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Raptor hanging out with an F-16

After checking through my email, I noticed that my twitter was now being followed by RaptorJobs. I’m not going to begin to wonder how they caught my feed, but I’m thankful someone noticed.

I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for the F-22 Raptor. Aviation in general. I’m still a college student, and I plan on transferring next year for Aerospace Engineering. One day I’d like to see myself working on designing the next Raptor: the fastest, stealthiest, deadliest plane in the sky. A truely start of the art aircraft that is light years ahead of anything else that spends its time in the sky. Well, unless you believe in UFO’s, because I don’t know if we’ll advance to that in my lifetime (one can only hope).

Beyond the practical and defensive reasoning behind supporting the Raptor, there are other, pragmatic reasons as well. If we shelf the Raptor, we might not hurt only our own defensive/offensive capabilities, but we may also stunt the science behind it. America is suffering from a loss of brain power. We are educating foreign students at our schools so they can become the top in their field back in their home. Unfortunately, kids nowadays are not as interested in science as they once were.

We’ve been sufferring for a long time under an education system that only prepares kids for a standardized test. Education fails to understand the point. It’s not about getting the answer, it is about how to get it. Sure, we can teach kids to use the calculator for math. At some point though, they can’t go any farther. Because once you reach a certain level, you don’t have a pretty little formula to plug the numbers in and make it work. You have to figure that out. Kids aren’t getting that.

They only thing outside of competitive education (where some kids are going to fail) that can inspire today’s youth to become something more is by seeing the results of others inspiration. That F-22 is an inspiration. If you can’t give the kids science fairs, if they are too busy “learning” to be able to have fun with school, then please don’t take away the only hope we have of the future.

So what drove me to want to grow up and be a “rocket scientist”? Space, although far removed from the time of the Apollo missions, was still cool. The Shuttle program is only slightly older than I am. I used to look up to the stars at night. I was the nerd with the telescope and the book of constellations, trying to make them out in a city sky far too bright to make out a fraction of those crystal specks in the universe. I would build and launch model rockets, even making my own one time out of a wrapping paper tube. My first try didn’t turn out that well, but after a couple of goes I made a pretty damn good rocket.

Kids need that nowadays. And schools need to realize that standardize testing is a farse, it only hurts more than it helps. Standardized testing means we are to be standardized people, and we are not. Give the kids a hands on approach to learning, that’ll help the drop out rate. Some kids are going to fail, we can’t help that. Lowering your standards (i.e. Dallas) only makes matters worse. If a student fails a test the first time, he failed the damn test. End of story. We don’t get second chances in life, and if we raise them to think there is always a do over, then we’ve failed them.

So to Obama, if you ever read this, don’t kill the Raptor. You’ll kill the spirit.

F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter

In a final note to this though, I’m including an image of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. You will notice similarities between it and the F-22, although they are no identical twin. The F-22 is older though. See what daring breakthoughs bring you? Unfortunately, the F-35 is not a valid consideration at this time, as it is not production ready. Yet had the government scrap it’s spending on the F-22 in the first place, we would’ve never had it’s little brother.

Microsoft Headquarters

This latest blunder at Microsoft – no matter how cruel it is to its recently unemployed workers – is fitting for the software giant. If you haven’t heard already, a glitch in the system gave laid off workers a larger severance than they were supposed to get. Now Microsoft is asking it back.

For years people have complained about glitches in Microsoft software. Their current mainstream operating system, Vista, may be the most notorious of recent history. Yet when a glitch in their software costs us money (lost productivity, lost information, etc), they point to the EULA and say “sorry.”

Yet Microsoft comes out and demand those former workers to return the extra money, cash, money orders, personal check. Can we rub anymore salt in the wound for these poor people! They’ve just lost their job (probably with a decent salary knowing Microsoft) in the middle of the worst recession in recent memory. Odds are they are going to have a really hard time finding work, and if they do, it may be for $7.75/hour at the local supermarket.

Microsoft does have a legitimate claim for wanting a refund, but of all companies, should Microsoft expect one?

Lockheed Martin Photo - F-22

With the hard times come hard decisions. Right now in the mist of potentially record deficits fueled by years of war, pork-barrel spending, bailouts, and tax cuts, some things are going to have to be trimmed. The Obama administration has made it clear that it considers cutting funding for further acquisition of the F-22 Raptor. Each F-22 costs about $140 million, and the Air Force is wanting to purchase several hundred more to augment their current small fleet. Obviously, billions of dollars are at stake, and we currently have a number of fighter jets including the F-16 and F-15, so on the surface this sounds like a good idea.

Wrong. The F-22 goes above and beyond the capabilities of the current fleet of U.S. fighter jets. America has learned since World War 2 that air superiority is critical in mission completion. And in terms of superiority, the F-22 has it. It’s incredibly stealthy – the only time radar can pick one up (it’s actual radar signature is classified however) is when it opens its weapons bay for a fraction of a second to launch a missile – and it is maneuverable in ways that only an F-15 can dream about.  It has the capability of cruising at mach speeds without afterburners, allowing it to more efficiently go deeper in enemy territory fast and on less fuel.

Opponents of the F-22 say that it’s role can be filled by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which utilizes stealth technology developed from the F-22, is more flexible in its uses, and costs between $80 t0 $90 million dollars. However, the F-35 is not production ready, and won’t be for a few more years. The average age of the US fighter fleet is around 30 years old and is in the process of slowly being phased out. The F-22 is available here and now (there are approx. 120 in service today). Even though the F-35 may be more cost conscious monetarily, once you weigh in the unfactored costs it’s not worth the weight.

There is also 95,000 jobs tied up in the production of the F-22, coming out of nearly every state in the union. Do we need to create a policy that would put another 100,000 people out of work?

There is also other concerns that not everyone else is willing to mention. The F-22 is state of the art technology and is more advanced than anything out enemies have created. If we back out of it though, the technology behind it may find its way into the wrong hands. The last thing we need is for China (who we know has attempted with some success to smuggle F-15 parts into the country to reverse engineer one into their own fighter) or Russia (whose puppet master is ex-KGB and government policies lend themselves better to the U.S.S.R. than democratic Russia) to get their hands on the technology and secretly develop a fleet of advanced fighters. We’d be sitting ducks.

Thankfully – for now – most in Congress have been opposed to the cut backs, due to pressure from their constituents over the potential job loss. They’ve learned quite well the power of the ripple effect through the economy, so this may hold them at bay for now. However, the recession is going to get worse before it gets better, and with Obama wanting to wipe the deficit within his first term (good luck to the that), I don’t know how long they will hold up.

I ask you to please go to contact your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators and implore them to fight against cutting the funding for the F-22 Raptor.