F-22 Raptor Jet - waste of money, cold war relic, or vital national defense component?

Originally to be built at over 700 or so units to replacing the near elderly F15 Eagle (1200 something built), the buy was dropped to 400 hundred sumptin, 300 hundred sumptin, then the 187 that will be athe end of the current production run ending in a year or so.

This plane has gotten a LOT of press again lately, been party to a standoff between Congress and the President and Congress and the Secretary of Defense.

So what is it?

there is better technology out there........ i believe

and we are getting real close to revealing it

what with the Iranian threat.... not to mention

the North Korean sword rattling...

"i believe" - as in Scully and Mulder? :hee:

What else is out there? Close to reveal? In numbers or lose to production?

it would be an un manned different shaped drone

aircraft... something out of the Black ops budget....

that could shock and awe them back into the stone age

without having to fire a shot.

LOOK.... :rolleyes:

we have had busloads of people being taken for a two
a week work period secretly to subterranean bases for decades
and they better have come up with something mind blowing.

i always love the look....though ....that comes over a new President's
face after he finds out about what we really have for
classified tools. it ages them.

I guess it was defeated for more funding. I think everything in the US will be about social programs for poor and elderly now. It will be hard to get money for space and defense until the baby boomer surge of elderly runs its course.

This writing has been on the wall a long time. Add to the baby boom elderly the current world economic down turn and you got no money for high tech anything.

The real shame is not so much the near term but the lack of consumer product advances that occur after space and military invents all this new stuff. That pipeline will run dry now and I think it eventually leads to us becoming an also ran country in the future instead of the world leader we have been for so long.

Unfotunately :agree:

No doubt there's something being done at the Skunkworks that'll make the Raptor look like a bi-plane...:shocked:

I'd put money on a drone that will do things that a human pilot couldn't physically endure if he was in it.

UAV's

Something like the "hunter/killer" aircraft from the Terminator movies?
Sounds like they're heading towards removing the "pilot" from "pilot-
error". (you know, try and make it a "clean" war, with limited casualties on OUR side.)

And there is a time and place for UAVs and UCAVs but what happens when there is no pilot to make a visual identification, interpret the visual, and make the call? Who do you blame? The software engineer?

Who would be blamed?

In our current political environment, it would be the guy that cleans up after the bigwigs finish patting themselves on the back and giving themselves raises for a "job" well done.

And there is a time and place for UAVs and UCAVs but what happens when there is no pilot to make a visual identification, interpret the visual, and make the call? Who do you blame? The software engineer?

And what happens when they interpret it incorrectly human or not?
At the speeds these decisions are made its hard to see either being the correct action,
UAV's are hopefully cheaper and able to fly for longer periods without refuel, come in many sizes and types, it's hard to say exactly when the call is for a man on the 'pickle'

Bill

Who would be blamed?

In our current political environment, it would be the guy that cleans up after the bigwigs finish patting themselves on the back and giving themselves raises for a "job" well done.

You're right, someone else will get hung out to dry ;)

And what happens when they interpret it incorrectly human or not?
At the speeds these decisions are made its hard to see either being the correct action,
UAV's are hopefully cheaper and able to fly for longer periods without refuel, come in many sizes and types, it's hard to say exactly when the call is for a man on the 'pickle'

Bill

I am all for UAV / UCAVS but just not limited to the "U" only part. Yes, you can build a UCAV that will pull 15Gs because there is no pilot to kill. Problem is you can't always rely on a UCAV to visually ID something at 4 miles and then make a decision if your link is jammed or your network centric collective engagement battle fusion is rebooting or the cleaning lady accidentally knocks out the surge protector back at the control operator's base. Somewhere there will be a lesson our people will be on the wrong side of with too many eggs in the digital basket. You of all people would know that :gh:.

(I'm so for UCAVs that were I a young stud today and couldn't fly real I would fly unmanned, afterall they swap ejection seats for Lazyboys :tooth: )

It's his meal ticket.
:eek:

The only thing wrong with that plane is it's price tag. From what I've heard there's nothing else in the atmosphere that can even hope to survive a tangle with it. It's not necessarily a nose forward plane.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Rifts/Rifts-Earth-Vehicles/F-22_Raptor.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Rifts/Rifts-Earth-Vehicles/Golden_Age/GAW_F-22E_Raptor.htm&h=350&w=556&sz=47&tbnid=_q8T7lbcmY0jEM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3DF-22%2BRaptor&usg=__DzgDr4g0Df4fLAa3GmROkrtdqoA=&ei=jJ1pSpWJBZmltgfn1uCVCw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image