So you say everyone loves the F-22 not!
CDI Combat Critique: Not everyone is convinced. The left-wing
CDI believes the F-22’s performance will be subpar-
Limited Weapon Set:-Low Usefulness in “Small Wars-“The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22’s predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.”- It's a Maintenance & Readiness disaster. The f-22 program goes back further then the F-35 a comparison will be what will the F-35 be like at the same age as the F-22 now. The F-22 has nowhere near the capability as the f-35. Other then Dog fighting the f-22 is terribly limited.
Since the F-22 has been in service since 2005 it has never been sent to any of our wars during that time. Why?
Just dumping the F-35 to start up the F-22 program again , would leave us with a single dimension weapon.
Again the detractors of the f22 main concern is cost, not performance. And the f35 is 90% based off of the f22, so taking that into consideration, they are crashing and burning when all they had to do was improve on the best air system ever created...A lot of R&D that went into the f22, the F35 is piggy backing off of, and the f35 is still the most expensive weapon system ever created. I also never said dump the f35, I clearly said until the f35 fixes their bugs, we definitely should not be putting all our eggs into the f35 basket, like we’re doing now. We should restart the f22 program. Perhaps even make a carrier launcable f22. We need a plane with power, and the only thing that makes the f35 more “versatile” is the vertical take off, and carrier take off versions...because it was designed that way, off of the f22. It’s supposed to be an upgrade, air to air, it blows in comparison. If it gets picked up by infrared SAM, it’s going to be shot down. It lacks power. It’s trying to use stealth to cover that up. Where gonna come to a moment where superior tech isn’t saving it, but hurting it, just like the missels early in the Vietnam war. We rellied too much on tech vs tactics that were thought to obsolete, and lost way too many superior planes to inferior ones.
Fine and I'm more then happy that they went with the F-35 , the F-22 is one dimensional and we also need a multi dimensional aircraft or different planes for each job that needs to be done. and yes I will take two F-35 over one f-22 as far as cost is concerned.I would also point out that there is no other active stealth fighters in the world at this point.
All right. Sorry, I'll assume you didn't intentionally say it hadn't been in combat. My bad there.
But you are asking about the two planes. From what I've read, here's the bit.
The F-22 has it's role and need. As do the Legacy fighters. We can't build 1000 F-22's but we need a very strong tip to that spear.
Remember these planes are quite a bit different. While the F35 is built to have air superiority, the F-22 takes that to another level. F-35 is winning vs. legacy fighters 20:1. F-22 is more like 150:1 when it is in those.
Think of the F-22 as the F-35 built 25% better for air to air, 50% worse for everything else. They put a MUCH more expensive and much more powerful radar in the F-22 for finding enemy planes. They made it 25% faster, gave it 25% more range, 25% higher ceiling, made it 25% harder to detect.
It's built better to be an interceptor. It's built better to loiter for longer periods to provide continuous air defense. It has the ability to fly above mach without afterburners, giving it a much better range at high speed.
Think of it like the F-16 and F-15. In air to air all things being equal the F15 would clobber the F-16. (F-15 is something like 110 kills no losses in real air to air combat). But the F-16 (before the strike eagles) was built to take on multiple roles. It was built to operate off of forward bases. It was built to be less expensive than the F-15 and cost less to upkeep. 2 similar but different key roles.
The F-22 has a much more specialized role. But a very key role as well. Probably (hopefully) will never be needed to do what it really is built for, which is win a war vs. China or Russia.
Think of them like 2 cars. The F-35 is a BMW M-5. It's pretty quick, it will get you and your family around in comfort, does relatively ok on gas mileage. The F-22 is a McLaren MP4 It's uncomfortable, you don't want to drive it more than a couple hours at a time. But while the M-5 isn't going to disappoint you at the track, it's not going to hold a candle to that McLaren.
One of the biggest part of these planes is the advanced computer systems in them. That's where the other legacy fighters and support ships and such come into play. They can engage multiple targets on a 360 deg range. One use for them is they never have to open their weapons bays. They just slip in, pinpoint targets and let others from the back put long range weapons on target. So one F-35 or F-22 might take out 20 enemy planes without ever firing a shot, letting SAM's or other beyond line of sight missiles do the dirty work and letting them stay hidden. It's one major cost savings, we can still keep older fighters relevant, using them as the 22/35's long range weapons.
