Young Signs F-22 ADM To Keep Options Open / US Must Have An Edge On Fifth Generation Jet Fighters Over Other Countries By Maintaining F-22

Young Signs F-22 ADM To Keep Options Open / US Must Have An Edge On Fifth Generation Jet Fighters Over Other Countries By Maintaining F-22

(NSI News Source Info) March 6, 2009: Following the Obama Administration’s decision this week not to certify further F-22 production until April at the earliest, departing Pentagon acquisition chief John Young signed an acquisition decision memorandum March 3 for Lockheed martin’s stealth fighter program. It continues what is described by Pentagon specialists with insight into the program as Young’s stance of “keeping all the President’s options open.” Those options include: stopping F-22 production at 183 and using congressionally approved long-lead money to shut down the production line; releasing long-lead money to start building the next 20 aircraft (184-203); or approving production of another 60 (for a total of 243) fighters as desired by the U.S. Air Force. Air Force officials tell Aviation Week that they are finding diminished support for all the additional 60 fighters they have hoped for and expect the Obama White House to approve production of another 20 while deferring additional production decisions for another year. That would mean the long-lead money would not be used to shut down the line. The Air Force’s program office forwarded the memo to Lockheed Martin March 4. Acquisition specialists are now studying its implications. There seems to be a standoff between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin with the company raising the specter of shutdown costs that are higher than buying additional aircraft while the Office of the Secretary of Defense demanding lower units costs if there is to be any chance of additional purchases.

U.S. Air Force Gives Pentagon New F-22 Purchase Plan

U.S. Air Force Gives Pentagon New F-22 Purchase Plan

(NSI News Source Info) ORLANDO, Florida - February 28, 2009: The U.S. Air Force's top general said Thursday he had put forward a fresh request for top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets that would postpone an otherwise-imminent start to shutting down Lockheed Martin Corp's production line. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told reporters he had presented the revised plan to Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week. He declined to elaborate on their discussion. "Until he renders a decision (on the fate of the F-22), I'd prefer to keep the content of that conversation between the (Air Force) secretary and myself and Secretary Gates," he told reporters after speaking to an Air Force Association symposium in Orlando, Florida. Lockheed Martin has said it plans to start shutting down the F-22 production line as early as next week unless President Barack Obama decides to buy more than the 183 aircraft now budgeted for. Schwartz said February 18 that the Air Force had scaled back its previous goal of acquiring a total of 381 F-22s. He said he would not differ with Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had said earlier the Air Force was seeking 60 more, or a total of about 243. Asked about the size of the fleet the Air Force is now seeking, Schwartz said Thursday: "We ran the numbers, validated the assumptions, and came to the conclusion that we did." The radar-evading F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter in the U.S. arsenal, most recently costing about $143 million apiece, not including development. It has become the focus of a debate about hedging for large-scale wars versus fighting guerrillas in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lightning rod among arms programs in the deteriorating U.S. economy. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said this week that the administration would make its wishes known for the F-22 when it releases full details of the fiscal 2010 budget, likely in April. In the meantime, the Pentagon planned to notify Congress on or about March 1 of its latest thinking on $90 million in congressionally provided bridge funds for the F-22 that the Pentagon has not yet spent. "Whatever we decide to do by March 1 with regard to long-lead parts is not necessarily an indication of where we're going with the program as a whole," Morrell said. The F-22 has strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, not least because of the jobs it provides, with suppliers strategically chosen around the country. Even if the administration opts to end the program, many lawmakers are likely to fight for continued funding. Congress provided a total of $140 million in bridge funds to keep the F-22's production line going until at least March 1, of which $50 million has so far been spent to keep options for the aircraft intact. Sam Grizzle, a Lockheed spokesman, said earlier this month that some F-22 suppliers already had been notified that "we will begin shutdown activities on 1 March unless the President certifies that continued production of the F-22 is in the national interest." "If the decision on extending F-22 production is not made by March 1, additional funds, already authorized and appropriated by Congress, will be necessary to keep the line open," Grizzle added this week in response to the Pentagon's plans to put off a decision until the 2010 budget is released.

U.S. Must Maintain Leadership In Aeronautical Technology With Fifth Generation Fighter Jets F-22 And F-35, Dropping F-22 Would Be The Biggest Blunder

U.S. Must Maintain Leadership In Aeronautical Technology With Fifth Generation Fighter Jets F-22 And F-35, Dropping F-22 Would Be The Biggest Blunder In Military History

