The F22 was ahead of its time but in the worst way. Entering service when the US was focused on insurgencies and by the time peer-competition was back the F35 was finally entering service. Even vintage platforms like the F15 were getting a new lease on life while the F22 continued to languish under an export ban that killed its usage (however justified it might have been). The Raptor is a beautiful and deadly machine, but it tragically just came out at the wrong time in history.
I agree the Raptor is a beautiful machine, but the biggest advantage of the F-35 platform is it's interoperability. A single platform that can share parts and systems across the entire military. That significantly brings down maintenance costs. The Raptor was a highly specialized craft and that's what made it so successful. But it was so specialized, ultimately it's costs outweigh it's value.
@@maybehuman4 The entire military and foreign allied militaries as well. Vs the F22 that is still so sensitive they won't sell it to anybody regardless of their relationship.
yeah, the raptor kinda reminds me of the battleship yamato, both beautiful machines but come out in the wrong time, yamato came out too late, if it was in ww1 it wouldn't have gotten the nickname hotel yamato while the raptor either came out too late or too early, if it came out back when the soviets where around or came out at the time of the F-35 instead, we'd be seeing 700 if not 1000 Raptors
@@maybehuman4 The F15 & F-35's advantage was having production lines and no new parts can be made without them. Couple that with sheer production volume. You could make a beast mode F-22 at the cost of it's stealth, just like the F-35. It isn't necessary to keep it a pure fighter. However, there still wouldn't be enough Raptors to bring down the costs or give a reason to stock parts everywhere. Sharing parts is a statement of ubiquity.
@maybehuman2148 yeah, once apon a time we tried that with the F-4 Phantom. Only problem is the different services had vastly different needs and capabilities. I guess we didnt learn from history on this one.
@@Hyposonic like I said, never gonna happen. T-Birds will eventually fly F-35A’s, or maybe even the new T-7, but even that is a long way off. Raptors will be mothballed, and they’ll keep a few squadrons as aggressors and for special missions. My local NG Base hosted a squadron of F-117’s here last summer, and that’s exactly what they were used for, as aggressors for an exercise they were conducting over in Wisconsin. Pretty fun watching them roll out every evening for their missions. It’ll be at least mid-2030’s before there’s anything near enough NGADs to replace the Raptors, probably longer.
@@rustyshaklford9557guess what. It’s a legend because it’s so fucking ahead of its time for being over 15 years old. China and Russia don’t have anything to match its stealth. And holy shit guess what. There hasn’t been a major war the f22 has been needed in
@@rustyshaklford9557Yeah, I think the F22 is awesome--my first thought upon hearing that they'll be retired was "we must preserve them", but it doesn't have a record. It's kind of like the Iowa-class battleships. They are awesome mostly because of their engineering and for having served since WW2. In terms of "what battleships did you kill?", it's just crickets. Ultimately, the end of battle lines obsoleted the battleship, and it's likely that the high precision and reliability of cruise missiles will have obsoleted the air superiority fighter. (Obsolete doesn't mean completely useless, though--it just means it lost its post in the grand scheme of things.)
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
A Chinese businessman operating out of Canada called Su Bin stole the F22 plans in 2016. An adversary knowing the most intimate secrets of a stealth fighter compromises its purpose.
It's pretty crazy that the US has produced the F-22, the F-35, will have retired the F-22 and introduced an even more advanced fighter, and nearly everything that the rest of the world will have by then will still be in more or less the same class as the F-15 and F-16.
@@morgatron4639 I mean the Eurofighter is so agile it probably could fly circles around both, literally. Jokes aside, it doesn't matter because they are allied, and they fill somewhat different roles.
Depends on when NGAD enters operational status vs when the next war starts. I wouldn't be surprised to see them kept in service if there's a threat on the horizon that would benefit from keeping more air superiority platfoms flying.
@@The_Notorious_CRG the stealth maintenance thing may go away or at least be massively reduced with the next gen ceramic coatings that are being developed.
@@j.f.fisher5318 do you mean for retro application to the F-22? or just for the NGAD/FAXX? I would just hate to see a boneyard existence for the airframes once they are retired for good, maybe squeeze a few more years out of them.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@raz4371 I think that I remember hearing something about the Raptor's airframe not being able to withstand repeated catapult launches and that was one of the reasons the Navy never got a version. I could be wrong though for sure...
