Time to restart F-22 production?

"facw" (facw) 10/12/2018 at 19:42 • Filed to: Planelopnik, F-22, hurricane michael

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Sources have been telling Tyler that as many as 17 F-22s were unable to escape Tyndall Air Force Base prior to hurricane Michael.

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There’s no telling at this point how badly damaged any aircraft remaining there, but reports are that damage is extensive, with winds reaching 135mph before the base’s anemometer ceased functioning.

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If the numbers Tyler are hearing are correct that would mean that around 10% of a fleet already deemed too small might be damaged, though one would hope many could be repaired.

Still, with the number of effected aircraft, it might be worth revisiting restarting production, especially given that we may need to produce new parts to support refurbishing aircraft damaged in the storm. The costs for restarting the assembly line are massive (I’ve seen one estimate of around $10B, but I don’t think anyone really knows). That would make even a production run of 100 aircraft impractical, but amortized across a 200 aircraft purchase, it could be worth doing. It would be interesting to see if you could try to get Lockheed to nail down a per fighter price and assume the risk, in exchange for a big new contract.

The Air Force is currently hoping that some combination of the F-35 and upgraded F-15s (possibly including Boeing’s proposed F-15X) will be able to supplement the F-22 fleet sufficiently.

Ultimately the Air Force will move to a new 6th generation fighter, but that effort is just getting started, and if experience with 5th generation fighters is any indicator, such an aircraft will not be available until the 2030's at earliest, and probably not be operational for years after that.

punkgoose17 > facw 10/12/2018 at 19:51

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I really don’t understand the different roles these aircraft play. We still use the F-15 but I think the F-16 is being obsoleted??? I think we should just buy a bunch of T -50 from Korea, and then build a bunch of F35 when they are finally finally ready.

boredalways > facw 10/12/2018 at 19:53

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scratch & dent sale to our “middle East allies”?

/s

Tristan > facw 10/12/2018 at 20:07

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Dude... C’mon... Those are F-16s in the aerial view of the hangar. Tyler knows better.

Also, I’m really glad I don’t work aircraft maintenance at Tyndall right now. Those jets are going to require thousands of hours of structural and sheetmetal repairs.

Kiltedpadre > facw 10/12/2018 at 20:13

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I work at a base where many of the fighters that flew out were housed during the storm. There were about 40 aircraft on the field mixed between F-22’s, F-15’s, F-16’s, and  a couple T-6A’s.

While the reason they were here is sad; getting to watch them flying was a welcome change from the C-17’s we normally see.

facw > punkgoose17 10/12/2018 at 20:14

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So the main combat aircraft the Air Force uses are:

Air superiority (shooting down enemy fighters):

F-22

F-15C/D

Multi-Role (engaging both fighters and ground targets):

F-35

F-16

F-15E (special ground attack version of the F-15)

Close air support (attacking ground targets close to friendly ground troops):

A-10

AC-130 (notably the only propeller aircraft on this list, also for having an artillery piece mounted on its side)

Strategic bombing (bringing lots of firepower to bear against ground targets ) :

B-2

B-1

B-52

The F-15 was supposed to be replaced by the F-22, but production of the F-22 in favor of replacing some F-15s with F-35s instead. This was done because the F-22 was behind schedule and over budget (this was before the F-35 was clearly behind schedule and over budget). The current plan is to keep a small group of highly upgraded F-15s around for quite a while, though there are people who want all new F-15s, and others who think we could get away with retiring them all together.

The F-16 will eventually be replaced by the F-35, but there’s no rush right now. Compared to other fighters, the F-16 is pretty cheap to operate, so there’s less pressure to get rid of them. They will likely be the “low” of a high/low mix of fighters for a long time.

The T-50 was being considered for the T-X competition for a new trainer for the USAF to replace the ancient T-38 , but lost out to an entry from Boeing and Saab. The USAF hasn’t indicated any desire for a light fighter based on these (a relationship similar to the one between the F-5 and T-38) , but some think that might be coming, though Boeing would obviously have the inside track.

The F-35 is pretty close to ready today. There are some issues still being worked out, mostly to do with weapons compatibility, but the F-35I (the Israeli version of the Air Force’s F-35A) has conducted strikes in Syria, while the Marine’s F-35B recently conducted its first combat strikes as well. The Navy’s F-35C is running a bit behind, but has conducted some carrier trials. The main issue at this point is just getting them built (and dealing with the fact that because of the concurrency approach used in the aircraft’s development, many of the hundreds built already are not up to spec, and will need to be upgraded or will be substandard and probably retired).

facw > Tristan 10/12/2018 at 20:17

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Those are QF-16s yes (the pic is from his article about on base destruction as opposed to about the F-22s specifically) . He has shown pictures of F-22s (only two, but the Air Force doesn’t exactly let people roam around taking pictures). The first pic in this post is one of those, and is clearly an F-22, though you can’t see how beat up it is, at least its hangar kept its roof, most of them lost theirs from what I’ve read/seen.

daender > Tristan 10/12/2018 at 20:23

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You can see the tail of a F-22 in the top-left corner, just ahead of the QF-16.

facw > Kiltedpadre 10/12/2018 at 20:23

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From what I’ve read, they won’t be going home any time soon, though its easy enough to imagine them being sent out to Nellis or something for a while. At Tyndall m ost of the hangars are apparently destroyed, and they say there’s extensive roof damage elsewhere, including pretty much every unit of base housing losing at least some of their roof .

