there trying to bomb it up - but simply honestly they can`t - free fall weapons is all it can carry - as cobzz said , its a fighter jet , designed to take on russian fighters and bombers - and a relic of the cold war.


whats more concerning is the 250 F-16`s being retired for time-life next year from the ANG, most tasked with CONUS air defence.

Originally posted by AgentXI
i am in the military stationed at a F-22 base and you should see how they use to baby this thing, although it is an amazing machine and the storys i have heard about it have far surpassed the f-15 yet the F-15 is 105-0 (i believe) in air combat, not sure why you would need a new aircraft yet anyways. way to go on spending that money!!

Do you assume we have no enemies?

Do you assume that they are setting on their hands and don't want to see us go down?

Check with china.

The only USAF aircraft that is seriously old and not replaceable nor has any competition from other nations to my knowledge is the A-10. It has been consigned to guard units, the bone yard and like the Phoenix, rises from the ashes.

They have an upgraded F-15, but it is still and F-15, more capable, but not and F-22. The F-22 has no competition.

Do you mind a chinese flight strafing and bombing your air base? I retired in 84, lived through those concerns in Europe and GB. The very best is what is needed.

As to spending money, we have spent ton of money since the 60's on welfare, and we have nothing to show for it. We traded our space effort for that.

As to the ruskies, they are just crappy soldiers, and their design and building are seriously crappy so they might have been somewhat of a threat, but it would have been short lived.

Maybe the folks in the black ops areas have some new goodies that will be unveiled as the F-117 was, but the design to flight will probably not be as short and quick as we could need it to be with bho running the show. bho is a prime candidate for getting a war started, showing weakness insures a war.

Once the F-22 line is shut down, that is it, way to costly to attempt to reopen it. 187 F-22's, no where near enough.

The chinese are a threat, they watch and learn from us. They steal our technology and nothing is done to stop it. Those that sell it with gains coming their way are allowed to get away with it. Chinese are a happy little bunch. And they really love bjk.

Originally posted by Harlequin
there trying to bomb it up - but simply honestly they can`t - free fall weapons is all it can carry - as cobzz said , its a fighter jet , designed to take on russian fighters and bombers - and a relic of the cold war.


whats more concerning is the 250 F-16`s being retired for time-life next year from the ANG, most tasked with CONUS air defence.

The F-22 can carry bombs, that is why it has a bomb bay, though I am sure they can carry other goodies in it. It is intended to kill enemy aircraft, because we have not seen any enemy aircraft probably has something to do with the enemies acceptance or our air superiority. We own the air and the land will follow. Do you think an Army or Marine helicopter or a tank can stand up against a fighter bomber or and enemy air superiority aircraft with a few guided bombs? A real one based on our technology, not ruskie. Technology stolen from us and put into use against us.

The F-22 can carry small diameter bombs, (SDB, they are 250 pounders, guided). Even the A-10 can now carry and use guided bombs, why wouldn't the F-22 have that capability. It is not new technology, and something as advanced as the F-22 with non guided bombs, seriously?

If you were a ground trooper hanging on the battle field watching for chicom jets you might develop a slightly different attitude. Air superiority is the watch word, with out it, no matter how fearsome our ground forces are, they are toast if the enemy jets can get to them. Ask the muslims in iraq or afganistan. Ask the north vietnamese, we served their butts up every time that stood still and that was with tons of aid from our treasonous americans in the US. They NVA did not have air superiority.

You missed the F-15C's last I heard they are all headed to the bone yard, structurally, they are wore out and not safe for flight. F-16's are probably in the same boat. F-15E's are still in the game, I am sure they are still using F-16's and will continue for some time. Their are various vintages so some will be newer and have more refined structures and be a bit tougher.

Might also keep in mind that the guard and reserve often get older aircraft. As to defending the US, I am sure that is not high on bho's list of priorities, after all, when he is done everyone will love us.