Behind closed doors and under nat’l security funding, the F-22’s will quietly be upgraded and placed into areas where a super plane can be used to a huge advantage
No the NGAD will be better. They will do what they did with the f117. Use them for training. They will be enemy stealth aircraft and enemy stealth cruise missiles that NGADs and air defense systems will practice against. Though of course that's in the 2030s
Also there is just no way given the cost you can conceal meaningful F22 upgrades for a meaningful number of jets in black site spending. The F22 ISN'T a hyper specialized aircraft. It's an air superiority fighter. That's a perfectly normal role for which many many airframes are needed in a sustained conflict. You need to be running combat air patrols around the clock in a combat situation and so you need enough aircraft and pilots to replace the ones you bring down when they are out of fuel and then enough to deal with the ones that are taken out for maintenance. You can't just keep a fleet of a dozen of them like you might do with for example the stealth helicopters where you only use them for rare deep strike insertion and they spend almost all of their time in the hanger or training even at war
"where a super plane can be used to a huge advantage" Assassinating AWACS units, its about the only thing worthy of a 22. It doesn't make for sexy top gun movies but that's the jugular of any nations air force. Ironically the only two nations you might need to do that to (they end in A), are the two nations you really wouldn't want to do that to. You don't just blind an ICBM capable nation and then go to sleep soundly. Anything less than that isn't worth the price of letting hundreds of radar systems collect data or even lack of data on a reflector less F22 contact to study.
I honestly don't see the Raptor going away for good for at least another 15-20 years. What I do see is the number of them slowly being dwindled as a means to extend their service life such as for every one plane kept in the air there's two put into retirement for parts and the Raptor being strategically placed permanently say in Europe as a deterant but with the F35 doing most of the heavy work and the F22 basically just being a backup plan if and whenever there's a target the F35 just can't handle shows up. Like an airship...since Russia seems determined to use anything they have to fight a war.
It's really sad this masterpiece didn't work out as it should. The B-2, F-117, and F-22 are among the most beautiful designs we have ever seen and probably the last manned fighters. By 2030, it will be all about robotics and drones.
First thing I want them to do strip off all the weapons systems, radar, RAM, and other dead weight and just go for speed records like the Streak Eagle did back in the day. We could call it the Velociraptor!
The F-22 is not capable of taking the speed or altitude Record from the Eagle let alone Habu. Its maximum mach is inherent in its less than optimal inlet and exhaust nozzle design.
Don’t laugh. I saw an F-15A purchased by a military museum in Waukegan, just by the border with Wisconsin. You can plainly see it from I94. At one time, this guy had about six or seven OV-1 Mohawks, one of which was delightfully airworthy. Man that machine could fly.
Parts obsolescence is something we tried to get a handle on with Raptor, but the computer technology was advancing so fast we couldn't get a handle on it. Military procurement just couldn't adjust. Tried again on F-35, with I think better success, but procurement has so many checks & balances, multi-level approvals, etc., that it's always been hard. Hopefully F-35 is large enough to maintain that critical mass of suppliers that, IMO, is a great way to stave off that demon.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
Not really wouldn’t have changed a thing. The F22 would still be expensive. At most the F15 EX wouldn’t have been cancelled and the NGAD program would’ve been delayed. Chi and Russia would have still developed their own platforms.
200 Raptors in the Pacific, 200 in the Middle East and 200 in Europe, with the rest in various stages of maintenance/upgrades/training would have meant that we would not hear a peep out of China and Russia today. Btw, one of the biggest myths is that the Su-57 is a stealth aircraft.
That may be, however you're forgetting we have the JSF which is years more advanced and quite capable of handling any of this. Remember the JSF is a 3-in-1 platform capable of doing many things not advertised for. It is an AWACS, quarterback, interceptor, designator. It is dominant in red flag and in the hands of foreign customers such as IAF.
there is NO WAY the NGAD fighter will have even reached IOC by 2030. Can't even get the T-7 Red Hawk (a trainer jet) done in 6 years. The T-7 first flight was in 2016. The T-7 IOC target was 2017 with full service by 2020. It's already 2024.
meanwhile the F-35 isn't in full rate production, has huge maintenance problems, and may be one of the DoD's largest financial boondoggles. Furthermore the F-35 took 9 years from first flight before being introduced to the first service (USMC) @@FELiPES101 . My point is making a NGAD is going to take time... more than 6 years.
I think they'll get a couple near finished prototypes in the air and the assembly lines close to beginning to start production but yeah, my guess would be closer to 2035
We probably wont see commissioned NGAD till 2035 2040 hell we still havent been shown a flight mock up or anything beyond paper aspects of the NGAD dont get me wrong i want the NGAD but its gonna be a long while before they take the F-22 out of the picture. Hell by time the first commissioned ones roll out we might already be in a massive scale war considering current geopolitical climates.
@@Dragon_Werks It would be an interesting way to train pilots to fight stealth aircraft. They could be used to create more advanced radars that nullify stealth capabilities.
