F-22 Funding Cut - Please Comment OMG

[Jeremy Roenick]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25210.html

The Senate voted Tuesday to cut off production funding for the F-22 fighter, a come-from-behind win for Defense Secretary Robert Gates who has targeted the costly program as part of his effort to restructure the Pentagon budget.

OMG this has become very politicized in recent weeks.  I've heard both sides of the argument, but haven't formed an opinion.  I've heard the F-22 is "dated technology" and already obsolete...

Care to comment?  I'd love your usually well-informed insight and comments.

[The One Man Gang]

The F-22 was in advanced development when Bush '41 was in office, so, yes, it IS dated. In 1986, Lockheed/Martin and Northrop/Grumman were selected to design the "Advanced Tactical Fighter" which resulted in two prototypes: the LockMart F-22 and the N-G F-23. Personally, I always thought the F-23 was more B.A. looking than the F-22.  



*sigh*

In 1992, at '41's behest, DoD canceled a number of projects. For instance, the M1A2 main battle tank was limited to about 300 new vehicles and then all Abrams production ceased.  We have not built a new tank in nearly twenty years.  the "new" M1A2s seen in Iraq these days are merely re-built early model (1980s-issue) M1 tanks.  

At the same time several others were slowed from pre-production back to R&D.  This R&D was in no way designed to actually improve the product but was actually a make-work program to "preserve the aerospace industrial base" for future projects.  These R&D costs total into the $billions. The Army RAH-66 Comanche attack helicopter fell into the "lengthened R&D" category and was finally cancelled when the Army figured out it could purchase new AH-64 Apaches for less money as the R&D costs for the airframe had long since been amortized. When the "slow-down" order came, the F-22 was very nearly ready for series production.

The poster child for this was the F-22.  The USAF realized in the mid-1980s that the F-15, while still a world-beater, in all likelyhood would not be by the mid-1990s.  This assumtion based, of course on a continued Cold War. The Soviets were known to be developing 4th generation fighters and these were expected to be fielded in early 1990's.  Events intervened, and the Russian Sukhoi Su-27 and -30 series aircraft are just now entering significant service in Russia and other countries. The F-22 is specifically designed to kill the Sukhoi fighters.  The F-22 was too good to cancel, but there was no real reason to go into production.  Finally, around 2000, the decision was made that since the F-15 fleet would be nearing the end of its service life, to go ahead with the F-22.  Initial production run was to be about 500 planes.

Then came the the War on Terror.   In the GWOT, there have only been a few air-to-air fights in the early days of the Iraq operation.  Since then, the premiuum has been on bomb-lugging ability and loiter time over target area.  Air superiority fighters need not apply.  The A-10, a "low and slow" ground attack bird, has been far more useful in the War on Terror than the F-15.  Something had to give and production cuts were ordered for the F-22 project, first to about 300, then 250, and now topping out at 187.

The real problem with the F-22 is cost versus need.  By delaying production for fifteen years and keeping the aircraft in a development stage for all that period, there are FIFTEEN YEARS worth of R&D costs attached to each airframe.  It's saving grace is that it is the first 5th generation jet fighter to enter production and therefore has a definite advantage over older 3rd and 4th gen fighters operated by everyone else.  The current "fly-away" cost for an F-22 is tickling $200 million/each.  A single squadron of 24 F-22s costs $4.8 BILLION, NOT counting spare parts and maintenance costs.  All this for an aircraft that is supremely unsuited for flying circles over the Hindu Kush waiting for some Talibaner to stick his head out of a cave.

The other problem is that technology is changing rapidly.  The brand-new F-35 strike fighter is now accepted to be the LAST manned fighter this country will ever build.  The big news in military air right now are UN-manned combat aircraft.  The famous MQ-1 "Predator" recon bird was first adapted to carry a couple of AGM-114 HELLFIRE missiles and now has been re-designed into the RQ-1 "Reaper" which can carry all but the heaviest guided bombs, loiter over a target area for most of the day, engage targets as they appear, and not risk a highly-trained pilot.  These are known as UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles).  

