Fans of the F-22 Raptor need to wake-up

Why don't you guy's read up on some of the speeches Congressman Ron Paul from Texas gave in Congress lately:

The End of Dollar Hegemony

But anyway, lets not turn this discussion into a debate about the US debt.

El Tiante,

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I’m not sure what to say to you. Speaking about the debt is terms a specific, unadjusted dollar amount is either a demonstration of ignorance or an attempt at deception.
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No. It is not. Because what it will depend on is _devaluing_ of currency (as the other poster kindly illustrated) to create a competive monetaryil standard. Such is why the oil companies are 'raking it in' (while they can) as U.S. oil prices skyrocket. If war with Iran means the rebuke of the USD as a monetary standard 'equitable with black gold'; ALL OTHER DEBTS will exponentially increase in rated interest vs. paper-for-product real value.

The perception of which will crush GROWTH in this country like nothing else.

I myself have no confidence in 'growth' where it is artificially induced as a function of 'license to print money' scalar economics. Because it burns out economies which have no cultural cycle of (generational) investment in their peoples perception of societal safety belting as the REAL, PRINCIPAL, 'value in, work out' coverage of economic debt.

Nor do I believe in ethnic wage slave immigration by default as a means to replace the disenfranchised with one-generation shot of economic adrenaline. Because in a generation or two, they will also be 'just as lazy' as other Americans. And the racial and demographic conflicts will not be pretty for what they Goths-in-Rome do to leverage remaining property-as-collateral incentive value by birthrate.

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The ONLY meaningful measure of nation debt is the debt to GDP ratio. As I have CLEARLY shown above America’s current debt is LOWER than most other industrialized nation, is far LOWER than the historical peak and is SHRINKING.
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No. Because foreign held U.S. currency can be devalued in an instant based on cultural and economic factors beyond our ability to 'stabilize' and because we have created a world market based on consumerism which is like the salamander eating it's own tail as far as sustaining market leverage with artificial dollar fiat.

Once they have the power (savings, budgetary and resource demand driven) to control their own internal trade, such commerce alliances as the EU and what will come to be an equivalent in the Far East will rapidly gain the critical mass to survive without U.S. trade _at all_. And then our debt will come crashing down on us as the artificial value placed on the USD will deflate like a pricked balloon.

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The fact that other countries wish to invest in the American economy is a sign of STRENGTH not weakness.
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No. It's an indication of a small segment of foreign governmental and economic powerbase investing in American consumerist nature to fuel their own ambitions and self serving pursuit of wealth.

Yet the fact remains that a trickledown economic effect CAN WORK when the mean standard of living is so low that 'any movement is upwards'. And once the exploitation phase is over, the local slave state economies in the SWAPR region especially will become powerhouses in their own right as the REAL VALUE of high tech and heavy industrial production exceeds that of the Monopoly Money that the USD is being reduced to in the stock, monetary and housing markets.

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You mention the SSA liability, but what you fail to mention is the future value of American’s GDP. Again this either an either a demonstration of ignorance or an attempt at deception
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I did indeed mention a generation of 'last truly intelligent workers'. Workers whose efforts contributed to the Marshall Plan and others which leveraged the world economy to it's knees and then a staggering standup like a newborn colt. Now the horse that was raised from that meager beginning is ready to run. And we are not the economic power we once were because we threw everything we had into leveraging monetary rather than cultural wealth as a function of disenfranchising the principal working class and destroying an ethnically leveraged but honest civillian infrastructure to instead invest in quick-money foreign adventurism.

That 'rapid growth' we induced is NOT OURS TO OWN. And what's left of Americana reals under the uncertainty and lack of support that would let us wait out other nation's yearling period with a more constant cycle of internal investment and _stable economic mass_.

Only capitalism and cancer seeks to justify health as an expression of unremittant growth.


KPl.