For national securities sake, this is the correct option, provided NGAD is a success. It's decades old technology would still be a huge upgrade to China's future ambitions
An f22 airframe with f35 internals (I believe you mentioned there was a potential option for this a few years back) could be a good export plane. We'd probably grab a few for ourselves too, as the ngad wont be able to be shown to the public.
you cant get the f35 internals into a f22. its waaaaaaaay too much for the f22. the airframe of the f35 is literally just made for that. also the RCS of the f35 is almost the same as the f22
@@lars9966 I'm not saying it wouldn't take some development to get everything in the right position, but it should be doable. The f22 wouldn't have need of a lift fan or changing any of the mechanical aspects of the airframe, so the majority of what you'd be transporting over would just be electronics.
I think shifting to an aggressor airframe probably makes sense, they should be able to match or exceed current and near future adversary platform performance giving them the ability to provide a realistic simulation but the reduced numbers and flight hours could extend the longevity of the type. While I don’t know if the super-maneuverability of something like a Su-57 is all that essential to modern air to air combat, if the need arose to simulate or test that for some reason the F-22 might be the only airframe that could do it.
Additionally, the F-22's a pretty smart plane. If you want it to perform like a given adversary aircraft, you can just program the flight computer to limit itself so that it doesn't exceed the capabilities of that adversary aircraft. Pilots can't be expected to respect something like a maximum turn rate or a G-force limit in a dogfight, they're extremely competitive in military exercises and will pull out every stop you give them the tools to pull out. But you can't just pull out the stop of a flight computer imposed limitation, not while in-flight. So it's an effective handicap for the purposes of mimicry of adversary aircraft, while still allowing the pilots to be as competitive as they wish to be.
Military pilots especially instructor and aggressor/adversary instructors probably don’t need to stroke their ego while teaching. They’re there to give pilots going down range the experience and skills they need to come home. I’d be very surprised if an instructor could last if his priority was to win vice train. This isn’t a Tom Cruise flick.
@@sonar8594 Need has nothing to do with it. If you watched the Sandbox video on the SR-71 being used for aggressor training, you'd know that they chafed under the limitations, and would regularly violate them (just enough to win). What makes you think the F-22 being used in adversary training would be any different? Fighter pilots of yesteryear think pretty much the same as fighter pilots of today, even if they're instructor types.
Immediately following my tour in the USMC, I was there at McDonnell Douglas Longbeach building C-17s (Nose section), AND watching the battle between the 22 and the 23. It is inconceivable that we are discussing the retirement of the 22, even if it is ~10 years from now. I refuse to believe that I'm that old, or that the 22 is that old... And I wonder where the secret squadron of 23s is operating out of too... ; ) Semper Fi
Very well reasoned as always. Thank you. Dead on intelligent. I live in Las Vegas and I am certainly an aviation nut. So I recognize the JANET 737 commuter planes that go up to Area 51 when they fly over my house. Fortunately, I do not live close to Nellis. The folks in that part of town get to hear lots of roar, full afterburners out bound for practice, all types. F-22 aircraft are particularly loud to my ears. I also lived in Tonopah a short time. I am not sure what the aboriginal pronunciation should be, though we mostly say Toe nuh paw. When I was little, I was very aware of XB-70 sonic booms. They were not terrible, but they did give the glass quite a blunt shake. Would also say thank you for not being pedantic or boring. You get to the point and you do not make mistakes. Otherwise wannabe types say stuff all the time that make knowledgeable people roll their eyes, which I think comes from not knowing how to do good research, perhaps because they cannot understand it.
Are there any signs that the politicians have learned the value of an active production line for their highly priced military toys throughout their active service? It seems to me that the F-22 story is an example of what not to repeat.
I would have thought that the F-22 would get the F-14 treatment, and torn down so far that it would be impossible for an unfriendly nation to steal anything from them. I totally forgot about the F-117's situation! Very cool to think about. I would hope though that at least a couple go to NASA for testing purposes (like the F-15 ACTIVE), with some more kept for parts for NASA's little fleet!
@@georgesmith8268 the problem is worse than we have with Iran and the F-14 I would think. The skin of the aircraft is the most secret part (I imagine). Cut off a piece of the wing and take it home to reverse engineer.
As a military aviation nerd, I love the F-22, just like I love the A-10. Both of these platforms are highly specialized making them the best at the types of missions they were designed for. The United States has been blessed with a long period of technological dominance compared to its rivals, but that dominance comes at a high financial cost. The F-22 and the A-10 are amazing aircraft but it seems like it’s becoming difficult to continue to justify their cost. The F-35 had one of the most expensive developments in modern aviation history, with a major to move towards more standardization among aircraft used by both the United States and its NATO Allies. If this works or doesn’t? I don’t know, but as a US taxpayer and voter I would agree that to reduce the strain on our economy by military spending, cuts are needed. I would love to see more money being spent on improving our country’s many internal issues like our aging infrastructure, roads, new improvements to the energy sector, and the elimination of our extreme amount of debt.
