Some of the cutting edge programs, like Commanche and Crusader, *deserved*
to be cut. Toss the old Navy A-12 Avenger program ionto that same hopper,
along with the Seawolf SSN; if the USAF had been successful in killing Have
Nap ca couple of years ago when they wanted to, it would have fit in there
as well.


I agree.



As to the F-22 (Roche's belated addition of "A" being little more
than a sop to congress), yeah, we should produce enough of them to be our
silver bullet, but unless it is developed to be a better striker as well,
the 200 number look quite sufficient. Are you really worried about Chinese
Flankers? With no effective AWACS support for them, and precious little
tanking support? Not to mention the questionable quality of pilot training?


If all I had was F-35s? Yep. In a China / Taiwan scenario the
Flankers wouldn't NEED tanking. As far a pilot quality goes all it
would take is for someone over there to determine that they NEED top
of the line pilots and in a few years they could have them. Look what
the USN did with Top Gun during the Vietnam war. I don't doubt that
in the end we'd still win, but at what cost? We want it to stay as
close to zero loses as possible.






I suspect you're right that the F/A-22 will be built in limited
numbers,
though I woudl also not be surprised to see produciton continue after
the
intial batch is bought. We've bought far more F-15s than originally
planned, after all.

IIRC the original number for F-15s was 729 and F-16s was 1388 or
thereabouts. Both were far exceeded. I think it's just going to
depend on how the F-22 does in service. If they can get the kinks
worked out it wouldn't surprise me if they found a way to buy more
beyond the cost cap.

The only way I see that happening is if they optimize a strike version. The
potential threats we face today are vastly different from what we faced when
we built that fleet of F-15's.

I agree. On the other hand China has close to 300 Flankers and
counting, have intriduce the AA-12 into service, and are working on
acquiring the J-10. I have no doubts that Russia would offer the
KS-172 to China if they asked. I wouldn't want to face a Su-30 with
THAT thing in an F-15. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just
saying that the cost in pilots and airframes lost would be higher.
This is a rhetorical question but is it worth losing F-15s, F-35s, and
their pilots to save a few bucks by not buying the F-22?



I'm not entirely convinced about the FB-22 or other strike-optimized
version. It would have to have a lot of range to justify not simply
using
an F-35 derivative, IMO. Again, a possible variant comes to mind: A
hybrid
with the F-35A fuselage and the F-35C big wing ought to yield even
more
range than the 700+nm radius of the C version.

ISTR that being discussed here before. I'd have thought the USAF
would jump on that too but I guess not.

It was discussed before. Again, the only reason I can see for *not* doing
that would be a bit less maneuverability with the larger wings.


I don't know. I see the FB-22, or something similar, offering a couple of
advantages; it provides a solution to the "what do we use to start
replacing
the Mudhen in 2015-2020" problem, and it could bring down the unit cost
for
a reduced F/A-22 buy as long as significant commonality remains.


Just from what they've shown so far it doesn't see like there would be
a significant amount. Maybe the forward fuselage. The FB-22 as
they've showed around has different intakes, would use different
engines, completely different wing, long weapon bays, different
landing gear, etc. etc.

I am not sure the FB-22 as originally sketched would be the same as what we
could end up buying. In the end we could very well see a "steroidal" version
of the existing F/A-22, with larger wings and a fuselage plug to accomodate
a larger weapons bay that handles maybe an additional 50% increase in
carriage capacity for something like the SDB.

Something more like what they did with the F-15E than the drastic
changes GD offered witht he F-16XL? It would certainly shave $$$ off
the proposal, not to mention retain more of it's air-to-air
capability.



Changing to a different
engine, while requiring some work, is not truly a major change as far as the
overall program would be concerned--witness the past engine changes within
both the F-15 and F-16 fleets. And maybe space for a second crewmember...?
(gasp!)

Yeah, it had a second seat too.