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Even if oil goes to $100 bb, it will still be only a little above the adjusted historical peak in the mid 1980s. It will represent some short to mid-term pain, but it will no way cripple America’s economy.
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No. Because the companies which deal INTERNATIONALLY in oil will have to inflate local prices beyond what their own holdings indicate is necessary, just to maintain futures leverage on what will most certainly be a falling dollar value.

A dollar value whose AT HOME consumerist appetite will suffer lockjawed anorexia as /crippling/ interest rate hikes replace Greenspans "I know, let's throw money at it!" bubble enhancing policies of 18 years duration.

No tightening of the Fed. No new taxes. No CONTROL ROD THEORY on a runaway economy.

Until now we are living on a Chinese Food Diet whereby we skip from precipice to precipice, fighting fires over international monetary and resource control. While waiting for the cliff of economic engine to crumble underneath us.

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The only thing that matters is growth.
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Only when society has a social unity and a vision of the future sufficient to put their backs into it. Ever since LBJ's Great Society we've been living like it's 1999 and accruing debt as fast as we can under the perception that it's all large-scale systemics which 'government can handle'. Even as it encourages us to live a credit card lifestyle based not on continuity but riding out wild spikes of self-consuming boom-bust exploitation by 'investment groups' that recoup all they can immediately and leave entire market segments (and their associated societal continuity) sagging.

American accession to this comes as a function of financing a NWO that opens stable (closed loop) economic resources to world wide competition while ignoring the societal management issues raised by divesting ourselves of a cultural as much as national history.

This has destroyed our society by debilitating any reason for longterm commitment to it.

Revesting in OUR OWN FUTURE as much as vapid increase in hollow consumerist power based on foreign slave state and oil-as-gold-as-dollar economics is the only way back from that perception-as-truth.

And we won't do it so long as we perceive that 'larger goals' rather than a humbler role in them, is where political as much as national power most readily comes from.


KPl.


Orca,
Don't pretend that an F-22 costs more than an F-35 _as a program total_. Don't pretend that the cost of selling the F-35 internationally as a function of technology-escalation threat is 'of greater worth' than what we would gain by keeping VLO at home. Don't pretend that the F-35 is better than the F-22 in ANY up and away (warfighting) sense. Don't pretend that ANY serious war would not require the F-22 to precede the USN/USMC as a rollback platform no matter how many F-35 they have. Don't pretend that ANY 'Ops Other Than War' alternative requires ANY 'fighter' platform at all.

And you will realize that the F-22 is not a waste. It is merely /the least unpalateable/ solution to reducing our country to ONE Air Service. Not three.

ONE power projection dynamic. Not three.

In a modernized total force perhaps 1/4 to 1/3rd it's current size.

Subconsciously, we have all (been encouraged to) come to perceive national strength as military strength as economic strength as personal sense of well being. That bubble is about to burst like an overgrown pimple when our economy collapses.

And when the citizens of the USA realizes what a merry path of false 'security' they have been led down since Kennedy at least, they will have utterly no respect for the Armed Services of this country for GENERATIONS to come. But that doesn't mean we won't still need to have the best for when we need it.

And the F-35, as a pure-pork system, is not even close to meeting that standard.

Even before it hands out technology base secrets for free.


KPl.

I love when people start attacking the economics of military projects (it's always the last gasp attempt to win an argument, similar to the "who will think of the children" defense). Like the cost of the project really matters in a fight "WAIT! your plane was too expensive, you can't shoot me down!" ha! Raptor owns period. I like the post a little ways back about American planes being unproven, no knock on the Europeans but Americans planes appear to have seen more action and have better training than any other country. It's been part of the US military doctrine since World War I to gain air superiority, and the US has had it in every conflict so I guess I'm not following how America's fighter squads are unproven?

White Chapel,

Recent exercises over India have proven that when the threat has equal BVR capability to confuse and break up longrange spear chucker tactics, 'superior training' is a biomyth of titanic proportions when it comes to judging the residual pilot bleep factor as a function of getting to and surviving in the WVR realm.