Why was a carrier variant never made? I know the F-35 is "kind of" like a carrier version of it, but the air superiority of the F-22 compared to the F-35 is still on another level.
Possibly adding an arrestor might compromise the stealth aspect or adding one requires RnD (a very scary word for majority of country except Soviet), while F-35 has already designed to have one.
Building a carrier capable aircraft requires lots of strengthening, and much stronger under carriage, you would be building an aircraft maybe with 40% different parts to the land based fighter it would be much more expensive and time consuming, a better option has always been a dedicated carrier design.
Another great option would be to replace the cockpit with an advanced computer and sensors to make autonomous air dominance fighters which can be sent on special missions deemed too hazardous to human pilots. The flight hours and maintenance would be negligible because they would only fly when they have a high chance of not returning.
The F22 was so advanced that they did not want them sold to their own allies and it's predessor the F15 is still a dominant air superiority fighter with improved long range radar and long range missiles
I first encountered the F-22 in the old 1993 DOS game "Strike Commander" and even within the game narrative they had to sell off the rare airframe due to being too expensive to maintain! (though it makes sense for the character story arc, them being budget conscious air mercenaries). And I concur with others about the export ban. We'll never know if today's global F-35 operators would've purchased the F-22 if they could at the time.
I know it's just a fever dream idea, but can you imagine that when they finally put the NGAD into service, they find capability gaps that only the F-22 Raptor can fill in? Thus extending its service life further with a few avionics upgrades here and there. 😅 Would be a nice thought, although improbable. And no, we're not wishing for wide scale war but... Really though, before it retires, we are all begging to see how the Raptor will mop the floor with every opponent it will face from adversary nations.
Sure, just like historians wished they could've seen what the Bearcat and TigerCat and P-51H and B-36 could've done in WWII, or the A-10 in Vietnam, or an SF team equipped with miniguns on humvees in the American Revolution. There are sim channels dedicated to stuff like this.
You might get what you wish for. Introducing: The QF-22. Yes, it's a "drone conversion" of an existing manned fighter aircraft, just like the QF-4 and QF-16 are. But there's a critical difference. It's a stealth fighter. That means that with the right ground-based control scheme, you can get a "real" F-22 that flies probably better than an F-22 with an actual pilot in it. How is that possible? The drone controls won't have that pesky 9-G limit that human bodies do, but it's still being controlled by a REAL fighter pilot on the ground (in as close to a real cockpit as possible, probably). It's doable, but the drone controls will need to be a lot more advanced than just a front-looking camera and some flight control hook-ups, obviously. The aim is to give a fighter pilot in training as close to an actual "living, breathing" target as possible, and allowing them to use live ammunition and missiles, without actually needing to risk a human life in the adversary aircraft's cockpit. Far sight better than what they can pull off with Top Gun training as it is right now, I think.
@@44R0Ndin Pulling G's isn't what wins a dogfight and it's a last ditch measure anyway. If it comes to that you've basically reduced a sniper to the point of hand to hand combat. Remote or AI piloted aircraft aren't going to be any more lethal than piloted aircraft.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I think you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about using these F-22's as drones for combat. I'm talking about using them as "better than straight and level" target drones for pilots in training to work on their aim against. With a real (remotely located) pilot that has the ability to know when something has been fired at them and try to dodge it. It's about allowing use of armed missiles against these drones, with a distant and not at all focused on side benefit of "maybe the drone can turn tighter sometimes because it can pull more than 9 g's", like you said pulling G's isn't what makes a good fighter aircraft. We're skipping past the point where the drone would have had a chance to shoot at the pilot in training, we're focusing on the part where the pilot in training gets to shoot at the drone. EDIT: In any case, with the high thrust to weight ratio and 2-d thrust vectoring of the F-22, it theoretically should excel in "hand to hand fighting" as you put it in any case, no? Sure, it's designed to not NEED it, but it HAS it, in spades.
