Congress is considering a restart of the F-22 Raptor program

Washington Examiner via Business Insider ^ | June 21st, 201 | Travis J. Tritten

[Mariner]

The Air Force has provided the House a classified report on restarting the F-22 Raptor fighter jet program, congressional staff said Tuesday.

The House Armed Services Committee received the report two days ago, but staff said it was still being reviewed.

House lawmakers ordered the report last year to determine what it would take and how much it might cost to begin producing the high-tech, fifth generation aircraft again.

Congress voted in 2009 to stop purchasing the F-22 stealth fighters after just 187 were made, hundreds less than the Air Force had planned.

[Mariner]

A little good news to help you sleep better at night.

I think the original plan was for ~400 units.

[momincombatboots]

Awwww no pictures?

[RC one]

Air dominance is always a good investment.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Compare to what the F35 costs now and what that delivers Raptors are a bargain. No chance to get more in 2009.

[RinaseaofDs]

Great news. Fearsome weapon system.

[Lower Deck]

I would assume the same line that they built the F-22 on has now been retooled for the F-35. So restarting the F-22 would likely put a crimp in F-35 deliveries, unless the government pays for a whole new assembly line for the F-22. And what would that add to the per-unit cost?

[PIF]

750 scaled back to 400, scaled back to 187 - at least 2 of those have crashed

[Anti-Bubba182]

Agree!

[Phlyer]

I think the original plan was for ~400 units.

The original plan, that was used to justify a new start, was for 850 units. That was derived from actual mission need. It was used as a basis for design decisions on developing new technology (e.g. actuators) versus using off-the-shelf technology.

By the time we won the production contract, the official planning quantity was 648 aircraft, which was based on all sorts of numbers but practically was a direct replacement for F-15s rather than a true mission need analysis. It was on this number that we based production decisions like automation (robots) versus manual fabrication techniques. Changing both of those decisions added a lot of unit cost to the program because the payoff was in spreading the development over more units.

If someone had intended to commit deliberate and malicious treason, they could hardly have made a more effective attack against our nation than limiting the F-22 to 187 planes.

[PIF]

I think the whole of the line, tools and videos of how to were mothballed.

Problem is the the Heads up Helmut the F-22 (like the F-35 has) was supposed to have (40 yr old tech) on launch still has not arrived.

Coat is likely prohibitive as the tech is old and there is likely something flying around Groom that is much better.

[Kickass Conservative]

Start buying F-15 Silent Eagles as well as more F-22’s.
No need to start a new Production Line for the F-15’s.
The engineering is done.

Also build a modern version of the A-10 Warthog and give it to the Marines. Use what already works and add updated Technology.

If that’s too expensive, rebuild every A-10 Airframe in our Inventory using the latest and greatest. It’s already the best at what it does. None of this Multi Role garbage.

Yes, all the world’s problems can be solved by me and my Laptop. LOL

[Phlyer]

I would assume the same line that they built the F-22 on has now been retooled for the F-35.

Yes.

So restarting the F-22 would likely put a crimp in F-35 deliveries,

No. The production facilities in Georgia (final assembly on F-22) and Fort Worth (final assembly for F-35) are huge. The Fort Worth plant is over a mile long, and the Georgia plant is nearly that long. Setting up for F-22 would have negligible effect on F-35 production. However, the tooling has been removed so it would need to be set up again in another part of the plant. When we started F-35 rate production we moved the entire F-16 production to a different building on the Fort Worth reservation and never missed a delivery. And that's without serious and continuous overtime.

A worse problem is 'diminishing manufacturing resources' which means things like computer chips that were state-of-the-art when the F-22 was designed are no longer available. Obviously, better ones *are* available, but that would take some design and test effort to implement. It wouldn't be cheap. By the time that redesign/retest effort was completed the production facilities could be ready.

A further potential issue is that the F-35 software architecture is better than that on the F-22 (time marches on). Changing the software architecture to be more state-of-the-art would be a major task, but might be worthwhile. It depends on how many units they want to build. (See comments above.)

[Hulka]

You are correct.

The cost of re-starting the line is astronomical. . .billions, and the expertise, production tools, second and third tier suppliers that require years of advance contracting to acquire components. . .setting up the production line will take years. . .not cheap. . .and it is not exportable by legislation so if we want to cost-share fundamental changes to make exportable then we must invest in the tens of millions to re-program and millions of line of code must be changed.

Not as easy as some think it is as it is darned hard and costly beyond comprehension.

[Mark17]

The Air Force has provided the House a classified report on restarting the F-22 Raptor fighter jet program, congressional staff said Tuesday.

Did some rat bastard Democrat party hack leak it to the NYT?

[buffaloguy]

Give me 1200 of those suckers...
President Buffaloguy.

[Hulka]

“Also build a modern version of the A-10 Warthog and give it to the Marines. “

And the logistics, supply, weapons and weapons dumps, arming areas, re-fueling requirements and the need for a runway make that a romantic idea but unworkable. . .and yes, the A-10 can operate on unimproved surfaces but after a couple of launches and recoveries, the tires are shot, the engines show signs of FOD damage (engines need replacement) and the flight controls and leading edge of wings and such are chewed up as well, and a (relatively) long runway is necessary, especially if carrying external weapons loads.

Nice as it is to dream “give it to the Marines” simply will not work: field sustainment and repeated operations kill the jet.

(Back in the 80’s I flew off an autobahn and we were darned lucky to get just a couple of sorties per jet before the logistics and supply train was depleted.)

Do a search on this topic as the limitations are discussed in detail.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

YAY!

[Tucker39]

Cancelled in 2009. That was the bath house traitor’s doing. Why am I not in the least surprise?

[Hulka]

“computer chips that were state-of-the-art when the F-22 was designed are no longer available. Obviously, better ones *are* available, but that would take some design and test effort to implement.”

The Program Manager can contract for upgrades during manufacture. . .unlike the sissy Euroweenies and their ain’t-it-pretty Euro-fighter that is locked into specific tech specs all through the production cycle. A European consortium needs to keep the design as it was agreed when the contract was signed. . .why?. . . because other nations have their own piece of the labor pie and any changes to the contract means local impacts to labor and such (for example, there is a supplier of 512K chips and the Euro-fighter needs an upgrade but the nation that provides the 512K chips will not agree to any changes).

[Mariner]

F-35 and F-22 have completely different missions.

The SUPERIOR strike aircraft is the F-35, air supremacy belongs to the Raptor.

We need both.