The future is well under way and will make its presence felt in a year or two.  Indeed, the USS G.H.W. Bush (CV-77) just commissioned was quietly outfitted to handle unmanned combat aircraft.  

Meet the X-45, which is the basis for the 6th generation fighter.

[Jeremy Roenick]

Good info OMG.

Just what I expected.

With potential conflicts looming in the future (N korea, regional wars, etc) it doesn't seem wise to can the F-22.

I wandered over to Strategy Page yesterday and saw a good article on the F-22 story.

[The One Man Gang]

This one?

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20090721.aspx

The USAF and the Navy/Marines find themselves in a situation not unlike that at the end of WWII.  By 1945, the piston-engined fighter had reached a pinnacle in its development.  The P-51, FW-190, F4U Corsair and Yak-9 were all capable of speeds well over 400mph, heavily armed and extremely capable combat aircraft.  Then came the Messerschmitt Me-262 jet which instantly rendered all of them obsolete.  Now, it took until about 1950 for all this to play out, but by the time of the Korean War the P-51 had fallen from being the penultimate air-superiority fighter to a low-altitude ground-support role.  It's place in the sky now belonged to the F-86 and the MiG-15. Today, military aviation is at a similar crossroads.  The F-15, F-16 and F-18 are supremely capable combat aircraft.  They are also on the cusp of irrelevancy.

The F-22 is probably the most capable manned air superiority fighter that will ever roam the skies.  However, the UCAV technology is already signalling its obsolecence.  UCAVs are less expensive, don't have to devote weight to keeping a pilot alive at 50,000 ft, have few if any "G" restrictions in aerial combat and, best of all, if shot down there is no human pilot to hold hostage or show off the mangled body. The pilots are several thousand miles away, sitting at computer consoles and drinking coffee. The "G" issue is key as the F-22 is capable of far greater "G" loads in a turn than the pilot can survive.  The computer system automatically limits the fighter's maneuverability to keep "G" loads down.  A UCAV has no such restrictions and can operate the same radars, the same missiles and drop the same guided bombs as any fighter extant. 

As far as foreign threats are concerned, the NorKs are limited to a handful of 1960-era MiG-21s (and few of those are actually operational) which an F-15 or F-18 can blow out of the sky without breakiing much of a sweat.  Using an F-22 vs a MiG-21 would be the equivalent of sending a NASCAR race car to compete at Atomic Speedway. The only people operating Sukhois are the Russians, the Chicoms and the Indians.  The Indian Air Force just recently sent a squadron of their Su-30s to Nellis AFB to train with the USAF "aggressor" boys.  The reports back are that the Russian-built fighters are certainly capable, but still not quite up to the level of an F-15, and certainly not to an F-22.  Pilot training is the key in a 4th generation air battle and the USAF, USN, and USMC pilots are the best in the world, hands down.

The X-45 will probably never see light as a production vehicle, BUT it's technology will show up in UCAV fighters due to make their appearance in the next 5-10 years.  We are literally at the "bi-plane" (think Snoopy vs Red Baron) stage of UCAV development.

The future belongs to the droids. It pains me to say it, but keeping the F-22 alive would be more of a government jobs program than a serious effort to improve American air combat capability. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

The future belongs to the droids. It pains me to say it, but keeping the F-22 alive would be more of a government jobs program than a serious effort to improve American air combat capability.

Sums it up doesn't it.

Wasn't there a movie made in the last couple years about an unmanned fighter that had actual AI capability?  Seems like I remember that.  Basically the fighter's AI gets it's wires crossed and goes on the rampage.

Unmanned is definitely where it's heading.  The physics of flight and the human body have hit a crossroads as far as what's possible vs. the human ability to handle the high speed maneuvers.

[The One Man Gang]

I think the movie was called "Stealth" and the plane bore a striking resemblance to the YF-23.

