Lawmakers Make Surprise Move to Keep The F-22 Raptor Alive

In terms of aircraft Gates IMHO is being short sighted on the F-22. It so far has demonstrated quite a capacity / capability that is only now being explored. Also Gates number at 187 is pretty low if you want to account attrition and the like. Thats the problem with the B-2. One loss = 5% of the force. With 187 Raptors, you lose say 10 of them and thats alot of lost capability.

I hope that this extension of the line will give more traction to an export version.

A House committee threw a wrench in the Obama administration's plans to end Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 Raptor fighter program, voting instead to add $369 million in extra funding to keep production of the Air Force's most advanced jet alive.

The vote by the House Armed Services Committee is a surprise opening move in the Congressional contest over the Pentagon's weapons spending plans, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates is using to rebalance the U.S.'s ability to fight insurgent enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr. Gates wants to cut back many of the costliest weapons programs, such as the $143 million F-22 fighter jet, a highly maneuverable fighter designed to sneak into enemy airspace. The plane came to symbolize the Pentagon's traditional focus on conventional conflict against big foes, such as Russia and China.online.wsj.com...

[edit on 6/22/09 by FredT]

The Senate one upped the house and has put 1.75 billion in the budget for new raptors

www.accessnorthga.com...

thats enough for 14 more

Originally posted by Harlequin
thats enough for 14 more

14 or 7?

14 = $125m /frame, and 7 = $250m /frame


14 sounds more believable.

Thanks for that info Fred.

Just when I think Washington has lost all sense of reality . . .

Good!

reply to post by kilcoo316


It depends if the figure was including spares etc. I suspect its for 14 more as its long lead funding for the items that take a while.

will be interesting if they can bomb it up - in service ratptors with bombs or the lockmart white elephant , who`s cost is allready close to $100 mil a pop (with engines and spares - you know the real world not confuse teh f**k out of the planet one lockmart want)

I worked for a company that was building a component for it. The contract was for like twenty years so I bet that more would be built. More than likely the field performance will be a deciding factor. They were going to moth ball the A-10 till it was used in combat.

I hate to be "the guy" in this thread -- but I think these bloated budgets on war machines that we don't need is a complete and total waste:

China’s military spending 2009 (up 14% from last year): $70.3 billion source
Russia's military spending 2009 (up 25% from last year): $50 billion source
United States military spending 2009: $651.2 billion source

The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined source
US spends 1 trillion dollars on fighter jets (even though the US has no enemies with an air force) source
Military discretionary spending accounts for more than half of the U.S. federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. federal government budget that is not appropriated for mandatory spending. (Budget)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Kaytagg

Thanks for nothing!
You bring this up in almost every thread.

The amount of money spent on defense by other countries is irrelevant and moot. The U.S. must spend heavily on defense to remain the leader. Where do you think most of these other countries get their technology? Yep, from the U.S. but guess who spends the initial dollars for the R & D? Yep, the U.S. and R & D is NOT cheap. Take your faux outrage elsewhere.

reply to post by WhatTheory


Well I'm glad, as a tax payer, I get to pay for other countries to have technology.

That's a great idea.

Not to mention, it's war technology, not something helpful like all the neat little gadgets we get from NASA. All that spending seems to give us is more creative and powerful ways to destroy ourselves.

It's sad that you can not see this.

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Well I'm glad, as a tax payer, I get to pay for other countries to have technology.

That's a great idea.

Do you live in reality?
The U.S. does not give it away. Theft/espionage is very rampant in this industry.
But anyway, you should be glad we at least have the best.

reply to post by WhatTheory


You have to have a mind for business, I suppose, to understand what "cost" means, which you obviously don't.

Sure, we have the best military in the world -- but at what cost?

We might be the safest country in the world, in terms of preventing terrorism, but at what cost? The cost of our liberties and freedom?

Simply being the best, without regard for what it's costing you, is a dopey mindset.

You have to look at not only the quality of what you're getting, but what you have to give up to obtain it.

Originally posted by Kaytagg
You have to have a mind for business

At least one of us does.

You have to look at not only the quality of what you're getting, but what you have to give up to obtain it.

Already have and I say keep the defense budget then slash and cut all the wasteful government social cradle to grave spending.

[edit on 6/29/2009 by WhatTheory]

Originally posted by WhatTheory

keep the defense budget then slash and cut all the wasteful government social cradle to grave spending.

Can you please give examples of what social spending you're talking about?

You mean social security? Medicare/medicaid? Stuff like that?

Btw, this is really getting off topic. Sorry to the OP

reply to post by Kaytagg


Meh, one thing people lose sight of is the trickle down developing military technology does for the civilian sector. Research into lasers, composites, trauma medicine, MRI's et al. all had thier basis in defence related projects.

I for one would much rather see money spent in that direction than providing welfare to some crack mom poppining out multiple children.

I know that an extreme case but he if the shoe fits.

I'm glad they decided to keep the F-22 in development. It is the deadliest fighter/intercept aircraft alive today. From what I understand if the pilot decides to flick a switch in the cockpit, our own satillites can lose track of the plane making it totally invisible. I think I read an article where they sent up eight F-15's, which by far is one of the best air to air combat jets around, against two F-22 in mock air combat. The F-22's scored eight missle hits (means eight dead F-15's) without the F-15's pilot's or ground radar ever detecting the F-22's. Now the rest of the world know's that the U.S.A. has these deadly fighter jets, and probably things even better. Can be viewed as a deterrent by some countries that would like to do us harm. From what I've read the F-22 will even fly itself if the pilot passes out pulling a high number of G's while flying the Raptor in combat.

I for one would much rather see money spent in that direction than providing welfare to some crack mom poppining out multiple children.

reply to post by FredT


Amen FredT, I agree with you on that 100%.

Originally posted by FredT
reply to post by Kaytagg

 

Meh, one thing people lose sight of is the trickle down developing military technology does for the civilian sector. Research into lasers, composites, trauma medicine, MRI's et al. all had thier basis in defence related projects.

I for one would much rather see money spent in that direction than providing welfare to some crack mom poppining out multiple children.

I know that an extreme case but he if the shoe fits.

Extreme in that it almost never happens that way. It's also not as much spending as you might think:

The average taxpayer had a tax rate of 12.45% in 2005 (the latest data available here), so if we multiply things out we see that about 0.93% of the average taxpayer's income went to non-medical "welfare". So, if you made $50,000 and paid $6,225.00 in Federal income tax, approximately $465.00 went to all of these programs x-healthcare and veterans pensions.

Source

The real problem in social spending is medicare/medicaid. That's a whole different topic, though, and it's mostly due to people just not knowing how badly the medical industry, pharmaceutical companies, for example, are fleecing the tax payer. Example

Extreme in that it almost never happens that way. It's also not as much spending as you might think

I live in a waterman community with an average personal income of around $17,000 and household income of around $24,000. Crisfield, MD. You can come and see the effect government social programs have had on our community. Drug users exceed non drug users within our schools. Trafficking is issue #1.

I agree 100% with the technology development through military spending in sight of my personal experience with people in my own community. Further F-22 development is very important in my opinion.


[edit on 29-6-2009 by Bugman82]