(NSI News Source Info) KADENA AIR BASE, Japan - February 22, 2009: When Lt. Col. Lance Pilch climbs into his F-22 fighter jet, he is confident that he's about to fly the most advanced, fastest and stealthiest thing in the air. He boasts that to even compare his fighter to the workhorses of the Air Force, the battleworn F-15s and F-16s, is unfair. Squadron commander Lt. Col. Lance Pilch speaks in front of a U.S. Air Force F-22A Raptor at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, southwestern Japan, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009. He boasts that to even compare his fighter to the workhorses of the Air Force, the battleworn F-15's and F-16's, is unfair. At $140 million a pop, the F-22 is the most expensive fighter ever built. And even before seeing combat, it might fall prey to President Barack Obama's pen. "People often forget, the F-16 and F-15 are 30-plus-year-old aircraft," he said, as several of the dull gray fighters in his 12-plane squadron buzzed overhead on their way to training over the Pacific. "You don't drive a 30-year-old car. You trade it in after six or seven years." But you don't necessarily buy a Ferrari. At $140 million a pop, the F-22 is the most expensive fighter ever built. And even before seeing combat, it might fall prey to President Barack Obama's pen. In one of the new president's first major decisions on U.S. defense spending, future funding for the radar-evading stealth fighter will soon be on the block, affecting nearly 100,000 jobs spread across virtually every state in the U.S. and impacting military planning for decades to come. Opponents say the more than $65 billion F-22 program is sucking money away from other, more immediate needs and might be better spent on a different plane altogether. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is under development, is seen by some as more versatile, more realistic and, more importantly, cheaper, at about $80 million per plane. Doubters in the Defense Department, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have been hesitant to build more than the 183 F-22s the U.S. is now committed to. That is a huge cut from the fleet of 750 originally planned in the late 1980s, when the plane was being developed as a counterbalance to advanced fighters produced or planned by the Soviet Union. "Spending more on outrageously overpriced weapons and unproven notions of hypothetical warfare will only make our massive problems worse," said Winslow Wheeler, of the Center for Defense Information. "Instead, we need to demand wholesale changes - first in the bloated girth of our defense budget, and second, but more importantly, in the thinking behind how it all goes together." Obama must decide by March 1 whether to spend $523 million on more of the planes. That would still fall far short of the total 381 F-22s the Air Force had until recently said it wanted to build. In a further compromise, the Air Force said this week that it was willing to go lower. For the moment, the F-22 is narrowly winning the battle on Capitol Hill. On Jan. 4, 44 senators, fearing the economic impact in their home states, urged Obama in a joint letter to continue production of the F-22. Before that, some 200 House members did the same. Lockheed Martin Corp., the prime contractor for the F-22, says that 95,000 jobs connected to the F-22 would be lost by 2011 if Obama does not extend funding. Proponents say that, economics aside, the F-22 represents what the U.S. needs to maintain air superiority in the future. The fighter can fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners, meaning that it can reach and stay in a battlespace faster and longer without being easily detected. It is also easier to maneuver and provides much better visibility and electronic information systems to keep the pilot informed about targets, and able to pass that information on to others in battle. In tests against other fighters, it has proven to be virtually unbeatable, with the only "kills" marked as a result of clear pilot error. "The F-22 is extremely good at three things," squadron commander Pilch said. "No. 1, it's extremely good at defense, that's what it was built for. It can defend an island, or a region or a country very, very well, better than anything I know. No. 2, it's very good at offense. It can strike deep, fast and precisely, better than any other fighter in the inventory. Finally, it is great at situational awareness passing, just an overall awareness of the battlespace and making those around the F-22 better." "We are looking 10, 20, 30 years into the future at the capabilities other countries are trying to evolve," he said. None of this, however, has been tested in real combat. The F-22, which was not ready in the earlier days of the Iraq or Afghanistan conflicts, has only been deployed on a short-term basis overseas three times - twice for training in southern Japan, and once to an airshow in England. The claims of its air superiority are characterized by some as "future-war-itis" - the desire by planners to be prepared to overwhelm any potential threat that may arise in the future, despite the high costs involved. No one denies, however, that the F-15 fleet is aging and will need to be phased out at some point. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will not be able to assume that role for many years to come. With pressure to retire more F-15s growing, Defense analyst Rebecca Grant said strategic necessity justifies keeping - and expanding - the F-22 fleet, despite the cost. "In the last two decades, the U.S. has used airstrikes to contain dictators, punish aggression, turn around international violations of sovereignty and stop regime-inflicted humanitarian disasters. No-fly zones squelched Iraqi military activity for a decade," she wrote in a research paper for the Lexington Institute earlier this month. "There's no reason to think the U.S. will depend less on airpower for conventional deterrence in the future."

Sukhoi/HAL FGFA - HAL, UAC Sign Pact to Develop Fifth Generation Fighter Jet

Sukhoi/HAL FGFA - HAL, UAC Sign Pact to Develop Fifth Generation Fighter Jet (NSI News Source Info) January 4, 2009: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) inked a pact to jointly develop and produce a fifth generation fighter aircraft, a top HAL official said on Tuesday. "We (HAL and UAC) are moving forward as per schedule. We (have) just done the general contract yesterday. I went to Delhi and signed the general contract," HAL Chairman Ashok K Baweja said. HAL officials noted that under a preliminary inter-governmental agreement signed in October last year, the advanced multi-role fighter is being developed by Sukhoi, part of UAC, along with the Bangalore-headquartered defence PSU. According to reports, Russia and India would simultaneously develop two versions of the aircraft -- a two-seat version to meet the requirements of India and a single seat version for Russian Air Force. UAC had begun building a prototype of the jet fighter which would feature high manoeuvrability and stealth to ensure air superiority and precision in destroying ground and sea targets, reports said. Asked about the proposed investment in the venture, Baweja said it was very difficult to say at this stage and added: "It will be quite a lot". He told reporters on the sidelines of the celebrations of HAL Day that the Navratna company has put on the back burner its MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul of civil aircraft) venture plans at HAL airport following a slowdown in the world civil aviation market.