Kiltedpadre > facw 10/12/2018 at 20:44

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The F-16’s and F-15’s flew out yesterday. I’m not sure where they were out of though.

As of today we had a couple planes from the Chile Air Force and one from Canada visiting. I also saw a rather attractive lady in an RAF flight suit but no idea what plane she came in.

Tristan > facw 10/12/2018 at 21:20

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Oh... Context! I’ll eat crow.

The AF tends to frown upon most photography of their aircraft... F-22s and F-35s particularly.

The FOD searches on those aircraft are going to be epic.

Tristan > daender 10/12/2018 at 21:21

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I stand corrected. Good eye!

Joe6pack > facw 10/12/2018 at 21:52

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My brother is at Eglin. He said they flew their aircraft out. He said probably Texas, but wasn't sure. He also mentioned the damage at Tyndall and indicated there were damage hangars and probably aircraft. He didn't understand why they didn't evacuate them. Heck, they would have been better off at Eglin.

Chariotoflove > facw 10/12/2018 at 22:05

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I have a hard time with this feeling that we went all this way to produce the raptor and then stopped short of building enough. I understand their were  reasons. It just bugs me that we spent all that money to replace the eagle and stopped short of a full fleet so we still have to keep the eagle around anyway. 

facw > Joe6pack 10/12/2018 at 22:07

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I’d assume the ones that weren’t flown out were not flyable. Planes in the middle of maintenance or something. Nothing to do but cram them into the sturdiest hangars and hope they hold. Maybe th ey could have planned better given the notice they had, but I’m sure th ey weren’t expecting it to be this bad.

facw > Chariotoflove 10/12/2018 at 22:15

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Yeah, it was a mistake. You had the combination of high cost (made worse after cuts because development costs deemed acceptable for an ~800 plane fleet were instead amortized across a ~200 plane fleet), and the fact that this was not an aircraft that would have been useful in Iraq/Afghanistan,or for counter terrorism in general which was the overriding priority . Additionally, the F-35 didn’t look like such a budget buster, and as long as you aren’t dogfighting isn’t terribly worse. And perhaps most importantly, Lockheed was building both, which meant they weren’t going to fight tooth and nail against the cancellation, because they were going to get paid regardless of whether the Air Force built F-22s or F-35s.

Chariotoflove > facw 10/12/2018 at 23:23

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I don’t know whether the F-22 would be useful for those kinds of missions or not. I do seem to recall the Israelis proved the F-15 could be  more versatile for that kind of mission than previously thought.

facw > Chariotoflove 10/12/2018 at 23:35

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The F-22 has been used for ground strikes which are outside of what it was designed for. But of course you don’t need a $150M jet to do that.

The Israelis have used their F-15s to strike at ground targets at the PLO headquarters in Tunisa:

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Of course, they needed the F-15 for that both for the long range, and for the ability to self-escort. The US doesn’t really have those issues, our carriers, vast tanker fleet, and long range bombers let us strike just about anywhere. O ne place where an F-22 might come in handy is something like the bin Laden raid where we are striking into a country we are not at war with. We have used the F-22s in Syria, basically as a hedge against Assad doing something stupid and actually trying to attack us while we strike at ISIS in terr itory he no longer controls.

wkiernan > Chariotoflove 12/06/2018 at 08:53

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The problem with that is that the F-22 is twenty-year- old, known technology.

The B-2 was kept secret until it was already far advanced in production, and the secret was only revealed for domestic political reasons. The Air Force had a whole fleet of F-117s, fifty of them, before the general public was allowed to know that they even existed . And if you look, for example, at the $1-trillion+ budget for the F-35, you could squeeze a lot of undocumented expenses in there.

So, while obviously I can’t be n ot sure of anything, I think it’s reasonably likely that there’s a well-advanced secret program to build a next generation of stealth fighters, and it’s even possible that some of those secret planes are already in hangars, ready to be deploy ed in a crisis.

Chariotoflove > wkiernan 12/06/2018 at 09:25

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I like this theory. Secret war planes in mysterious hangars makes me all buttery inside.