Question about the F-22 and cost.

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:59:34 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:16:47 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Denyav" wrote in message
...
The impression I'd got was that the Air Force is convinced it can
get
295 if the funding was just left alone ie. stable, so they could
try
to work the problem.


Air Force will eventually get 80-110 Jurassicfighters and most of
them
will
probably be converted to ECM aircraft.

Now now Denyav, little stinky Ferrin is just catching up with the 180
I
posted a year ago. You can't expect him to convert to reality so
soon.

Strakes.

Yes little stinky, Lockmart tried to use 8 inch strakes to correct their
tail problems. do try and keep up.

You're getting more and more respectable all the time. Still just as
full of **** as ever though.

I was always respectable Ferrin, you have been a fool.

I have already written that I will not oppose the production run any longer,
(Georgia pork) so I don't see why you can't just discuss the numbers issue
in a sober manner. The money is already spent, that is what jumping
straight to production was all about, instead of the 19 airframe FSD that is
real. Perhaps the titanium tail spar is a fix and perhaps not, there is no
way to know until the airplane stacks up some hours. (AV19)

Now go back to aviation and stop your personality attack. The tab to me is
so wide that there is no possibility of discrediting me, so calm down.

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:06 -0500, Kevin Brooks wrote:

Firstly, I think you are exaggerating the F-35 situation a bit--the total
US
buy is a bit over two thousand over the lifetime of the rpogram, IIRC

Yes, that's "several thousand".

Well, I call that a couple, not "several"; Websters defines several as being
"greater than 2 or 3".

I meant it as greater than 2.

China and Russia are both keen to develop more modern
aircraft. But, any future aircraft will be developed in a timescale
where the F-35 will already be in service. So a potential enemy will
have to deal with that too. The sort of hypothetical force we're
talking about, then, would consist of large numbers (1000+) of
Typhoon-class aircraft. The only people who could field such as
force are Europe, Japan, and China. Europe and Japan aren't going to
fight the USA unless the USA starts behaving like Nazi Germany or
the USSR.

Nobody (no one nation) is going to field that many advanced fighters of the
Typhoon classs. And you are right in that the nations that *could* pose a
quality threat are not the ones that are in our "likely foe" category (China
excepted, and I doubt, based upon the J-10 experience, they can manage it in
the forseeable future).

You're probably right there, in the short and medium term. In the
long term, China is very interested in modern technologies, and has
a largish and rapidly growing economy, so they are bound to catch up
in aeronautical engineering.

China is unlikely to seek confrontation with the USA, but
a war between the two could break out by accident (as happened the
last time those countries fought each other), and in any case the
USA has an economy 10 times bigger so would always be able to
afford more planes (and other military cabability).

And fixed wing land fighter aircraft would be the least usable platforms
against the PRC threat; lack of basing being a biggie.

If China attacked one of its neighbours, that country would very
likely allow the USAF to base there.

The F-35 is a cheaper plane than the F-22, and having just one
fighter would provide savings on training, spare parts, etc, so it's
likely that for every F-22 not built the USA could afford 3 or so
F-35s.

Which would also require three more pilots (an increasingly stretched
commodity), and leave us without that "silver bullet" as insurance.

That's true -- over its lifetime, the F-35 may not be that much
cheaper than the F-22. (Having said that, I expect simulators could
make it cheaper to train good pilots).

Now, it's certainly true that the F-22 is a omre capably fighter
than the F-35: it has a better power-to-weight ratio and lower wing
loadinmg, which means it will be more manouvrable. It's also got
room for more missiles. (It's proasbly less stealthy, since it's
alrager aircraft, thus probably has larhger radar and IR
signatures). Is one F-22 better than the 2-3 F-35s one could buy in
its place? I don't know.

You are missing the avionics advantage; F-22 was optimized as an anti-air
platform, so it will indeed be much more capable than the F-35, which is
optimized in the strike role, in that air dominance role.

So in the air-to-air role, how many F-35s is one F-22 worth, IYO?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:16:23 -0800, Harry Andreas wrote:
In article ,
(phil hunt) wrote:

I expect in that instance Britain would consider having its F-35s
contain the same sensor set as the Typhoon.

You may be surprised at the capabilities of the so-called "cut down"
sensor system. Typhoon currently has a mechanically scanned
radar.

Yes, I know, I was considering the phased one to replace it.

All military aircraft increase in price over time. In part this is a
deliberate ploy by defence contractors, some of whom have admitted
as much.

I've never heard such a confession and I've been in the industry for
25+ years. Can you provide a source please?

