F35: i kNoW kUnG-fU !

Ditto for the KC-135.

More like: NUH UHHHHHHHHH

C130 enters the room

Love the Matrix reference!

Welcome to lobbying and the military industrial complex.

It was to prevent our enemies from getting their hands on it and reverse-engineer. Cutting production short was short-sighted. All thanks to Robert Gates

In reality production can still be restarted. Easily. Anyone saying it's impossible is lying. Anyone saying it's not cost-effective to simply restart producing a tried and tested aircraft or better yet an updated version of it is lying.

Never underestimate the ability of politicians and their Corpo paymasters to screw things up.

Indeed. I don't think congress is allowed to make any decision that is beneficial to the American people

This right here. Granted, we’ve likely made huge material science and computer design leaps in the past 40 years, but in simple aerodynamics we hit a wall about the time the Raptor was in development. All we can do now is as you say, and also optimize for the mission. The F-22 was a fur ball monster, but made sacrifices in BVR capability, you just don’t see it because it’s was head and shoulders above the competition, but today we’re starting to see that BVR edge chipped away. NGAD fixes that. Its airframe is likely optimized for high speed and high endurance, ensuring BVR dominance as the cost of dogfighting prowess.

@@jacobbaumgardner3406 NGAD is likely a F111 sized tailless design.

@@dwwolf4636 I agree with that. It will likely be capable of very high speeds and altitudes, and will carry a lot of fuel. F-111 but possibly nearing the size of the B-58, which is slightly larger.

Let us examine the history of microcomputers. Moore's Law held for a long time, to the point where the Pentium IV was a power sink and produced so much heat serious consideration was given to liquid cooling for later systems. CPUs were stuck at 1Gz for a while, then development slowed down around the 3Gz mark. The common wisdom was that 5Gz liquid CPUs were the future. Instead both Intel & AMD went with lower-power, multi-core designs instead. A single core might be only 2.8Gz, but when 8 cores are available with 6MB of L3 cache, you get a powerful, less expensive system. Similarly, for decades the mantra for fighter designers was "more speed." After WW2 we saw Mach 1 capable machines, then Mach 2. Then a funny thing happened. High speed SAMs rendered all of those state of the art Mach 3 designs obsolete. B-70, gone. Ditto for advanced X plane fighter designs. Instead designers went for maneuverability, then later stealth. Alas, stealth is complex, expensive, and transient. Note that the venerable B-52 is used more than the B-2, and probably will outlast it. We don't need gold-plated super planes; we need smart weapons. A B-52 controlling Loyal Wingman drones and smart bombs could prove a deadly opponent.

New are being rapidly developed ...nuff said

No it's because old shit breaks more easily and gets more expensive to maintain the longer you try to keep it flying. It's really a simple decision: do you want to waste more money prolonging the already costly service life of the F-22 while living in the past and pretending it's going to be king of the skies forever, or do you want to divest from what's already becoming a maintenance money pit and put those funds over the next 10-15 years toward something that will completely outclass it and dominate the skies for decades to come? I love the F-22. It's a marvel of its time and a testament to the ingenuity of American aeronautical engineering, but in my opinion the writing is on the wall and its time is coming to an end.

@@troys3757The biggest issue with that line of thought is that normally the new product doesnt meet the standard set by the previous generation. The factors causing this are usually varied and extensive which is the biggest risk when the F22 still outperforms all adversary nations for some time to come which is probably the reason this course of action is being considered. If the new project, be it NGAD or something else, was guaranteed to be effective in its program cycle and the jet ended up being as revolutionary as the F22 was when it entered service, then it would clearly be the better option. Nobody can predict how successful a program will be when it comes to aircraft especially when they are in the concept phase.

