The Fighter Mafia

I’m sure anyone who hasn't been living under has at least heard of the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet. And perhaps you've heard of its companion aircraft, the F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter). And just maybe you've heard how much money and time both are taking to reach full combat readiness.

Now both these aircraft have cost billions to develop and cost, individually, upward of 100-150 million dollars. The funny thing, regarding the F-35 at least, is that the program was envisioned as a “low cost” supplement to the F-22 program. This sort of tandem development is nothing new and in fact is just a revision of the “High Cost, Low Cost” strategy made popular in the 70s and 80s. Back in those days the U.S. Air Force was looking for replacements for many of their early generation jet fighters. In the air, tension was high as the Soviet Union continued to developed and display its increasingly modern air-to-air high performance fighters such as the Su-27 Flanker and Mig-29Fulcrum. To effectively safeguard America’s airspace against such threats, the U.S. government commissioned two planes at roughly the same time: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Falcon.

The Eagle was, and still is, the best air-to-air fighter ever to take to the skies; a true air-superiority platform with 104 confirmed kills to zero (as in none what so ever) losses due to an enemy combatant. But with high production costs due to its advanced radar suite, the Eagle was no bargain. To complement the high cost, low volume, F-15 a second aircraft was pitched by the now infamous “FighterMafia.” This would eventually become the F-16, winner of the Lightweight Fighter competition designed to, as the name implies, find a low cost, high volume, supplement to the Eagle. This same strategy, to build a (relative) few high-tech super-planes and pad out the rest of the force with more general, easier-to-produce, aircraft, has resurfaced in the form of the F-22 and F-35 situation. The Raptor has far greater stealth and speed (able to Super-Cruise) capabilities with an air-to-air focus (a la the F-15C) and the JSF, again as name suggests, will be a multirole craft serving multiples branches of the U.S. military (Army, Air Force, and Navy).

So where am I going with all this? Well, if you track military aviation news (and who doesn't ?!?!), you should have heard that both the F-22 and F-35 have been grounded almost as often as they fly. There are different reasons for each craft, each time, but the latest issue plaguing the F-22, for example, is a faulty oxygen supply system. At over 30,000 feet a lack of oxygen becomes a worrying matter. The groundings have been so bad that some pilots are in danger of needing re-certification training to stay safe after such prolonged periods without flight practice. Last I heard, the Raptors were being allowed to fly on a case-by-case basis, just not at high altitudes.

With all these issues surrounding the projects and their monumental costs, the public, and even some top military brass, are having doubts as to whether the effort and resources are worth it. Some argue that the U.S. doesn’t need such aircraft when the F-15 can still hold its own. But one always has to keep an eye to the future, and in doing so it comes to light that both China and Russia are developing counters to our own 5th generation fighter, the F-22. So are your tax dollars being spent on needless hardware only good for boasting military power or on a necessary element that will protect American skies given the worst occurs? I like to think the latter, and damn does the Raptor evoke a primal response in person and flexing full thrust-vectoring…

P.S. Long post. What can I say, I told you I’m all about military hardware and aviation…