• Why is the F15, a 50-year-old design, being continuously improved and t

    From a425couple@21:1/5 to All on Mon Aug 16 08:52:49 2021
    A Quora -
    Why is the F15, a 50-year-old design, being continuously improved and
    the F22, 'dropped'?

    David Tussey
    20 yrs as a US Navy fighter pilot. August 2

    Why is the F15, a 50-year-old design, being continuously improved and
    upgraded, and the F22, which was supposed to replace it, ceased
    production after only a couple of hundred or so examples?
    I used to be on the F-22 program representing the Secretary of Defense
    in the Pentagon. I attended the classified briefings on the program
    status and budgets throughout the 80s.

    The F-22 was designed and optimized to essentially do one mission -
    establish air superiority against the Warsaw Pact in a conventional
    conflict in central Europe.

    In the late 80’s the Berlin Wall came down, and almost overnight the
    Soviet Union collapsed. The threat of war in central Europe diminished
    faster than you can say “budget adjustment”. Where the USAF had planned
    to build ~1100 of the aircraft, the “need” and the role/mission had
    nearly vaporized.

    And what appeared were more regional, asymmetrical threats where the US
    could immediately establish airspace control, and the F-22 was not well matched; not much needed.

    And we have to admit, history has proven that right. There really has
    not been any conflict since 1990 where the F-22 was desperately needed
    or could fill a unique role/mission. Nowhere has there been a conflict
    where the F-22 would have “saved the day”. We’ve done quite fine without the Raptor, thank you.

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  • From Jim Wilkins@21:1/5 to All on Mon Aug 16 20:31:23 2021
    "a425couple" wrote in message news:sfe1kc120rv@news2.newsguy.com...
    ...

    And we have to admit, history has proven that right. There really has
    not been any conflict since 1990 where the F-22 was desperately needed
    or could fill a unique role/mission. Nowhere has there been a conflict
    where the F-22 would have “saved the day”. We’ve done quite fine without the Raptor, thank you.
    -------------------------

    When deterrence works someone always claims that the threat wasn't real and they could have made better use of the money.

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