@@lepermessiyah5823 I don't understand your first statement. Can you give me an example? I can't think of any fighter generation that couldn't do something that a previous one could unless it was a deliberate tradeoff for some other performance metric (e.g. sacrificing top speed for range or vice versa). I think I generally agree with the spirit of your comment: a balance needs to be struck between maintaining existing capabilities and investing in future capabilities. I don't necessarily agree with the practicalities of continuing to upgrade the Raptor fleet at the expense of NGAD. Much like how you can't retroactively make a 4th Gen aircraft into a stealth aircraft on-par with the Raptor, the F-22 will not be able to effectively leverage key emerging technologies in the next 10-15 years that will improve both the Air Force and the defense industrial base's advanced production capabilities and institutional knowledge. These include, but are not limited to: Interfacing with CCA, utilizing combined cycle engines for high Mach super-cruise/better range/better fuel efficiency, increasingly more advanced sensors, utilizing AI and advanced network capabilities beyond what Link 16 can currently provide, advanced composites and airframe manufacturing techniques, etc. This tech is advancing faster than the Raptor will be able to keep up with it, and merely trying to get it up to snuff is going to be very financially intensive. I'd rather place my bets on a new airframe/family of airframes that can take advantage of recent advances. There's a lot more to unpack on this topic, particularly as it relates more to cost and defense budgets, but I think I've made my point. Also, half the reason I even left my first comment was because unlike you, the first guy decided to take nuance out of the discussion and hand wave all this away as merely corruption in the DoD. I appreciate you approaching the discussion with more thought.

no, it's because they're obsolete aircraft. Would you want to use a 1995 computer today? no? because that's basically what our pilots are doing every time they go up in an F-22. It's a dinosaur. It costs $100,000 per hour of flight. It would get its butt kicked by any chinese stealth fighter with an IRST because it completely lacks one. I don't think it even has the joint helmet mounted cuing system because it's such a nightmare to incorporate new things into the aircraft.

@@moonasha wow it would get its butt kicked by a chinese fighter because no irst. now Ive heard it all. 2 actual fighter pilots just said its the best aircraft flying and thats the best you could come up with. The F15 was developed in the 70s with 70s electronics, guess we should just ground them too because they are just so outdated and have no irst. just wow.

I think the question was wether the f22 actually brought anything to the table that an f35 couldnt, and with the price of upgrades youre talking like two or three f35s worth of plane. At some point you are throwing good money after bad.

@@ravener96 There's a reason why no country besides the US ever got the F-22. There's tech in there so advanced that the US kept it to themselves. We don't know if the F-35 outperformes the F-22 or if the F-22 is still ahead.

100%, with the F/A-XX budget being potentially cut, Lockheed wanted to guarantee some money for their shareholders for sure. Eisenhower's fear everyday proven justified.

@@mikeyjnson Are you saying we should have never built F-22s ? Thats nuts to me. You want to cut our defense too because some people get paid? IDK man.

@mikemiller7946 no, but they were built with the USSR in mind, when they collapsed, we cut the amount ordered, but that rose the price per pop. Plus, the maintenance per flight hour for the mission needed is something that has obviously been thought through, no one wants to retire the sexiest and most capable fighter ever built, unless it doesn't make fiscal sense to. I've loved the F22 since I first laid eyes on it on the cover of Ace Combat 4, but even I can see that if was being retired, it was for a good reason that would not hinder our fighting power. I now wonder why the change of mind, what would be the motive to continue to fly and even spend more on these projects if we have the NGAD being injected money and the F/A-XX program budget being potentially cut. I can only see Lockheed Lobbying, but if it solves the issues that led to the decision to retire it, then all power to the USAF.

​@@mikemiller7946cut 70s of our spending on military, pull out of the world stage, let Europe for once pay the bills, and sacrifice thier programs for quality of life for its civilians. And let us spend education, infrastructure, health, and quality housing, just like the very nice to live in euro countries.

@@trollmastermike52845 hate to break it to you but something like 60% of the federal budget goes towards social security and other social programs on top of that. The military budget is nothing in comparison. Allowing the world to be crapped up by pirates and dictators would not be good for business either.

You just sold me on this movie, I've heard about it many times but never actually seen it now I want to lol

@@rikkisan1 You're gonna absolutely love it, he steals the show.

@@blarghinatelazer9394No doubt. He steals every scene he’s in. As a bonus, we also have Cpl. Hicks and Pvt. Hudson from Aliens.

Tombstone is a great movie, its iconic much like top gun.

also to hear as it warms up. It makes the most surreal sounds.

Seriously. It looks and sounds like a alien spacecraft or something 😂 but that baby is ours 😅

Even in the air superiority role its not clear the f35 has lost all that much in the trade. The f35 is lethal. Using the dogfighting capability seems mostly hypothetical

you can always make new tooling. just cost money.