I seriously doubt that. They're just too expensive to purchase and difficult to maintain, and there's not enough of them to surplus out like the fighters you see in airshows today. Ask yourself where are all the civvie F-14's, F-104's, F-105's, F-111's, B-47's, B-58's, etc. etc. Thing is, military aircraft have become too expensive to surplus out, even if they wanted to sell to civilians, there's only a handful of people that could afford them. A millionaire post-WWII could've bought several hundred P-51's, no sweat. A surplus F-86 after Korea, maybe a dozen. A surplus F-4 after Vietnam, maybe one. A surplus F-16? Not a chance, there's never been one sold that cheap, in fact, the only one in a private collection was sold for $8.5M (gov contractor recently paid $25M for an Israeli surplus F-16 in flying condition). By comparison, a P-51 adjusted for inflation cost the US $0.5M, the F-86 $2.3M, F-4, $22M, F-16 $35M (80's variant), and the F-22 at $184M. The trend is such that even if the USAF didn't demilitarize the F-22 (cutting them into pieces, stripping all avionics, removing the RAM coatings) before selling them, and sold them in airworthy condition for the purchase price not adjusted for inflation, only billionaires could realistically afford one. Good luck getting insurance on that lol
Outside of the obvious as training adversaries or emergency reserve aircraft, I'd guess Japan would be the only ally to trust with such aircraft. But that would depend on if they were even interested, since I'm sure they're part of a development program for something else newer.
Yeah because the UK just can't be trusted, huh? Interesting how Japan is partnering with the UK and Italy to develop its next generation fighter instead of America.
3:05 It's unlikely at this point. First congress would have to lift the sale ban. (Unlikely and that's the easy part.) Another thing is that you'd have to completely restart production for logistics. Which is extremely expensive. Not to mention any allied country capable of buying one probably have their own 5th and 6th gen programs or are satisfied with the F-35s. Unfortunately, raptors would be more trouble than what they're worth to our friends now. The minute the number was slashed from 750 proposed frames to 186, (150 operational), and when congress said it isn't to be sold outside the US, it's export aspirations went up in smoke.
@@mill2712 Yeah, we made that same mistake with drones too. We dragged our feet with selling them to other countries. Kneecapped the R&D budget / cost savings.
@@HKim0072 Now our allies, "allies" (Cough* Turkey), and rivals are starting to sell drones too. International weapon sales are going to be interesting...
The F-22 fleet will be around for a while. The competition that resulted in the F-22 started in 1987 and the plane became operational in 2005. Unless the DoD and aerospace companies have made a quantum leap in development speed a 2030 operational date for the NGAD looks very optimistic.
trouble with using planes for spares is that they dont provide that many coppies of each spare, and some elements wear out faster than others, it makes sense to send a full fighter wing , that way the f22 has a chance of surpassing the F15s killl record as long as AMRAM D went with it. the VKS would hate this! which is reason enough to do it@@pogo1140
They still have yet to train one F16 pilot that’s why the first 6 aircraft that was supposed to be sent in Dec 2023 is now looking like June 24, the Danes said they hadn’t even decided on the 6 pilots they were to take to train on as pilots!!!!!
Would it be possible (and affordable) to keep Raptors as a training fleet for the NGAD or F/A-XX to simulate enemy stealth fighters, or would the 5th generation drones be available by then?
He mentions this near the end of the video, they'll likely be there to help simulate advanced enemy assets or even re-equipped for air combat if the US finds itself needing it.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@raz4371 Yep. It is expected they will share a few systems but they are not in one project like the F-35. The F/A-XX should also be getting Wingman drones.
The real reason the F22 is being retired is that it costs too much to maintain and operate. They have to reapply radar absorbing materials regularly and at great expense, for instance. That being the case, I don't see how anybody else could afford to operate them, as maintenance will only go up in price as the airframe ages. And you can't buy them and just keep them in reserve, the pilots need regular flight time, and the planes still need to be maintained. I do think maybe a squadron of them will be kept active as agressor aircraft at training facilities like Top Gun, so that our pilots can learn how to survive against 5th generation fighters.
A Chinese businessman operating out of Canada stole the drawings and materials information for the F22 before 2016. A very expensive machine reliant upon secrecy with no secrets left is a tough sell.
I feel that any airframes that find themselves retired should start being looked at to convert to UAVs. Especially A-10s as they are vulnerable but still very useful aircraft.
The F22 could be used as a stealthy medium-range bomber that can defend itself in a highly contested air space ( The F111 was never replaced ) or be the next Growler ( jamming drones while bombing radars with anti-radiation missiles ) Air Force only unless it gets its sea legs.
I do think the Raptors deserve to be the tip of the spear in the next big campaign, even if they're out of date. It only got to shoot down a balloon. Let it at least release all that pent-up rage at being sidelined for so long during the opening assault.
There is a possibility of the F-22 to be transferred to ANG units. Also with the loss of a B-1B at Ellsworth, one B-1B at the Boneyard will be pulled to replace the lost B-1.
They have four quality retired B-1BS stored for replacements exactly for this reason, the ones at the boneyard are there for a reason and aren’t keep in any ready like condition, you would be looking many months of recomissioning to salvage one of those.