Quite simply, the Indians fly Gen-3/4 jets with superior physical and 'similar' radar capabilities to the APG-63V(1) of the F-15C MSIP-2. And they combine this with enough yearly hours and enough package tactics to ram an offensive raid down our throats.

So long as we give them a force they can see to fight.

Which is why the ultimate Air Dominant Anything is going to be a laser equipped jet that doesn't NEED to penetrate to a given range or get sneaky vice good in the intercept phase. But simply solves all geometry at the speed of light over a 60-100 (ATL) or 400-500 (ABL) range determinancy.

ARGUMENT:
_I Prefer The Raptor_. Not as a 'fighter' but as a COE platform that doesn't have to /defend/ it's presence to _anybody_. Because as ol' man Sun Tzu himself once said: "The ultimate warrior is one who owns his opponent without ever having to enter active battle against him...."

The difference is that the combination of netcentric AD, DEWS, and hunting weapons which will be ready for production LONG before the F-35 enters service, mandates that aircraft be more coin-flip sacrificial than a manned anything would be kamikaze acceptable to us.

At the same time, the number of areas and opfors who posess the ability to make such a full-intensity conflict happen are so few and far between compared to the HUGE number of LIC/OOTW/SSC fights where effectively THERE IS NO AIR DEFENSE.

That is is _criminal_ to make the American populace pay for the least used and indeed /least useful/ of combat aircraft performance factoring. When that very 'fighter like' capability destroys more useful ones such as absolute radius, loiter at radius, signature, and affordable numbers.

CONCLUSION:
It is in the details that the fighters should be measured. Not in the gross generalities. And for that analytical rather than cognition based rationale to be applied; requires more than any 'historical so it must be true' approach to determining WHETHER FIGHTERS ARE NEEDED. And of what particular types and numbers.

Do that, properly, and you will see that the F-22 is not just 'the best' but THE ONLY solution to the manned OCA mission force requirement. AND the D1/R1 standoff slingbomber one.

But you will also discover that the sum total of airframes needed (with Small IAM) vs. the PAUC and TLCC /value/ (cost vs. capability) of said inventory, can only be justified if they are both of a single type. And unmanned.

We will get there. But it will require the economic equivalent of a Richter 9 earthquake across the broadest strata of our society to convince us not to suffer the egos of those who care for their own job security more than the national security and economic prosperity of this nation which they have sworn to defend.


KPl.

Originally posted ch1466
Recent exercises over India have proven that when the threat has equal BVR capability to confuse and break up longrange spear chucker tactics, 'superior training' is a biomyth of titanic proportions when it comes to judging the residual pilot bleep factor as a function of getting to and surviving in the WVR realm.

Not really, recent exercises over India have only shown us that a numerically superior and well equipped and trained force utilizing their systems to their full potential will win over an adversary not doing the same.

Can we please get back tot he topic and not talk of debt we need to be adressing the issue at hand.

WestPoint23,

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Not really, recent exercises over India have only shown us that a numerically superior and well equipped and trained force utilizing their systems to their full potential will win over an adversary not doing the same.
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Chicken:Egg.

You cannot utilize your weapons systems to 'their full potential' if you are a staked-dogsoldier fixed to a point in space or a sheepdogged to a fixed ground track by which your mission is supporting someone else'.

Even if you move to 60-80km AMRAAM shots with full offboard (datalink to MPCD and possibly to missile) support, then they shift to surround sound and defense-in-depth with a fully activated IADS to include 150km S-300.

And you're right back with not being able to 'dwell' in the threat space long enough to time out the missiles which, in any case, are on the outer edge of engagement envelope.

Now, you can mix in EA-6B and F-16CJ and all the other system-of-systems enabler goodies 'for as deep as they'll go' but the fact remains the same:

Modern war highlights the need to remove the 'human factors' element through _non-interactive_ standoff. So that not only are you the first to see-shoot-kill. But the ONLY one to do so.