They found it after a few years. It's in storage now.

Really? Great insight. @@SoloRenegade

​@@EvolvedTacticalplease provide the link to where said information was stated.

@@noahway13 IIRC the Japanese were interested in restarting F-22 production to replace their F-15s and they discovered it would be more cost effective to design and build an entirely new aircraft than to re-open the closed raptor production line. I think they were converted to F-35 lines? I could be mistaken on that last part.

The brain child of one Barrack Obama.

SecDef Gates said the leadership of the AF had something called “next-war-itis” and we’d never have to fight a near peer. The Chinese rolled out their first Gen 5 fighter right after. Oh, he also fired the AF leadership for daring to dispute him.

question. Do the F22/35 Stealth platforms have a different use than the F18 Models in general. Are both required for different reasons. Also, wouldn't the next new thing be a stealthy fixed wing? If so, how could they approve on what's already flying?

Is it though? When was the first air to air kill by the f22? It was last year, it shot down a balloon. That's a lot of dollars for an airframe that hasnt been used in anger aside from a show of force here and there and the f35 could have done those same things just as well. By the numbers it's a logical decision. But see, war isn't by the numbers. Now with Russia and China ramping up things have changed.

And you have worry now? So exactly which Russia jet fighter in Ukraine-Russia war that is so superior? Last time I look. We are still talking about getting Ukraine older model F16 that should dominate Russia sky when they arrive.

Stop the nonsense. The eggs were put on the F-15 basket. The F-35 was never meant to replace the F-15C as the primary air superiority fighter. When F-22 production was cut, the F-15C was deemed sufficient for air superiority work and airspace defense. You people are making up a narrative in your heads that never existed. The US went F-15C -> F-22 -> back to F-15C.

@@ntal5859 ok, what plane would you put your life on the line for over the f22? ill wait.

@@ntal5859 I suppose you know of a valid conflict the F22 couldve taken part in?

@@ntal5859 how many air to air kills from any fighter in the last 10 years? lmao

Australia has a lot of territory to defend with only 75 fighters. A few more squadrons of F/A-18Fs would be nice to have.

The operational cost of the F22 is beyond what most, if not all, states can truly afford.

@@Rogue-7.62 you do realize that two states already use F-22s in their ANG, and neither of them are largest economically, that being Alaska and Hawaii.

@@Rogue-7.62 Don't the Feds fund the national guards anyway?

@jacobbaumgardner3406 that's why I said truly. They have them, but the cost to the State is to much vs others available. If Lockheed could restart the production line of the F22, but redsign the cockpit to include modern interfacing for future upgrades, it would be an even better aircraft than it is now.

@@Rogue-7.62 no, it wouldn't. The F-22 isn't capable of receiving substantial upgrades or startarting production lines, at least not ones that would be cheaper than making a whole new aircraft, which is what they're doing. The cost to the state isn't necessarily too much, or there wouldn't be two states operating them. I could imagine larger states like Texas or California operating them. There's not that many F-22s, we don't need every states to adopt them.

Not the New F-15EX.

I saw them do a flyover of the Ravens stadium last home game.

@jonathancrouse8003 that will definitely be missed. I live in the the flightpath for the runway. So they're always flying over.

@@derekprzybyla5822 where i live, i was watching the game and saw them coming in, then I look out my window amd i can see them almost going to flyover my house. Such a surreal experience to sorta see them in person lol

@@derekprzybyla5822You should get _really_ good internet soon. There's that.

Cringe

@@user-dd8vo7or2d yep and that’s why it’s funny 😆

Skimming through the comments for the “correct” answer, think yours is the most concise and on point as to why the Raptors days are sadly numbered. The software alone is millions lines of code spread across multiple vendors likely tied in some way to the processor/hardware architecture that made it work 20 plus years ago

Most branches need house cleaning of leadership. Too many in it for career and money these days instead of serving country.

Agree, great response. I find that Mover and Gonky often overlook these considerations when speculating on the more technical/cost/procurement related issues. I think they would greatly benefit from having more engineers or contract guys to provide some extra perspective where their experience may be lacking.