What the military should have done in retrospect is to fund both the F-22 & F-23. They should have been able to pool parts from any program to make the development cycles go quicker. Then we'd have enough of those airplanes flying right now. They should have put a lot of effort into maintainability and modularity. And they should have been able to go to the market with much of the technology. At some point, quantity becomes quality, because one can have the best airplane ever made, because having only one of them is really like having none of them.
That would have been insanely expensive, especially since the F-23 was nowhere near as complete a design as the XF-22. It had several problems that the 22 didn’t, and lot of development yet to achieve. We would have ended up with about four of each type and the program would have collapsed.
Unbelievable they would retire it at this point in time. If the NGAD was already done testing, proven in combat, and in production I might understand but I believe keeping a small fleet of these would be invaluable.
If you watched the video, you'd know that the F-22 isn't retiring for AT LEAST another 10 years, and likely much longer than that. I'd say we'll see the first scheduled retirements in 15-20 years minimum, fully depending on (as you mentioned) when the NGAD enters service in appreciable numbers. What I mean is that the F-22 will only start retiring 5-10 years after the NGAD enters service in significant numbers.
What traditionally has happened is that front-line fighters are rotated to national guard units all across the U.S. example Kalamath Fall Oregon has F15, as does Portland. Boise ID has A10's etc
Considering how long it took for F-22s and F-35s to get introduced, the NGAD is probably not even truly operational until the late-2030s at minimum. Can't imagine F-22s going away until the mid-2040s due to that. We're going to have to squeeze as much out of them as we can
They will be retired exactly the same way as the F117....and that's pretty exciting for my children's kids as some day they'll get the chance to see them up close & personal. Heck the Strategic Air & Space Museum is working on a F117 in the restoration hanger right now and I can't wait to see it 1st hand when they are finished.
Japan, Korea, and Turkey have basically restarted the F-22 production line. We might be able to source some parts there, lol. Probably not Turkey, we're not playing nice with them right now.
I’m pretty sure the plan is that by then the military will instead invest in some advanced automated manufacturing tech to be able to maintain the aging planes. They’ll be dominant in a fight for decades to come as they sit now. But with future tech upgrades and ngad/f35 battlefield integration it will be relegated to highly specific roles and will probably ride out life doing that.
extra points for the Sandlot reference. it's cool to think these platforms too good to share and too valuable to put to pasture but too expensive to maintain on a large scale will still be around. F117s, F22s, and others. I suppose we'll see what happens in the next war.
Convert them to drones. They would require less flight hours. Possibly able to be piloted if needed. Extra tech modules able to be replace the pilots seat. They would not be needed to fly in hi G training ops. Many F-16s have been converted to test drones. They could mainly support F-35 and other fighters to carry extra weapons in higher risk operations. And could still aid with using its sensors and sharing data. And possibly escorting AWACs aircraft. And possibly updated with autonomous combat software at some stage. Existing fly by wire systems making UAV conversion more practical.
So we've got the QF-4, and now the QF-16, both unmanned drone conversions of manned fighter aircraft, used for the purpose of target practice and the like where it's too risky to put a person in the cockpit. Do you think there's any chance we ever see something like a QF-117 or QF-22, in the same vein, with it's radar cross section as intact as possible to give a realistic target to pilots using current and upcoming platforms like the F-35 and NGAD? With their radar cross section intact, but towing a decoy, they'd also be even more valuable for "standard" target practice, because you can consider it nearly a certainty that whatever is shot at the towed decoy will hit the decoy and not the QF-117 or QF-22, because of the sheer magnitude of difference in radar cross section between the decoy and the drone. IR missiles can use a Tomahawk missile that has been converted into a target drone or something similar, the F-22 and F-117 do take measures to reduce their IR signatures but AIM-9's can likely still achieve lock at useful ranges.
The next gen. engines coming in offset weight restrictions on F-22s! It may mean moving the shorter engine back further to create more internal space but is doable at a price, less than a new plane or wasting the present investment in the F-22s! The newer longer range radar being the 1st priority!!! Swapping weapons out to the accompanying drones is also worthwhile! So instead of building a new replacement production line a refit/update line is likely more viable!!!
If the F-22 got some upgrades like making sure it was capable of multi-role ops like how the F15’s first version was only air superiority but later versions were capable of multiple roles. Then it should not have been retired
I think one of the biggest issue with the F22 was the ban on foreign export. It does not make economic sense for the US to solely develop and procure small numbers of advanced stealth aircraft. It makes more sense to produce a larger number of aircraft and export to trusted partners. Larger procured numbers alos creates more jobs for longer periods.
8 месяцев назад
some for training, some as parts bin... and possibly some for export (at least when NGAD production starts)
my money is on either used as Aggressors for advance air combat training or more likely as dedicated stealth reconn jets, only need a small number for both roles
They wouldn’t risk flying these over any where a loss could be recovered by Russia or worse China. Using them at Red Flag makes sense and part of the red team.
