Lets get started, remember China paid Russia 2 billion for 24 SU-35s, and this is a whole lot more airplane for a lot less money,,, lets do it NOW!
F-22 Raptor Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Lets get started, remember China paid Russia 2 billion for 24 SU-35s, and this is a whole lot more airplane for a lot less money,,, lets do it NOW!
kwaigonegin
Colonel
That's a drop in the bucket compared to the F35s which will not even be fully combat capable anytime soon.
Jura The idiot
General
there're things I can't understand, one of them definitely is the status of the F-22 fleet and the pace of its quote unquote modernization
how many Raptors can be really deployed, one dozen? two dozen? I mean really, not by Scout Warrior dot com
Like everything else,,, look to the two recent destroyer collisions,, DOD readiness took a horrible hit during the Obama years, cuts and cuts on top of cuts..think sequestration X 2..
so given the current state of affairs the economy is much better, but we still have high taxes, and Obamacare,,, the two things that KILL independent economies are socialist "money drains".
I realize this isn't what you asked, but this is the reason things are slower than you realize,, remember how many J-20s can China deploy?? probably around 6 or 7?? how many SU-57s could Russia put up today?? hummmm???? two or three????
So in some respect, the actual threat drives funding of projects like the Raptor upgrade,, facing one of our "near peers", we could muster 8o plus F-22s to almost any combat zone,, now if it were an "Alien Invasion"?? (remember, not all "aliens" are friendly), we could push that to 129 or 137, depending on whethers its a Monday or a Friday??
Depends the day LOL
You don't read me enough all numbers posted in the last page
readiness ~ 70 % quite sure about 100 birdsThe 139 combat coded are not all in front line Sqns they have 19 - 25 birds with 134 ( i had posted ) , remains 5* in reserve very few for Western AF but no loss or almost 4 series in 10 + years after necesary diminish the Sqn size for have new in reserve but they have a service life of 8000 hours one tested up to 21000 h !
* In fact 6 coz the 2 OEU have 14 F-22s and below 13 Pre series + development test/ operational test (DT/OT) Block 20/30/35s ... so 5 + 1
But kwaigonegin is from St-Louis IIRC...
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Jura The idiot
General
Brother I want to believe it's true
but check what I posted in
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread Friday at 10:41 PM
which is the context here: reportedly they're cannibalizing F-35 already way above what's planned
tell me it's not happening to F-22s
Master Jura,, if you read the proposal for this study,,, you can safely conclude that this is "peanut counting" opposition research against the F-35 program in particular, and the DOD in general... this is the "Congressional" accounting office,, lots of liberals and Dems on this program,, have you looked at the approval numbers of congress???
Why else would you project total cost of well over a trillion dollars out to 60 YEARS?? So they present the bean counters "worst case" scenario on every little issue, and magnify it to the greatest extent possible in order to appear "smarter and more important" than anyone else in the room, and to say to the DOD, we really can't afford this, or that,, kinda like your wife telling you why you can't have a new truck or a gun, while blowing the family budget on shoes and purses??
yes, they've never seen a socialist breakfast, free lunch, or after school program they didn't love, or road construction, (they LOVE Infrastructure), (remember O'bama's SHOVEL READY JOBS), you needed the shovel for all the Bull KRAP!
So, the F-35 is state of the ART, its NOT outdated, its not obsolescent, its ready to go, thankfully concurrency has delivered most of what it promised in the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C...
each of these unique to their service aircraft are highly effective at what they were designed to do. The Air Force and the Marines will meet any OP-FOR that presents a serious threat "TODAY"....
USAF, MARINE, and NAVY aircraft mechanics have done without ALICE since they were born into the military, and they can and will fix "Every Airplane", to the extent that it needs fixed.. the parts supply issue for the F-35 is NOT nearly as critical as that for the Hornet or Super Hornet at present..
This is a NEW weapon system, that we are still figuring out how to maintain,, we will shortly have most of ALICE up and running, and initial combat focused excercises have shown full well that we have a very effective and combat ready weapon that will give us 5 to1, 10 to 1, 15 to 1, (pick a number, they are all good) weapon system that will meet and beat our near peers today, and well into the future!
So to repeat myself for the 1000th time, (exaggerating my position like the GAO) Fifth Generation aircraft are a very expensive necessity, if we have a desire, (and we DO!) of maintaining "Air Superiority" and the ability to operate those aircraft in the very high threat ground based AAM environment,, yes the F-22 and the F-35 will "KILL" those up front!
so if you wanna play, you've got to PAY! otherwise we cede the future of the world, and our own lovely children to the tender mercies of folks like "Kim Jung Un" and I for one have NO intention of doing that! (OVER MY DEAD BODY!)
in the mean time, upgrading those 34 Raptors for 1.7 Billion is a "hell of a deal", count me IN!
how do you want my "fair share", CASH, CHECK, or CREDIT CARD?? I'm ALL IN!
The Marines and the USAF are ready to launch their F-35s this morning,, what's your hold up NAVY, I'd say we better get some Charlie's out to the boat, seriously, are those F-18's fully "Combat Ready" this morning...
and being in and around the flying business for 60+ years, counting my 9 months in conceptus, how many military missions have launched without a "squawk" or 10 squawks? not many, especially with a new weapons system, or an out of date weapons system, like the poor old Hornets?
kwaigonegin
Colonel
The Navy is taking things methodologically. The AF and Marines rushed to certify IOC but not FOC. Most folks in the civilian world and certainly politicians don't even know the difference.
As much as I like to say yes, the truth is at this very moment ZERO F35s are ready for operational combat missions. That is the truth. None of them can even launched 9 Xrays internally. Only pylon launched which severely compromise stealth integrity. That's just one of the many things it can't do.
The Block 3F is suppose to be the cure all but that in itself has many iterations and not ready for prime time.
The latest is 3F Revise 6 and is not fully combat coded all the way either and now they are saying wait till Block 4.XX.
In the meantime we will have over 100 copies that is just paper weight and in all likelihood will either be used for spare parts or mothball at D-M AFB in the future.
With the way the Pentagon does things, it is highly unlikely the ones we see today will ever be upgraded to full mission capable when the time comes.