Sure.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2442322

Sir Raymond Lygo is a former boss of British Aerospace, so I
imagine he knows what he's talking about.

IME the cost growth over time have been the result of a steady
increase in performance at the request of the customer.

Yes, that's part of the ploy. to quote the article:

---------------------- begin ----------------------
I think it's a well-known fact, whether anybody admits it or not, is
you'll never get any programme through the Government if you ever
revealed the real cost.

Whatever you want to get through Government, you have to first of
all establish what is the Treasury likely to approve in terms of
money? And then you think, what can you offer for these terms within
the parameters that have been set? And pretty often it is pretty
nearly impossible.

So you say right, we can do this and we'll do it for the price and
then the programme goes ahead. But you know automatically that it's
going to cost more than that because it will.

And so after a year you say 'I'm terribly sorry but the costs have
now risen for this reason and the other reason'.
----------------------- end -----------------------


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)

You're getting more and more respectable all the time. Still just as
full of **** as ever though.

I was always respectable Ferrin, you have been a fool.

Uh huh. I guess some things still zip right over your head though
huh?




I have already written that I will not oppose the production run any longer,
(Georgia pork) so I don't see why you can't just discuss the numbers issue
in a sober manner.

As far as the numbers go the more F-22s the merrier. My gripe is a
cap was given, the USAF seemed okay with that, and now the **** is
getting stirred about cost again. A cap is a cap. As far as
sobriety goes my rant isn't about how many are being bought but how
the purse strings are being handled. If the Air Force says they can
make do with the cap and aren't asking for money above and beyond it
then I don't see what the problem is. IMO part of the reason the
airforce is okay with the cap is at least it gave them a number to
shoot for and the possiblility of stable funding. Not unlimited
funding. STABLE funding. It's no wonder things are as screwed up as
they are. I suppose it's the nature of the beast but there's got to
be accountability. I completely agree on the issue of PORK (wow
agreeing with Tarver, what's the world coming to). Not all expensive
programs are pork though. Certainly not the F-22. Consider who wants
it and who doesn't. The airforce wants it. The couldn't give a ****
LESS where the damn thing is built or who gets the contracts, they
just want the aircraft. Now look at the C-130J and Osprey. There's
some pork with a capitol "P". Anytime the politicians say "you WILL
buy these aircraft" and the services saying "we don't want them" you
can hear the bacon frying. I like the B-1. The airforce doesn't want
to spend the $$$ to pull those 30 back out of retirement but the
politicians are trying to push them to. Pork. Just because you hate
a weapon system or think it's expensive or even if it IS expensive,
what determines whether or not it's pork is WHO wants it built.






The money is already spent, that is what jumping
straight to production was all about, instead of the 19 airframe FSD that is
real. Perhaps the titanium tail spar is a fix and perhaps not, there is no
way to know until the airplane stacks up some hours. (AV19)

Now go back to aviation and stop your personality attack.

Sorry, did I hurt your feelings "stinky"?






The tab to me is
so wide that there is no possibility of discrediting me, so calm down.

How about in english for the rest of us?

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

You're getting more and more respectable all the time. Still just as
full of **** as ever though.

I was always respectable Ferrin, you have been a fool.

Uh huh. I guess some things still zip right over your head though
huh?

Scott, consider for a moment that you are not respectable, therefore you
have no connection whatsoever to my credibility.

I have already written that I will not oppose the production run any
longer,
(Georgia pork) so I don't see why you can't just discuss the numbers
issue
in a sober manner.

As far as the numbers go the more F-22s the merrier.

That is not the question. The issue is how many F-22s are necessary to have
a viable force.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 19:32:42 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .

You're getting more and more respectable all the time. Still just as
full of **** as ever though.

I was always respectable Ferrin, you have been a fool.

Uh huh. I guess some things still zip right over your head though
huh?

Scott, consider for a moment that you are not respectable, therefore you
have no connection whatsoever to my credibility

And I'm all weepy over here that you feel that way. And you'd need to
actually *have* credibility in order for anyone to be connected to it.






I have already written that I will not oppose the production run any
longer,
(Georgia pork) so I don't see why you can't just discuss the numbers
issue
in a sober manner.

As far as the numbers go the more F-22s the merrier.

That is not the question. The issue is how many F-22s are necessary to have
a viable force.

Depends what you want to do with it.

