Hacker News Reader

Comment by madeuptempacct | Hacker News Reader

At the end of the day, they are going to put all the fancy gizmos on the more capable platform - the F-22, while keeping its more powerful radar. There is going to be an F-22E that will be able to deliver more ordinance than the F-35. There is going is going to be an F-22x which will get the F-35s IRST so that it can get around without emitting. Or maybe this will be a pod to avoid compromising stealth. Oh, and the A-10 isn't going anywhere.

View on HN

Complete fantasy. Lockmart would love to build new F-22 for Japan (at $250M a pop), but that's not going to be for the USAF if it pans out at all. Upgrading the F-22 with newer electronics is going to be very problematic due to its avionics architecture.

Do you have a source on the F-22 variants? I thought that one of the things that locked us into the F-35 was the tear down of the F-22 production line. Can we still make F-22's?

We cannot make an F-22 right now. A few years ago, Lockheed Martin was asked how much they thought it would cost to restart F-22 production. The cost was several billion dollars. Plus, the people with the intimate knowledge of how to build an F-22 are dispersed throughout the rest of the industry, retired, or deceased.

You got a link to any of this, or are you just speculating?

Purely speculating, but with some thought. The F-22 is innately stealthier, has better aerodynamics, and a better thrust-to-weight ratio.

The A-10 has proven itself to be indispensable for CAS. Helicopters can't get there in time and are at more risk when getting in close. Not to mention that the Apache (and even the Russian MI-28) are much lighter armored, which is a factor when being shot at with heavy machine guns. No flares / chaff for that.

> The F-22 is innately stealthier

You cannot know this unless you are read in to both programs, so this is further speculation. And if you were read into both programs (or either one) you wouldn't say things like this.

"To achieve lower costs the JSF accepts notable aft sector stealth limitations, especially when tackling deep or layered air defences with fighter threats - an acceptable tradeoff for shallow littoral and FEBA area battlefield strikes against predominantly short range mobile air defence systems. The aim in the JSF is to use newer materials technology than the F-22A does to reduce stealth costs, although we are likely to see this technology migrate across to the F-22A in later blocks."

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-JSF-Analysis.html

They don't know, either. They are speculating.

You can't truly know unless you're on the inside, and then, you can't talk.

There is a reason the F-22 isn't being sold to allies and the F-35 is.

There are actually quite a few reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com