Nice to know that America has F 117s in storage, but how long before they are ready to fly and how many pilots available/ready for operational flight? I've flown balloons before; can I have a go? Please?
The F22 was ahead of its time but in the worst way. Entering service when the US was focused on insurgencies and by the time peer-competition was back the F35 was finally entering service. Even vintage platforms like the F15 were getting a new lease on life while the F22 continued to languish under an export ban that killed its usage (however justified it might have been).
The Raptor is a beautiful and deadly machine, but it tragically just came out at the wrong time in history.
I agree the Raptor is a beautiful machine, but the biggest advantage of the F-35 platform is it's interoperability. A single platform that can share parts and systems across the entire military. That significantly brings down maintenance costs. The Raptor was a highly specialized craft and that's what made it so successful. But it was so specialized, ultimately it's costs outweigh it's value.
@@maybehuman4 The entire military and foreign allied militaries as well. Vs the F22 that is still so sensitive they won't sell it to anybody regardless of their relationship.
yeah, the raptor kinda reminds me of the battleship yamato, both beautiful machines but come out in the wrong time, yamato came out too late, if it was in ww1 it wouldn't have gotten the nickname hotel yamato while the raptor either came out too late or too early, if it came out back when the soviets where around or came out at the time of the F-35 instead, we'd be seeing 700 if not 1000 Raptors
@@maybehuman4 The F15 & F-35's advantage was having production lines and no new parts can be made without them. Couple that with sheer production volume.
You could make a beast mode F-22 at the cost of it's stealth, just like the F-35. It isn't necessary to keep it a pure fighter. However, there still wouldn't be enough Raptors to bring down the costs or give a reason to stock parts everywhere. Sharing parts is a statement of ubiquity.
@maybehuman2148 yeah, once apon a time we tried that with the F-4 Phantom. Only problem is the different services had vastly different needs and capabilities. I guess we didnt learn from history on this one.
I know I'm not the only aviation enthusiast that wants to see them in the Thunderbird livery for at least a decade...
I'm thinking of the acrobatic possibilities that thrust vectoring unlocks.
Never happen
👍👍
@@gonepostal9101 Only if they totally give up on the stealth coating and find some magic to keep them flying cheaply.
@@Hyposonic like I said, never gonna happen. T-Birds will eventually fly F-35A’s, or maybe even the new T-7, but even that is a long way off. Raptors will be mothballed, and they’ll keep a few squadrons as aggressors and for special missions. My local NG Base hosted a squadron of F-117’s here last summer, and that’s exactly what they were used for, as aggressors for an exercise they were conducting over in Wisconsin. Pretty fun watching them roll out every evening for their missions. It’ll be at least mid-2030’s before there’s anything near enough NGADs to replace the Raptors, probably longer.
“Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die” legitimately got me in the feels
Wendy Peffercorn
What legend? Its only kills have been against fucking balloons.
@@rustyshaklford9557guess what. It’s a legend because it’s so fucking ahead of its time for being over 15 years old. China and Russia don’t have anything to match its stealth. And holy shit guess what. There hasn’t been a major war the f22 has been needed in
@@rustyshaklford9557Yeah, I think the F22 is awesome--my first thought upon hearing that they'll be retired was "we must preserve them", but it doesn't have a record. It's kind of like the Iowa-class battleships. They are awesome mostly because of their engineering and for having served since WW2. In terms of "what battleships did you kill?", it's just crickets. Ultimately, the end of battle lines obsoleted the battleship, and it's likely that the high precision and reliability of cruise missiles will have obsoleted the air superiority fighter. (Obsolete doesn't mean completely useless, though--it just means it lost its post in the grand scheme of things.)
@@rustyshaklford9557 LOL. Too true. F-22 is an Air Show queen. It was never really useful for anything.
They'll retire it in the same way they retired the F-117
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@sethmiller3882 Yea, unfortunately.
A Chinese businessman operating out of Canada called Su Bin stole the F22 plans in 2016. An adversary knowing the most intimate secrets of a stealth fighter compromises its purpose.
@@sethmiller3882The F-22 had a navel version but they canceled it right before production started.
@@raz4371 there are 2 versions of the NGAD. one is made for the airforce, one is made for the navy.
It's pretty crazy that the US has produced the F-22, the F-35, will have retired the F-22 and introduced an even more advanced fighter, and nearly everything that the rest of the world will have by then will still be in more or less the same class as the F-15 and F-16.
And both the F-16 and F-15 will still be flying when the F-22 is retired, lol
@@criticaleventThe F-22 was simply better than it ever needed to be.
The Eurofighter flies circles around both.
@@augustiner3821 The Eurofighter is dead before it gets within 100 miles of either.
