Great jet. How many do you want?
Two of President-elect Barack Obama’s stated goals — cutting wasteful spending and saving or creating millions of jobs — are on a collision course in a looming decision over whether to keep building the F-22 fighter jet.
Air Force officials have told Congress that they are hoping to win a $9 billion commitment to produce at least 60 F-22s over a three-year period, which would expand the fleet to 243.
But the F-22, a stealthy, supersonic fighter that was designed during the cold war and has never been used in combat, has many critics, and they include Robert M. Gates, who will remain Defense secretary in the Obama administration. Mr. Gates has questioned the relevancy of the F-22, and said the military should focus its resources more on fighting insurgencies like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rubber, meet the road.
Meanwhile, supporters of the F-22 program — which has cost more than $65 billion so far — argue that Mr. Obama should extend its production, at least temporarily, to preserve thousands of jobs related to building the jets, which cost $143 million each…
Without further spending for the F-22, companies that supply critical components for it would begin shutting down soon.
The chairmen and ranking Republicans on both the House and Senate defense appropriations subcommittees recently wrote to Mr. Gates to voice their support for the F-22, cautioning that “the last thing our nation needs is to terminate jobs in this time of such economic uncertainty.”
Like many big weapons systems, the plane, which relies on 1,000 parts suppliers in 44 states, has strong support in Congress, which recently provided up to $140 million in bridge financing for some of the suppliers.
Ah, yes: The Department of Defense as a jobs program.
Perfect.
It makes good business sense for defense contractors to spread the wealth among as many states as possible, thereby energizing Congress to support military programs that might, or might not, stand on their own merits.
Ecce: The Iron Triangle.
“Change” looks easy from the outside. From the inside, the challenge is to govern. Good luck, Mr. President-elect.
Interesting missive in the latest AvWeek…
“The Iranians are on contract for the SA-20 [which NATO designated ýýýGargoyle'],” says one of the U.S. government officials. “We’ve got a huge set of challenges in the future that we’ve never had [before]. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we’ve been free to operate in all domains.”
The Lockheed Martin F-22 with its all-aspect, -40-dBsm. radar cross-section signature can operate within the engagement envelope of the SA-20 and SA-21. But the Lockheed Martin F-35 with its -30-dBsm. signature, but not all-aspect stealth, is at greater risk. The rear quadrant of the F-35, particularly around the engine-exhaust area, is not as stealthy as the F-22.
Now, this gets my dander up a bit….
During the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia, the caution with which double-digit SAMs are treated was obvious. NATO wanted to monitor the fighting and refugee problems and track combat forces with its fleet of recently updated E-3 AWACS surveillance aircraft. They were banned from the area because the Russian attack columns included mobile SA-20 batteries. From their location in the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia, these SAMs covered airspace over the eastern Black Sea where the E-3s would have needed to operate.
“If a coalition organization wanted to establish [surveillance or reconnaissance] flights or a no-flight zone in an area populated by double-digit SAMS, you couldn’t do it with nonstealthy aircraft,” the government official says. “These modern weapon systems are going to deny us strategic and operational options that in the past we haven’t had to worry about.”
Seems I wasn’t such the crank that many took me to be…
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/34964
The past is not Prologue in this case. There are two significant differences today-and more importantly in the years ahead-that makes the argument that “none have been shot down so far…” a very misguided one.
First off, tanker and ISR assets are in fact operating in threat envelopes already while being employed in tactical roles. Significant tanker losses were anticipated over Iraq. Thank God for the almost comical incompetence of the Iraqis!! JSTARS, RC-135s, P-3s, and EP-3s, all have been routinely employed “deep” in recent conflicts. That trend will only continue in the years ahead.
Next is the fact that potential adversaries, and companies that cater to potential adversaries, have recognized the value of these assets to our network centric way of war. A whole new class of “Awacs Killer” weapons systems are being funded and fielded to specifically target these aircraft.
Given the limited inventories of ISR assets, the loss of even one will be a critical blow to our ability to conduct operations. Push tankers farther away, and the ground folks will no longer have the “persistence” of airpower which has become such an integral part of our operational doctrine.
So, given the increasingly pivotal nature these militarized airliners-or as I like to call them, Faux Warbirds-have on our ability to conduct offensive and defensive operations, making them less vulnerable is money well spent.