It just boggles my mind how the F-22 program has lawndarted for various reasons. The years of work, ungodly amounts of money poured into the program, ungodly costs per jet... and the Raptor's hit the brick wall. So much for those fancy recruiting posters highlighting the F-22. The Air Force can't even get enough Raptors to replace even half the F-15 Eagles they were intended to replace. It's a huge bust, IMO.

Sunk Costs : The amount of money you have spent in the past to bring something into fruition should have no bearing for future decisions. There are great reasons to keep and not keep the F-22, but the dollar amount sunk into it should not be a factor.

[buddhafabio]

It just boggles my mind how the F-22 program has lawndarted for various reasons. The years of work, ungodly amounts of money poured into the program, ungodly costs per jet... and the Raptor's hit the brick wall. So much for those fancy recruiting posters highlighting the F-22. The Air Force can't even get enough Raptors to replace even half the F-15 Eagles they were intended to replace. It's a huge bust, IMO.

whats funny is the f-15 is still being produced

[David Hingtgen]

Yes, but not for the USAF...

[Noyhauser]

WE ARE LOUDLY AND ANGRILY politely and thoughtfully AGREEING! At least for the most part. I'm not going to argue that re-starting production of the Raptor is a good idea at the moment, because I can't make that case. I do think that it has certain capabilities that despite it's glaring deficiencies would be good to have in reserve should the need arise in the future, but I'm under no illusion that it would be cost free (we've both cited the RAND report). You're absolutely right about the "brain drain" issue, however considering the manner in which the tooling will be preserved, I wouldn't be surprised if in the event of an unexpected threat presenting itself that justifies re-starting production that the line would be set up in a more rational manner (likely at the facilities you mentioned). I'm also not worried about the avionics, most of the parts used are either readily available or easily modified from civilian or military sources (the processors used in the computer are just several networked PowerPCs which are nigh ubiquitous in various integrated computers, and after a bit more research David is right that the databus is an offshoot of Firewire). I think the place you are going to have problems is the stuff I mentioned above, finding a new source for bulkhead 336 after Tuscaloosa Bulkheads has gone out of business, or a new source of main gear struts after Consolidated Struts and Oleos switched to making toasters. In the end this is all academic since it's unlikely a threat will emerge to justify the expense of a re-start, but it is fun to ponder.

Oh I knew you were agreeing with me Nied, if anything I was trying to add nuance to my view. I think you and I know this program had some serious issues; maybe my emphasis is different from yours. Maybe it was too direct because I didn't mean to say that you were wrong.

It just boggles my mind how the F-22 program has lawndarted for various reasons. The years of work, ungodly amounts of money poured into the program, ungodly costs per jet... and the Raptor's hit the brick wall. So much for those fancy recruiting posters highlighting the F-22. The Air Force can't even get enough Raptors to replace even half the F-15 Eagles they were intended to replace. It's a huge bust, IMO.

To be perfectly honest this situation was predicted to occur back in the 1970s... see Augustine's Law. In reality its prohibitive cost and a much reduced threat environment determined the program's cancellation. And this isn't really a failure; the USAF has in its possession a top tier fighter in numbers that should be commensurate to the threat it face. Its probably good to remind people what is a failure; The Westinghouse J-40 is an good example. Not only did the engine flop, but it basically killed two very important fighter designs for the Navy; the F3H Demon and the F7U Cutlass.

whats funny is the f-15 is still being produced

The F-15's longevity is due to a lot of factors. It provides a reasonable capability for second tier allies at an affordable cost. Its also enjoyed constant updating. MD/Boeing has smartly continued upgrading the design and it remains quite modern. They moved to an relatively open architecture back around 2000, which has kept avionics costs down.

Edited September 24, 2010 by Noyhauser

[Warmaker]

Sunk Costs : The amount of money you have spent in the past to bring something into fruition should have no bearing for future decisions. There are great reasons to keep and not keep the F-22, but the dollar amount sunk into it should not be a factor.

I dunno man. I don't dive into economics and all that, but... Go tell the politicians at DC not to worry about the amount of money sunk into the advanced (but dead end) F-22's program. Go tell a bunch of those Generals in the USAF that staked alot of the service's future onto that jet to only see it get a Limited Edition / Collector's Edition run. Alot of stuff got sacrificed or put on the backburner for the Raptor. And now that the fine Raptor is really here, the USAF can only replace a fraction of the F-15 Eagle fleet it was intended to take over for.

It's just sad to see something that was hoped, developed for to be a "Air Dominance Fighter" (because Air Superiority Fighter is so... Cold War) run into flypaper and unable to escape. Even though I serve in a different branch, despite the operational commitments the US military has around the world, I'd like to have known that the USAF has a large fleet of the most advanced fighter in the world crewed by well trained pilots.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Warmaker

[Nied]

I dunno man. I don't dive into economics and all that, but... Go tell the politicians at DC not to worry about the amount of money sunk into the advanced (but dead end) F-22's program. Go tell a bunch of those Generals in the USAF that staked alot of the service's future onto that jet to only see it get a Limited Edition / Collector's Edition run. Alot of stuff got sacrificed or put on the backburner for the Raptor. And now that the fine Raptor is really here, the USAF can only replace a fraction of the F-15 Eagle fleet it was intended to take over for.

It's just sad to see something that was hoped, developed for to be a "Air Dominance Fighter" (because Air Superiority Fighter is so... Cold War) run into flypaper and unable to escape. Even though I serve in a different branch, despite the operational commitments the US military has around the world, I'd like to have known that the USAF has a large fleet of the most advanced fighter in the world crewed by well trained pilots.

That's just the point though, we've already spent a ton of money on the Raptor and we can't go back in time and get it back. We can however keep the money we were going to spend now that we know the F-22 isn't ideal for what we want to do.

I wouldn't worry too much about it though, we still have a large fleet of the most advanced fighter in the world (larger than the whole air forces of many nations), and it will soon be backed up by an order of magnitude larger fleet of fighters that are in many ways more advanced.

[Noyhauser]

I dunno man. I don't dive into economics and all that, but... Go tell the politicians at DC not to worry about the amount of money sunk into the advanced (but dead end) F-22's program. Go tell a bunch of those Generals in the USAF that staked alot of the service's future onto that jet to only see it get a Limited Edition / Collector's Edition run. Alot of stuff got sacrificed or put on the backburner for the Raptor. And now that the fine Raptor is really here, the USAF can only replace a fraction of the F-15 Eagle fleet it was intended to take over for.

It's just sad to see something that was hoped, developed for to be a "Air Dominance Fighter" (because Air Superiority Fighter is so... Cold War) run into flypaper and unable to escape. Even though I serve in a different branch, despite the operational commitments the US military has around the world, I'd like to have known that the USAF has a large fleet of the most advanced fighter in the world crewed by well trained pilots.

Well here is my question then... what possible scenario do you foresee that the USAF needs more than 180 of these fighters? I assume you're in the Marines by your tag; will you ever see an F-22 in an bonafide operational environment in the next 10 years? They are actually too expensive and fragile to operate in places like afghanistan and because of their archaic architecture and sensitive coatings.

If given the option between 300 MRAPs or one F-22 which would you chose? Or better yet, 2.5 F-35s? In many ways the F-35 is more valuable for the USAF, given that it will actually operate regularly over places like Afghanistan at a lower cost than F-22s.