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siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
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In March 29 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical aviation panel, Moore said the Block 20s are not “competitive” with the latest Chinese J-20 stealth fighters. And while the aircraft could be used for training, Moore said they are so out of synch with the combat-coded Block 35s that pilots are receiving “negative” training from them, meaning they have to “unlearn” habits developed in the Block 20 before they can become proficient in the Block 35.

“They’re not combat representative,” Moore added during the Mitchell event. “They will never be a part of the combat force. They don’t have the most modern communications. They don’t shoot the most modern weapons. They don’t have the most modern electronic warfare capabilities. They will not become combat representative aircraft, and so we elected to maintain our position from [fiscal year] ‘23 that it’s time to move on from the Block 20.”
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While the Air Force is looking to divest the F-22, one weapon slated for a funding surge is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile funding, after appearing to wind down over several years. Moore was asked if that’s a sign the AIM-260 JATM,
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, is having problems, or whether the Air Force simply seeks greater stockpiles.

“We don’t see a delay in JATM,” Moore said. “And we want to get to JATM as quickly as we possibly can.” He said the budget also includes “along with some AMRAAM investment, some facilitization money that will help us get to JATM faster. Once we can start procuring it, we’ll get to quantity as fast as we can,” he added.
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A lot more happens under the hood than people believe. All the folks scoffing at F-35 kinematics fail to understand that it is a lot more capable in many aspects than even early block F-22.
 
Maikeru

Maikeru

Major
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
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A lot more happens under the hood than people believe. All the folks scoffing at F-35 kinematics fail to understand that it is a lot more capable in many aspects than even early block F-22.
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I've bookmarked that article for the next time some cretin says J20 is only "semi-stealth" or some such halfwittery. As USAF have now kindly confirmed, J20 is at a minimum superior to Block 20 F22.
 
M

measuredingabens

Junior Member
Registered Member
Maikeru said:
I've bookmarked that article for the next time some cretin says J20 is only "semi-stealth" or some such halfwittery. As USAF have now kindly confirmed, J20 is at a minimum superior to Block 20 F22.
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Honestly there shouldn't be much shame to be had calling the J20 superior to the Block 20 F22, when the latter as a whole have already aged considerably. The former is overall a newer plane fitted with newer systems compared that of the latter. The F22 was a paradigm change back in its heyday but there has been a significant amount of time for it to be superseded by the newer fifth gens.
 
C

CMP

Senior Member
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
And? F-22 is so worthless that they are better off retired like J-7 in China? Significant claim needs signigicant evidence. One liners are against forum rules.
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Could be. Real evidence would be top secret and put you in jail.
 
O

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
TK3600 said:
And? F-22 is so worthless that they are better off retired like J-7 in China? Significant claim needs signigicant evidence. One liners are against forum rules.
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F-22 Block 20 are "worthless". "Worthless" relative to facing modern J-20 and PLAAF's overall systemic warfare. Any other aircraft of any other country, and they would still wipe the floor with them.

Also sometimes, it not only about technical characteristics. There lifecycle costs (maintaining and upgrading) and opportunity costs. Don't forget that this 5th gen is not only about aircraft vs aircraft, but system vs system. So, not only do you have to keep upgrading your airplane, you also have to upgrade its internals to make it work within a modern system

It seems that the US Airforce has weighted up the pros and cons and has decided to retire its oldest F-22

The money quote:
Just to keep flying the Block 20 F-22s as they are costs the Air Force about $485 million a year, Moore said, for a price of $3.5 billion through the end of the decade. To upgrade those aircraft to Block 35 standards, though—as some in Congress have urged—would cost an additional $3.5 billion.
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On top of price, there is a larger, practical challenge; the effort needed to upgrade the 32 airplanes “would take a decade to get started,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of engineering work that that would take.”

The engineering work is especially troublesome because Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-22 and F-35, has limited capacity, Moore said.
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“Lockheed is not fully staffed for engineers,” Moore said. “So if we were to stand up an effort like this, it would be reasonable to expect they would have to pull some engineering talent off of F-35—probably that means Block 4—in order to get this accomplished. I don’t think that is a [worthwhile] trade to us.”
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Its money, engineering resources, opportunity costs. It ain't worth it
 
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G

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
It is still retarded. And Americans joke about the Russian Su-57 program.
149 Block 30, and 37 Block 20 F-22s. Basically 37 aircraft which can only be used for training purposes.

For comparison the Russians already produced 151 Su-35s at this point. And they have an economy a fraction of the size of the US. It will be a riot if the Su-57 ends up being produced in more numbers than the F-22.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the F-22. They just did not buy enough of them. So now it is not worth the trouble to make upgrades for them. Another major mistake, I think, was not using the exact same engine on the F-22 and F-35 like they did with the Teen series.
 
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