And once that threshold is achieved (whereby Sprey and Stevenson's arguments about BVR are debunked except as they apply to large forces able to threaten non-VLO assets), 'training' has damn little to do with it.

YOU could beat an IAF force with an F-22 and AMRAAM-D.

OTOH, a modern day Eric Hartmann would not be able to avoid crippling attrition in longrange strikes out of Pakistan with an F-teen force. He would be bled dry on firepower, gas and safe bearing long before he reached anything important (nuclear facilities etc.) inside India's interior.

Such is one of the key factors that is so often overlooked by modern airpower theorists.

Not simply that VLO allows SOJAM and other rollback to be more effective _so long as it is not overstretched_.

But that /companioning it/ (as a function of supposed niche synergy in a golfclub platform approach) with the conventional platform mission expectations is itself _crippling_ in it's outcome on 'how fully you utilize your potential'.

Such is the difference between stealth-COE as an initiative retaining refusal to be baited. And 'coming to grips' with an opponent whose own longspear technology is enough to deny you (the conventional signature shooter or protector) the ability to avoid or attack them at will.

As soon as they can dictate even a partial level of coequivalency in the where-as-how of air defense, everything you do must be about getting beyond that point with enough gas, munitions, expendables and raid integrity to still make target /after/ they're done with you.

Has nobody studied Schweifurt-Regensburg comparitively with say Mosquito ops in Norway and the France given a modern understanding of the difference between terminal and area defenses and 'escorted' vs. unengaged attrition dynamics?!


KPl.

[edit on 29-4-2006 by ch1466]

For an aircraft that was first conceived in 1981, it has taken a heck of a long time for it to be realised. There will always be detractors of the F-22, however I think it would be realistic to - at the very least – describe it as an improvement overall from its predecessors. However it appears to me that in recent times that the aircrafts sub-systems, especially its offensive/defensive armaments and counter measures, are becoming increasingly more important than the capabilities of the airframe itself.

Holy cow Russian Boy is still here? Well, anyways I like how you stated that Seekerof is blind because the raptor has been overestimated and then you state the "fact" that Russian radars can easily detect stealth? Who is truly the blind one? Seekerof simply states that the F-22 is an awesome aircraft (you call him blind because of it) and you go out and say Russian radars can detect stealth. I'm sooooo confused right now about that logic.......

[edit on 29-4-2006 by Cephas]

If Air Force pilots love the F/A-22, and cannot detect it themselves with their own aircraft, then I feel the aircraft is very worthy. Remember, all the F/A-22 detractors are judging the aircraft by the known capabilities of much more conventional aircraft; a good majority of the Raptor's capabilities aren't even public.

It is public that the Raptor is very difficult for any foreign aircraft to detect, and it can display to its pilot all sorts of information regarding enemy aircraft it is flying towards. It's supercomputer allows it to compute and display things about opposing aircraft that other aircraft simply cannot do.

Even IF they detect the Raptor, which is very unlikely, their aircraft cannot display information about the Raptor the way the Raptor can display information about their aircraft.

Furthermore, as said, the Raptor can relay all this information that pretty much only it can obtain down to all other U.S. military aircraft and ground forces.

The Raptor is loved by its pilots, it is said repeatedly to be notoriously difficult to fight by pilots battling it, it has computational and speed and altitude capabilties far beyond current F-15 and F-16s, it can penetrate airspace that F-15s and F-16s cannot, and it has numerous capabilities which are completely classified and are going to revolutionize aerial warfare.

Remember this: The military always assigns the lowest bidder for the best equipment, so since the Raptor costs the insane amount it does, that is only a testament to the true technological wonder it is. The military doesn't pay that much for a shoddy or even decent product, they pay it for the absolute best when it costs that much. All that extra $$$ in the Raptor isn't because the cockpit is carved out of solid gold and the pilot's seat is handstitched leather, there's a reason it costs so much and that is the technology put into it that nothing else in the air today has.

