"Yeff" wrote in message
...
Sun 30 May 2004

(snip)

1) Scotland on Sunday is not a very good newspaper.

2) Four years behind schedule is not that much.

How far behind its original schedule has the F/A 22 slipped?

Here is an equivalently uninformed and biassed story, but this time about
the 22. (Excerpt)

'A GAO report in 1994 concluded that it would be cheaper and perhaps even
more effective from a military point of view to stick with the F-15.
"Instead of confronting thousands of modern Soviet fighters, the US air
forces are expected to confront potential adversary air forces that include
few fighters that have the capability to the challenge the F-15-the US
frontline fighter. Our analysis shows that the F-15 exceeds the most
advanced threat system expected to exist. We assumed no improvements will be
made to the F-15 but the capability of the 'most advanced threat' assumes
certain modifications. Further, our analysis indicates that the current
inventory of F-15s can be economically maintained in a structurally sound
condition until 2015 or later."
So what's behind the F-22? The project's driven in large measure by what
some Pentagon analysts call "the cult of stealth". In the mid-80s the Air
Force, struggling to stay relevant, realized that "stealth" was a great
marketing tool. The public was fascinated by those black, oddly configured,
"invisible" airplanes and so were members of congress. It didn't matter if
the stealth bomber was just as visible to most Russian radar system as the
B-52 and cost 50 times as much to produce.
"The F-22 is not going to be a fighter-versus-fighter airplane," says
Riccioni. "And if you want that capability, you can get it if you don't
design for stealth. And if you don't design for stealth, you can make it
affordable. And if it's affordable, you can get the numbers you want."
Riccioni's right, of course, except for the fact that the Air Force doesn't
even need a new fleet of planes because there's no existing fighter threat,
hasn't been one since the Korean War, and there's none in the foreseeable
future.
Some high-ranking Republicans are beginning to shake their heads at the
Pentagon's incessant begging for ever-larger budgets and more expensive
weapon systems, like the F-22, even in the face of epidemic cost over-runs.
"The Pentagon does not know how much it spends", says Senator Charles
Grassley, the Iowa Republican who now heads the Senate Armed Services
committee. "It does not know if it gets what it orders in goods and
services. And the Pentagon, additionally, does not have a handle on its
inventory. If the Pentagon does not know what it owns and spends, then how
does the Pentagon know if it needs more money? Ramping up the Pentagon
budget when the books are a mess is highly questionable at best. To some it
might seem crazy." '

The whole story is at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/f22.html


John