There is a lot of discussion right now on just how "autonomous" these UCAVs should be.  The Predator/Reaper and it's larger cousin the Global Hawk already take off, fly to the target area, orbit and return to land all with no human input other than remote monitoring of flight systems.  The pilots back here in the States are there simply as a back-up in case the auto-fly system crashes.  It wouldn't take much to load a library of target images into a UCAV and send it up to look at, and engage, those targets that match. Or they can simply be programmed to fly within range of a known target and release weapons when the GPS co-ordinates match up. This raises the spectre of exactly what you descibe.

Futurist Isaac Asimov foresaw this years (1940) ago and came up with his "Three Laws of Robotics."

Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/robotics.html

Currently all our droids may only observe.  The actual "trigger-pull" is done by a human pilot, albeit one thousands of miles away.  However, ourt enemies may not always be so discerning.  It is quite easy to imagine a group like "Hamas" or "Hizbollah" launching RPVs against Israel with no human guidance at all, just a program to look for a particular car or building and *bang* or simply to launch weapons at any humans found within a certain geographical area on the assumption that they are eeevvviilll Joos.

Some will argue that by using cruise missiles in Operation Desert Storm and later we've already crossed that bridge.  I think not, as the software in a cruise missile was actually just a sophisticated guidance system and, in any event, the launch sequence was initiated by humans on ships or in airplanes.  Now having a Global Hawk ID a target and send a launch signal to a cruise missile without a human "fire" command would be a different matter, but certainly within the realm of current technology.

[Jeremy Roenick]

You're right it was "Stealth".

Look, I think that's a little Hollywood magic and some extreme ideas of what AI could do.  However, it does give one pause.  I think man should always be in control and issuing the orders.

These battlefield robots that you see are under human control.  I don't think it would be in the best interest of the human race if we put warrior robots in "AI" situations where they're making critical decisions about targets, etc.  They need to follow orders just like the common grunt.

[The One Man Gang]

BTW, I got to see a Global Hawk at the USAF Museum at Wright-Pat in Dayton.  That thing is just HUGE!  The images on TV do not do it justice.  Its wingspan is about equal to that of a 737.

[Shimmy]

I live about 5 minutes from the Wright-Patt museum.  It's a really cool place to visit.  If anyone is in the area and wants to go, I'll pay your way through.

[The One Man Gang]

I live about 5 minutes from the Wright-Patt museum.  It's a really cool place to visit.  If anyone is in the area and wants to go, I'll pay your way through.

Gee, I wish I'd known that in March!

 

(Inside joke.  Admission to the USAF Museum is free.)

[The One Man Gang]

Well, now the F-35 program is in trouble.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003175295&parm1=5&cpage=1

An internal Pentagon oversight board has reported that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is two years behind schedule, according to multiple congressional aides familiar with the findings.

Talk of the program’s problems comes amid intense debate over the future of another fighter plane, the F-22. Defenders of the F-22 argue that continued production is vital to national security.

 The White House and some lawmakers who favor halting the production of any new F-22 warplanes say the F-35 will fill the gap and meet the nation’s combat aircraft needs.

Added to the four-year slip in production already (original IOC was 2006) the F-35 is now SIX years behind schedule.

Usually these delays fall into two categories 1) the aircraft has significant technical problems (V-22) and they take time to work out or 2) the military starts adding new features or make changes to a critical component all of which affect everything already in the design as the features need more power, increase weight or change the flight dynamics. 

This seems to be the case here.  One reason for the four-year delay was a controversy over the engines.  Pratt & Whitney was selected as the contractor but then a consortium led by GE and Rolls Royce offered a competitive design and since GE has plants in Massachussetts, North Carolina and Ohio, and compnent plants scattered throughout the country, they garnered immediate support.

The article seems to intimate that the F-35 is a "alternative" to the F-22.  This is an error.  the two fighters are built to fulfill diametrically opposed roles.  The F-22 is a pure air-superiority fighter while the F-35 is designed to be an adequate fighter but excel at close air support of ground troops.

[Jeremy Roenick]

Yeah I saw that too this morning.  Interesting.

I guess since we're fighting mad mullahs in caves, it makes no difference.

Since the F-35 is a fighter/bomber, that smarts quite a bit more.