Cutting F-22 funding a mistake
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.