The JSF was NEVER the replacement for the F-22. The F-35 is like the F-16, the F-22 is like the F-15. The single engine multirole and the twin engine air superiority fighter. The F-22 production was cut because it would replace the F-15, and the F-15 was good enough. The JSF was never sold as a F-15C replacement.

And they call Ukraine an analog of WW1. Balloons were used in the Civil War. They could make one of those silly movies where a modern XYZ goes back in time. During a storm, a F-22 goes back to the Civil War.

This. Anyone claiming that parts or even the whole aircraft can't *_easily_* be produced again is lying. Absolutely ridiculous to say they can't be produced...and that the solution is designing, developing, testing a completely new aircraft which they know won't even surpass F-22's capabilities almost at all...and which they don't know if it will address the requirements of the time when it's ready for service.

@@pistonburner6448The NGAD Most certainly will. As much as I love the F-22.

@@mraviatorboii2510 Based on what? How? Why?

@@pistonburner6448 Based on the facts that the NGAD will have: -Drone wingman’s -More than Double the range of the F-22 -Larger Payload -New stealth technology -New Tailess design which will be much stealthier than the F-22 -NEW AESA Radar -New adaptive cycle engines -An arsenal of kinetic and laser directed energy weapons -Twin engines that provide greater thrust and fuel efficiency -Minimized heat emissions If all of these are true, it will absolutely be superior to the F-22. The F-22s capabilities will absolutely pale in comparison to the NGAD.. The NGAD is designed to be the F-22 on steroids, as it will take what the Raptor can do and do it better. The only thing the F-22 will have over the NGAD is maneuverability, everything else it’s inferior to the NGAD. I love the F-22. But it pales in comparison to the NGAD.

@@mraviatorboii2510 Do you have any news on when they expect NGAD to serve in the PLA airforce after they've decimated the US and Europe as we had nothing but the F-35 and they operated around their strengths and exploited their weaknesses?

Professional programmers can learn a language in a few months.The software being written in a old language is not the core issue. The issue is that there are no compilers for that language that can be used on the latest computer hardware the AF uses in modern jets. So the software that controls the airplane would all need to be completely rewritten (then tested and debugged). Not only difficult, but I'd say impossible, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem.

Developing, testing, integrating the systems into an aircraft is what costs a lot. Not the production. They keep claiming that production was costly which is a sure sign of them lying and covering up for massive corruption.

What is the thumbnail from? It looks familiar

They are going to leave the service and continue with their civilian lives. At a time when the military is for hurting pilots and maintainers, the Air Force finds another way to push more skilled people out. Clipping the wings off the 175th is a terrible idea. Why can other wings throughout the state get F-35s, but my State of Maryland can not?

@@Recklessness97 because cybersecurity has been more important than a handful of planes for about 40 years now. We are spending BILLIONS a year fighting a cyber war with China, Russia, and Iran.

Wrong it's actually Ahead of schedule

We were to never sell to other countries, even those in nato. To maintain tech secrets.

Because a bunch of politicians were whining that it was too expensive and to be fair the US was spending a lot in Afghanistan and Iraq so the F-22 was the nail that was sticking out. It got the hammer.

Right? Those things could well see 100 years service. Incredible.

Grandpa buff is never gonna retire

Sneers in C-130. :p

That is an urban legend which is indeed circulating. But that's story is absolutely ridiculous. Of course it's not impossible to *_easily_* restart production. What a ridiculous claim: what parts could there possibly exist on that plane that we can't easily start producing again? Even the most difficult coatings will be produced even more easily than in the original production run, possibly with far faster and less costly processes which have been developed since then. There is no possible reason which would result in production being impossible or even difficult.

The tooling was not destroyed. It was unaccounted for during a period of time in the 2010's but that turned out to be an inventory mistake. The tooling was eventually found where it was left. That being said, the airframe is too costly to maintain because they cut the number produced to less than half of what was initially planned. It never benefitted from economies of scale like the F-35. There's a lot that goes into manufacture of such a high-end aircraft that is hard to revive/reproduce more than a decade after its production run ended. Restarting production alone will indeed cost billions of dollars. More importantly, all the institutional knowledge from the F-22 program is gone: engineers, shop floor workers, and machinists that worked on it are long gone because they either died, retired, or moved on to other prospects. Training new people to replace them is not only a massive financial undertaking, it also comes at the opportunity cost of not having the manpower or talent to work on something better, like NGAD. After all is said and done in a theoretical production restart scenario, the taxpayer will be paying much more for a plane that's going to be outclassed within a few years of the first one rolling off the lot, if not before it even gets completed.