Originally posted by WheelsRCool
Remember this: The military always assigns the lowest bidder for the best equipment, so since the Raptor costs the insane amount it does, that is only a testament to the true technological wonder it is. The military doesn't pay that much for a shoddy or even decent product, they pay it for the absolute best when it costs that much. All that extra $$$ in the Raptor isn't because the cockpit is carved out of solid gold and the pilot's seat is handstitched leather, there's a reason it costs so much and that is the technology put into it that nothing else in the air today has.

The reality is that it's possible to build a search & destroy system that can take out the Raptor for a fraction of the cost of a single fighter jet. There are companies in the US and abroad that are designing such systems today. Even maniacal 3rd world dictators can afford to build or buy such a system.

BTW, if you know anything about how organizations work, you would understand that when someone has the right to make decisions with other people's money but are unaccountable for results that they make poor decisions.

[edit on 1-5-2006 by orca71]

The F-22 is undeniably the world's best fighter plane. Someone, I don't remember who, stated in an earlier post that everybody that is dogging that airplane is only dogging public things. There are so many things on that airplane that you or I could not even fathom. The airplane is the best we have, and the best over anything that anybody else has. So what if it can detect planes miles and miles away, shoot them and then run without even being detected? Do you think people said that about snipers and sniper rifles when they were first being invented? No.

My point being:

Work Smarter, Not Harder.

Define 'best'? It means different things to different people.

Granted the Raptor is the most advanced and capable fighter in existance, in that sense it is the best, no question.

However it is also the most complex and most expensive, that is why the USAF is getting around 180 of them instead of the 750 it wanted, complexity is also rarely a good thing in military machinery, but the F-111 was also criticised for this and proved to be extremely valuable in service.

I guess I'm just trying to say, be objective. Having the worlds most capable fighter is a good thing of course, but if its complexity were to make in unserviceable then its not much good is it and you could argue in that instance that a less advanced and capable, but available, aircraft was 'better'.

I agree with your assesment of the Raptor by the way, I'm just giving it some context.

No problem and you're right, I should correct myself. It is the most capable fighter in public existance.

edited for italics.

[edit on 1-5-2006 by mlindahl]

Originally posted by waynos
However it is also the most complex and most expensive, that is why the USAF is getting around 180 of them instead of the 750 it wanted...

Umm... not quite, when the ATF program was started in the 80’s the requirement at the time because of the Soviets was 750 units. As the Cold War ended the number of units steadily went down to 339. The USAF currently foresees a need for around 381 Raptor’s however funding may only be available for ~180. Also, when you have a fighter with its capabilities the price tag is understandable.

The decision to proceed to Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) was authorised in August 2001 and Lockheed Martin delivered 49 aircraft under LRIP contracts. Initial operational test and evaluation began in April 2004 and was successfully completed in February 2005. The F-22 entered full-rate production in April 2005. The USAF has a total requirement of 381 aircraft but funding may not be made available for more than 180. Over 50 aircraft have been delivered. The first operational wing of F-22A Raptors is based at Langley AFB in Virginia.

Link

Originally posted by waynos
I guess I'm just trying to say, be objective. Having the worlds most capable fighter is a good thing of course, but if its complexity were to make in unserviceable then its not much good is it and you could argue in that instance that a less advanced and capable, but available, aircraft was 'better'.

Good point waynos but what you just mentioned is the beauty of the F-22. Granted its not perfect and even though some things still have to be tweaked the F-22 offers several key advantages over the current legacy fighters. For all its capabilities and complexity the F-22 is easier to fly, maintain, deploy, and train in than the F-15 which its replacing. And I’m willing to bet they’ll have a higher mission ready rating once fully in service.