"phil hunt" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:06 -0500, Kevin Brooks
wrote:

snip

Nobody (no one nation) is going to field that many advanced fighters of
the
Typhoon classs. And you are right in that the nations that *could* pose a
quality threat are not the ones that are in our "likely foe" category
(China
excepted, and I doubt, based upon the J-10 experience, they can manage it
in
the forseeable future).

You're probably right there, in the short and medium term. In the
long term, China is very interested in modern technologies, and has
a largish and rapidly growing economy, so they are bound to catch up
in aeronautical engineering.

But it appears likely that the cost of "catching up" may well be their
continued embracing of capitalism, and with it the usual attendant move
towards democracy--so by the time they get there, move them out of the
threat category.


China is unlikely to seek confrontation with the USA, but
a war between the two could break out by accident (as happened the
last time those countries fought each other), and in any case the
USA has an economy 10 times bigger so would always be able to
afford more planes (and other military cabability).

And fixed wing land fighter aircraft would be the least usable platforms
against the PRC threat; lack of basing being a biggie.

If China attacked one of its neighbours, that country would very
likely allow the USAF to base there.

If the PRC attacked one of its neighbors, none of which have exactly a lot
of geographic space to trade for the time to get US landbased tactical
airpower into the fray, so I'd be surprised to see US ground based aircraft
move into the nation in question. The only way the landbased tactical
airpower comes into play is from the periphery (i.e., Okinawa and ROK), and
then it is going to be limited mostly to the coastal region. In the end you
are going to confront a basing problem, so a six or seven squadron force of
F-22's would likely be capable of supporting the deployment of the two to
four squadrons you'd be squeezing into the available bases as your silver
bullet force.


The F-35 is a cheaper plane than the F-22, and having just one
fighter would provide savings on training, spare parts, etc, so it's
likely that for every F-22 not built the USA could afford 3 or so
F-35s.

Which would also require three more pilots (an increasingly stretched
commodity), and leave us without that "silver bullet" as insurance.

That's true -- over its lifetime, the F-35 may not be that much
cheaper than the F-22. (Having said that, I expect simulators could
make it cheaper to train good pilots).

Simulators will indoubtedly continue to help in such training, and grow in
terms of that capability. But you are still postulating a three-for-one
increase in pilots just to replace the "missing" F-22's. If you assume that
the F-22 is three times as good as the F-35 in the air-to-air role, you now
need another 600 F-35's *and* pilots, and you have to keep them proficient,
which means 150-200 hours of airtime per year per pilot, more O&M costs,
etc. So the replacement of those 200 F-22's would likely not be the massive
savings you might originally think it to be.


Now, it's certainly true that the F-22 is a omre capably fighter
than the F-35: it has a better power-to-weight ratio and lower wing
loadinmg, which means it will be more manouvrable. It's also got
room for more missiles. (It's proasbly less stealthy, since it's
alrager aircraft, thus probably has larhger radar and IR
signatures). Is one F-22 better than the 2-3 F-35s one could buy in
its place? I don't know.

You are missing the avionics advantage; F-22 was optimized as an anti-air
platform, so it will indeed be much more capable than the F-35, which is
optimized in the strike role, in that air dominance role.

So in the air-to-air role, how many F-35s is one F-22 worth, IYO?

I can't say, and I doubt anyone else could definitively answer that
question. But the key to the problem is this--if you are fielding the
reduced-force of F-22's as an insurance policy against the likelihood of any
potential threat fielding an aircraft that could defeat our capability of
acheiving air dominance over a chosen piece of real estate, and you instead
decided to merely field *more* less capable F-35's, you are still left with
the problem of not being able to acheive that air dominance, especially
since the USAF is NOT going to assume an attritionary stance and try to win
it at the cost of the hundreds of F-35 airframes (and pilots) that it might
take to win by numbers advantage alone.

I personally like the idea of reducing the F-22 force to that 200 ballpark.
It gives us that silver bullet capability and frees up some funding for
other vital requirements (i.e., tankers, ISR platforms, improved precision
strike capabilites, airlift, UCAV's, etc.). Military planners are used to
having to deal with two threat scenario categories--the most likely enemy
course of action, and the most dangerous enemy course of action. Minimizing
the F-22 buy makes more funds available to take care of the kind of
contingencies that fall into the former category, while still maintaining a
force of them large enough to handle forseeable threats that require the use
of the 24-karet solution means you have also addressed the latter categry.

Brooks


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 19:32:42 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:

That is not the question. The issue is how many F-22s are necessary to
have
a viable force.

Depends what you want to do with it.

That has become the major question WRT the F-22.