@@troys3757 Ridiculous claims. As if producing a tried and tested aircraft could possibly be more expensive than developing a new aircraft... Laughable! It's pretty scary how many people parrot such ridiculous urban legends or made-up excuses made to cover up corruption. Get a grip.

Right…anyone who doesn’t believe it’s corruption like you is an idiot. What I understood may not be correct, but the idea that an airframe might require special parts that aren’t being produced by the 3rd party manufacturers that originally made them 20 years ago is an actual thing. Companies move on and sometimes specialized manufacturing equipment is required for certain high tech or precise parts. Companies don’t just keep those tools lying around “in case”. So I don’t see what’s so fantastical about a situation where the airforce can no longer get certain parts for tbe F-22 b/c the company that made them no longer does…or can …without a major reinvestment So yeah, it’s QUITE possible retooling all the manufacturing systems of various vendors needed to make parts AND re-tooling the Lockheed plants to make more F-22s (which requires entirely different manufacturing equipment and training than the F-35) is more expensive than starting over It’s not government corruption; it’s capitalism. If a factory is no longer going to get paid to make a thing, it isn’t going to sit idle, it will begin Making other things. Since neither I nor you are familiar with the various f-22 systems and how difficult they are to produce. so I don’t see what’s so ridiculous about suggesting that BAE, Raytheon, GE or whatever vendors who made parts for the F-22 can’t just “put out” the old equipment they have in storage and start churning them out again.

​@@pistonburner6448 Very generous CBO estimates in 2017 have put restarting production of the F-22 at $50 Billion to manufacture and procure an additional 194 units at a flyaway cost of $200-$220 Million per plane. It would take 10+ years to deliver the first one. For 75 additional aircraft you're looking at more than $17 Billion. NGAD development costs for the manned AND unmanned portions *combined* over the next five years are estimated to be $28 Billion. If they started producing new F-22's *today* we wouldn't see the first one until the 2030's, by which time we are currently scheduled to have something better in production. By the time we get the first new F-22, China is projected to have well over 1000 J-20's. If you have a substantive refutation for any of what I said other than vaguely hinting at "corruption", then I'm genuinely all ears.

You passed on the F22………so you fly X-Wing instead? Say hi to Yoda for me.

@@falconeaterf15 😘

Of course the F-35 isn't a F-15 peer. You're comparing the low to the high in the high/low mix. Small single engine multirole: F-16, F-35. Large twin engine air superiority fighter: F-15, F-22

@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Correct. It's not a comparison I make, but one that tends to be common on the internet.

DARPA doesn’t make jets. That sort of stuff is way too expensive to hide in the black budget, also when you involve that many people it gets hard to hide.

We're sending billions to Ukraine, gonna send troops to Gaza, I don't know if we can afford a NGF anymore

@@MavHunter20XX a drop in the bucket.

@@jacobbaumgardner3406True, the customer usually has to put out a requirement with some money first, just like the fighter mafia of old

The NGAD is for sure being worked on. But how far it as, that is difficult to say

it's not obsolete

That may be true of guitars, but not when it comes to performance electronics. Try using amplifiers, speakers, mixers, microphones, etc. from the 1950s for a current day band on a world tour. Fighter aircraft design are driven by performance, not how pretty they are.

@@michaelrunnels7660 Fair. I'm referring to the general design of the guitar/plane. Not the electronics. Let's say the airframe or body of the plane. The 'insides' can be updated accordingly.

Thanks, Rob!

4TB. Those must be some heavy program upgrades.

Sounds about right 😂

A kitchen can be used to make any dish. It's generic. A manufacturing production line can only make a plane. If that plane is not being made, the manufacturer has to somehow cart off all that stuff so they can make some other plane and remain in business.

LM had to shutdown F-16 production and move it to another facility to open up enough room to meet F-35 production demands. They’re not going to shut that line down and delay F-35 sales just to produce a few F-22s.

Unlikely.