The entire F-22 is thoroughly wired for self-test. Almost every subsystem can check itself for faults and report its operational status. Ground crews can monitor the health of the aircraft through a laptop computer, configured as a "Portable Maintenance Aide (PMA)". The PMA can list faults and perform diagnoses, as well as check the level of consumables such as fuel and oil. Overall maintenance demands for the F-22 are estimated to be half or less that for an F-15, and the Raptor's estimated three-hour mean time between maintenance is three times that of the F-15.

Link

The F-22 is more reliable than the aircraft it will replace, and it requires significantly less support resources than the F-15 while providing unequaled operational capability. It will be a true force multiplier.

From the outset, the F-22 was designed for supportability and self-sufficiency, with reduced logistics costs. The improvements designed into the F-22 are predicted to save more than 50% of the operations and support costs of the F-15 over a 20-year period.

The F-22 will provide significantly more sorties each day than current fighters. It can be flown on twice as many consecutive sorties, will be twice as reliable, require 1/2 the direct maintenance man-hours per flight hour, and 2/3 the turnaround time for its next combat sortie as the F-15C. Also, a 24-aircraft F-22 squadron will require less than 1/2 the C-141 airlift support to deploy for 30 days than is presently required by a comparable F-15 unit (about 7.8 C-141 loads to deploy an F-22 squadron versus the 16 C-141 loads for an F-15C).

Additionally, to deploy an F-22 unit, there will be fewer shops required (such as wheel and tires, ejection seat, and pilot equipment), and reduced spares as well.

Link

Related Sources

Source 1
Source 2

[edit on 1-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

Unserviceability is always unnaturally high when a new system is first deployed, so I wasn't knocking the F-22 per se, it was just a general point. Also, I'd like to bet you that the USAF never ever, not once, rang up congress and said "great news - we don't need 750 F-22's after all"

Each and every cut in the number of F-22's to be bought since it began was as a cost cutting measure, however it might be dressed up as an 'operational decision'. It would be like the RAF throwing away its Jaguars 5 years early and pretending it didn't need them anymore. Oh wait, we DID that!

I don’t doubt that the USAF would grab as many Raptor’s as possible but 750 is unnecessary, if the jet is as good as they say then I see no need for a 2 to 1 replacement of the F-15.

The idea was for a 1 to 1 replacement of the F-15, not 2 to 1.

Originally posted by orca71

Originally posted by WheelsRCool
Remember this: The military always assigns the lowest bidder for the best equipment, so since the Raptor costs the insane amount it does, that is only a testament to the true technological wonder it is. The military doesn't pay that much for a shoddy or even decent product, they pay it for the absolute best when it costs that much. All that extra $$$ in the Raptor isn't because the cockpit is carved out of solid gold and the pilot's seat is handstitched leather, there's a reason it costs so much and that is the technology put into it that nothing else in the air today has.

The reality is that it's possible to build a search & destroy system that can take out the Raptor for a fraction of the cost of a single fighter jet. There are companies in the US and abroad that are designing such systems today. Even maniacal 3rd world dictators can afford to build or buy such a system.

BTW, if you know anything about how organizations work, you would understand that when someone has the right to make decisions with other people's money but are unaccountable for results that they make poor decisions.

[edit on 1-5-2006 by orca71]

I disagree. Too much of the F/A-22's capabilities are not known right now to make development of such a technology so easily. Remember, the Raptor is a stealth aircraft, it isn't like every other fighter plane that is not. It most likely is not invisible completely, but when flown on the proper flight path with the proper planning, it can remain invisible to the enemy.

As for these "search & destroy" systems, they send up missiles which track the aircraft to destroy them. The Raptor has virtually no heat signature or radar signature, so you're going to need an incredibly sophisticated missile to do this job.

Also, detecting an aircraft and tracking it are two entirely different things. Tracking is a LOT more complex than detection. To detect a stealth aircraft flying a mission intelligently is going to be very difficult, let alone tracking it.