this is just one of the things I have been alluding to over the last few months when we've had this ongoing fanclub commentary about export rated F-22's to japan and south korea etc....  it's not going to happen.  

the doom and gloom commentary re the JSF has been blissfully ignorant of the fact that the F-22 has sustainment issues which JSF does not - and is one of the very significant lessons learnt in the program.  

Tthe US isn't in a position to release the F-22 for export even if it wanted to - inherent design issues make supporting the existing fleet a priority over any notion to get volume.  In some areas they can't get extra volume anyway - and to get around it means more than just a block upgrade - it means a redesign.  

Congressmen like Inouye can bleat till the cows come home.  Its a DNS 

GF, your comments miss the point. The JSF program's problems are not technical in nature. I'm sure it would be a very capable aircraft if it is allowed to mature into a completed platform. The problem with the JSF is it is being born during a particularly bad time to be a defense program. Our nation is broke and the current political administration will does see the JSF as a pot of money to be reallocated to other favored programs. We have already seen the rumblings of these events begin here in the US. Expect more soon.

 

The export of the F22 is not in the cards for the reasons you have presented, but the belief by many that the F22 program should be extended is based in the reality that the JSF might likely be cut so far back that it won't be procured in enough numbers to make a real difference or be still born all together. In that very likely event it would be better to have a few more F22s when the JSF is cut or vastly curtailed than not enough of either aircraft. 

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

'just to add,

Gates publicly evolving "procurement jihad" has some unfortunate parallels with the USN

eg, his recent and more frequent commentary  on needing to go greenwater (and he has used that term specifically) ties in with the recent proposals for the "1000 ship navy".  ie that is a navy where multiple nations commit to work co-operatively in mutual areas of interest.  As a concept it has been promoted by some in the USN, has been exposed to "industry commentary" (ie other navies chiefs of staff) and has in a number of tier 1 and tier 2 navies, been positively commented on.  a number of tier 3 navies are also enthusiastic as it gives them comfort.  The premise of the 1000 ship navy is to cut down on individual procurement costs, have commonality, have greater interoperability - and get better bang for buck.

that strategy has been articulated in a number of recent US conferences I've attended as being something that can be migrated to JSF.

I have an overwhelming view and sense that  the political vehicle of how JSF is viewed by both US political parties is being ignored or not seen by the shooters and pro-shooter lobbys.  I'd bet my sweet bippy that the JSF is not going to get killed - as far as USG is concerned, JSF is aviations "1000 ship navy" in waiting.  

as an outsider, I regard him as dangerous and more of a threat to US interests than the looney Nth Koreans 

 

You are 100% right.

 

For the less technically qualified, what does this mean?

the early F-22's have a design and systems difference to their latter build sisters.  it means that there is no such thing as a single spiral development path - it means that for the F-22, there are potentially always going to be parallel development issues - and that means the cost effectiveness of any enhancement let alone the technical capacity to effectively achive it, integrate it, is going to be an ongoing problem.

add in the fact that there are other future development issues involving this platform class - then the capacity and  enthusiasm to go out and effectively develop an exprt model is even more remote

unfort its a great plane thats been screwed from within (builder and a lack of discipline in engineering issues) - and thats made it an even bigger embuggerance when beancounters in the civilian authority checks and balances get involved.

If the US was in Chinas position, it would be a different matter. 

 

Okay, I'm not that smart so I need someone to help me out here.

 

Isn't it extremely expensive to maintain the RAM on F-22s?  In order to keep the skin in perfect condition is it not expensive in both time and money to maintain its stealth?  Do we know much more $$$ it costs to maintain the aircraft per hour of flight time?  If it is, in fact, very expensive to keep in the air, why the hell are we going to send out F-22 to drop tiny SDBs?  This reminds me of the kind of cost-bennefit insanity of Vietnam where the USAF would spend millions of dollars to fly B-52 sorties to the Ho Chi Minh trail to bomb carts of rice.

 

 

I can't help re: the cost of maintaining its LO coating, because I have no clue about that.  However, regarding including the capability to drop bombs, it's not so that we can routinely send them to drop a few little bombs on the Taliban, for example.  It's so we can use them the way we would have used the F-117s we recently retired.  Because of their Very Low Observable (VLO) qualities, they are our first-day-of-war assets for disabling an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), opening up the way for the rest of the USAF/USN to drop the majority of tonnage on the majority of targets.  It's called Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (DEAD), and it's part of an overall Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign that opens the way into/through an IADS and keeps it open so the rest of the force can do its thing.