"Denyav" wrote in message
...
The impression I'd got was that the Air Force is convinced it can get
295 if the funding was just left alone ie. stable, so they could try
to work the problem.

Air Force will eventually get 80-110 Jurassicfighters and most of them
will
probably be converted to ECM aircraft.

According to press reports from early February, the Raptor is seriously
under the gun, again, as the Office of Managment and Budget has ordered the
Penatagon to review anew that fighter as well as the Commanche helicopter.

The White House's OMB study places significant limits on USAF and Lockheed
participation, whereas previously the two organizations have earlier
presented effective united lobbying on its behalf.

This study is supposed to evaluate whether the F/A-22 will fundamentally
alter the way the USAF operates or will merely represent another step in the
evolution of manned fighter aircraft, according to the OMB's directive. At
issue will be so-called "opportunity cost", or whether the money needed to
support the Raptor is denied to "new transformational programs" which would
not be pushed forward.

SECDEF Rumsfeld has cancelled high-profile programs such as the Army's
Crusader artillery system, in calling for "transformation" to become the key
to military procurement so as beter to match up with swift pace of smaller,
swifter and distant conflicts he believes the US military is most likely to
face in future.

Raptor had survied at least five earlier reviews since 1991. However, SECDEF
Rumsfeld apparently was displeased with the results of those reviews. In any
event, the scope and parameters of this latest review seems to stack the
deck against the F/A-22.

Lockhed has built at least 24 Raptors at its Marietta, Ga., facility, with
21 delivered to the USAF operational bases and three to a transitional unit
at Tynsdale AFB, Fla.; 19 more are currently planned to be constructed in
2004. Most of those delivered so far have gone to USAF bases in Nevada and
California and are taking part in a series of exhaustive operational tests
in aerial maneuvers against late-model F-15s and F-16s. Officialy, the
results of the test hae not yet been revealed, but unofficial reports
indicate that the F/A-22 has met or beaten its goals. Lockheed spokemen
insist that the Raptor clearly represents transformatinal war-fighting
capabilites, in that it will; bw able to establish such air-dominance in the
airspace over any batlefield that all other forces commited can accomplish
those things they need to accomplish in relative safety.

The USAF has said it wanted to acquire some 276 Raptors, according to the
press reports, a cut from the 750 originally sought. Last year, the Pentagon
suggested a reduction to only 180 craft. Lockheed has argued that each
reduction leads to increased unit costs and to stretched-out delivery dates.

In the meantime, residents north of Marietta have reported the sound of
sonic booms rather frequently since shortly before the new year.

Lockheed is also said to be working out a proposal for a long-range
smart-bomber derivative of the F/A-22, the F/B-22.

The proposed bomber would retain many features of the Raptor, including all
current functions and with more added to carry out the bomber role. Most of
the Raptor's stealth character and its suprcruise ability would be retained.
The bomber version would delete the two-dimensional thrust-vectoring of the
F/A-22, feature a delta wing with a serrated tailing edge, and, with an
extended fuselage, be capable carrying perhaps 25-30 small-diameter
gps-guided 250-pound bombs and a pair of "fire-and-forget" missiles for
self-defense.

USAF officials are expected to announce whether they want to upgrade
existing types, go to unmanned platforms or acquire a new aircraft for the
long-range strike role, within the next few months. Lat year, USAF Sec Roche
said that the USAf is considering whether and how to fill a gap between
subsonic B-52s, supersonic but non-stealthy B-1s and stealthy but slow B-2s
which can only safely operate in a target area at night, by acquiring up to
150 medium bombers. The proposed F/B-22 could strike distant targets, with
in-air refueling, quickly and around-the-clock.

Lockheed spokesmen have indicated Lockheed's belief that the expanded
mission capability is inhrent in the F/A-22, and the modifications necessary
are easily attainable by using much of the tooling and basic structure,
merely tweaking the Raptor's airframe. It would thus be differentiated from
the USN's Super Hornet in that respect, as the Super Hornet retains the name
of an earlier a/c while retaining only a superficial resemblance and few
parts in common.

"Lawrence Dillard" wrote in message
...

Lockheed spokesmen have indicated Lockheed's belief that the expanded
mission capability is inhrent in the F/A-22, and the modifications
necessary
are easily attainable by using much of the tooling and basic structure,
merely tweaking the Raptor's airframe. It would thus be differentiated
from
the USN's Super Hornet in that respect, as the Super Hornet retains the
name
of an earlier a/c while retaining only a superficial resemblance and few
parts in common.

The b-one works now, the role is taken.