Of course, with bho's peace efforts I am real sure we won't need any of those weapons systems anyway. Right!

Ole Sarge

The F-22 can carry bombs, that is why it has a bomb bay

The F-22 has weapons bays so it could carry air to air munitions while remaining stealthy. The real reason it can carry bombs is to justify further orders and add additional strike capability to the force.

It is intended to kill enemy aircraft, because we have not seen any enemy aircraft probably has something to do with the enemies acceptance or our air superiority.

The real reason would be more about STRIKE aircraft destroying the enemies air force before it gets off the ground. Additionally the US has not exactly faced competent Air Forces in a long time.

Do you think an Army or Marine helicopter or a tank can stand up against a fighter bomber or and enemy air superiority aircraft with a few guided bombs?

No.

Do you think an enemy Air Force can stand up against a few thousand stealthy STRIKE aircraft, upgraded legacies and about 200 F-22's? No RAND reports, please.

Even the A-10 can now carry and use guided bombs, why wouldn't the F-22 have that capability

Of course it has the capability to carry bombs. Just not very many of them, or many different kinds, with little means or no means to target independently - of course there is Synthetic Aperture Radar (but no Ground Moving Target Indication) on half the fleet, but given the other half is made up of "mistake planes" with different avionics architecture makes further integration of weapons and avionics difficult, at best.

FYI, the A-10 has poor mans IRST. It's a dog and useless against more capable forces, IMO.

You missed the F-15C's last I heard they are all headed to the bone yard, structurally, they are wore out and not safe for flight.

Newest 250 aircraft going to get upgraded with AESA last time I heard.

F-16's are probably in the same boat.

Flying till around 2020 and phased out by the F-35. In any case the F-22 is not designed to do what the F-16 does - it can't. The F-22 is an outstanding air dominance fighter, but is no multi-role aircraft - as much as we would all like more (especially me), no amount of F-22's can cure the fighter gap.

[edit on 13/8/2009 by C0bzz]

I am convinced that, for a given amount of money, you get more capability out of a mix of Super Hornets and F-22's than a bunch of F-35's. One Raptor and 4 Hornets vs 3 F-35's. This ratio is based off of the projected cost of 100 million per F-35, 135m for the Raptor which is/was in production, and the current flyaway cost of the Hornet. If we ordered more F-22's and Hornets, the ratio would improve because we'd be paying for procurement instead of development.


If we actually get 2000 F-35's, then I don't think think Raptor cancellation is a huge deal. If it's cut short, as I fully expect it to, we'd be better off with a mix of the iron hauling Hornets and sky dominating Raptors, than the jack of all trades, master of none, F-35.

From what I read, the reason this place was being cut is because there are conventional places in our militaries that can do the same thing as this place for a fraction of the cost.

I also belive that this jet is underpowered compaired to other jets and its only saving grace was that it could fire missles from over the arch of the earth (outside of other jets missle range) and that it has stealth. But get close to it and its a sitting duck... dosent make much sence to keep it around seeing as how theres a new JTF in the works that will do all the things the F22 does.

i sign a letter to my congresswomen to save it but got a letter back saying the care about jobs in the us i guess health care is more importmant then jobs that could help the unempoyment rate

I love this plane but it's actually quite worthless for our needs. Its electronic system is so pact and sensitive, it can be jammed with simple technologies on the battle filed. It was reported that this was the reason they weren't used in Iraq, the radios used to set off IEDs would screw them up. A dog fight over uninhabited land is great and over the oceans, but if you got a battle field below, seems not so good. Think how bad the environment would be if the country we were fighting had advanced tools to jam the F22's electronics? The other issue is that we by in large, loose our aircraft to accidents and on the battle field, and when you loose one of these, the cost is awesome in dollars and a larger chunk of your total investment into a number of aircraft you fund is hit harder by loosing a larger percentage of your defensive or offensive capability. It was not as smart an investment as we hoped for! When you think about it, it is only good against Russian aircraft coming over the North Pole.