@@morgatron4639 I mean the Eurofighter is so agile it probably could fly circles around both, literally. Jokes aside, it doesn't matter because they are allied, and they fill somewhat different roles.
Depends on when NGAD enters operational status vs when the next war starts. I wouldn't be surprised to see them kept in service if there's a threat on the horizon that would benefit from keeping more air superiority platfoms flying.
i really wish they would keep them around, maybe just for domestic use where their expensive stealth maintenance needs could be mitigated.
@@The_Notorious_CRG the stealth maintenance thing may go away or at least be massively reduced with the next gen ceramic coatings that are being developed.
@@j.f.fisher5318 do you mean for retro application to the F-22? or just for the NGAD/FAXX? I would just hate to see a boneyard existence for the airframes once they are retired for good, maybe squeeze a few more years out of them.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@raz4371 I think that I remember hearing something about the Raptor's airframe not being able to withstand repeated catapult launches and that was one of the reasons the Navy never got a version. I could be wrong though for sure...
Behind closed doors and under nat’l security funding, the F-22’s will quietly be upgraded and placed into areas where a super plane can be used to a huge advantage
No the NGAD will be better. They will do what they did with the f117.
Use them for training.
They will be enemy stealth aircraft and enemy stealth cruise missiles that NGADs and air defense systems will practice against.
Though of course that's in the 2030s
Get that F-35 version of F-22 hybrid. Brain of one, and body of the another
I hope so!
Also there is just no way given the cost you can conceal meaningful F22 upgrades for a meaningful number of jets in black site spending.
The F22 ISN'T a hyper specialized aircraft. It's an air superiority fighter. That's a perfectly normal role for which many many airframes are needed in a sustained conflict.
You need to be running combat air patrols around the clock in a combat situation and so you need enough aircraft and pilots to replace the ones you bring down when they are out of fuel and then enough to deal with the ones that are taken out for maintenance.
You can't just keep a fleet of a dozen of them like you might do with for example the stealth helicopters where you only use them for rare deep strike insertion and they spend almost all of their time in the hanger or training even at war
"where a super plane can be used to a huge advantage" Assassinating AWACS units, its about the only thing worthy of a 22. It doesn't make for sexy top gun movies but that's the jugular of any nations air force. Ironically the only two nations you might need to do that to (they end in A), are the two nations you really wouldn't want to do that to. You don't just blind an ICBM capable nation and then go to sleep soundly.
Anything less than that isn't worth the price of letting hundreds of radar systems collect data or even lack of data on a reflector less F22 contact to study.
I honestly don't see the Raptor going away for good for at least another 15-20 years. What I do see is the number of them slowly being dwindled as a means to extend their service life such as for every one plane kept in the air there's two put into retirement for parts and the Raptor being strategically placed permanently say in Europe as a deterant but with the F35 doing most of the heavy work and the F22 basically just being a backup plan if and whenever there's a target the F35 just can't handle shows up. Like an airship...since Russia seems determined to use anything they have to fight a war.
It's really sad this masterpiece didn't work out as it should. The B-2, F-117, and F-22 are among the most beautiful designs we have ever seen and probably the last manned fighters. By 2030, it will be all about robotics and drones.
You forgot the legendary SR-71
The F-22 worked exactly as it should. It replaced the nuclear missile as the near-peer deterrent.
First thing I want them to do strip off all the weapons systems, radar, RAM, and other dead weight and just go for speed records like the Streak Eagle did back in the day. We could call it the Velociraptor!
The F-22 is not capable of taking the speed or altitude Record from the Eagle let alone Habu. Its maximum mach is inherent in its less than optimal inlet and exhaust nozzle design.
I am excited to get one on the surplus market.
Don’t laugh. I saw an F-15A purchased by a military museum in Waukegan, just by the border with Wisconsin. You can plainly see it from I94.
At one time, this guy had about six or seven OV-1 Mohawks, one of which was delightfully airworthy. Man that machine could fly.
Parts obsolescence is something we tried to get a handle on with Raptor, but the computer technology was advancing so fast we couldn't get a handle on it. Military procurement just couldn't adjust. Tried again on F-35, with I think better success, but procurement has so many checks & balances, multi-level approvals, etc., that it's always been hard. Hopefully F-35 is large enough to maintain that critical mass of suppliers that, IMO, is a great way to stave off that demon.
F-22 was never sold to other countries. F-35 has a ton of operators. It will be around for a while. The US alone is planning 2000+.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@HKim0072 Yeah, I know, I worked on both programs. Foreign sales are important, but numbers can/should/will make the difference.
@@raz4371 NGAD will be quicker to service, and probably cheaper.
@@mikebridges20 Right, is the NGAD suppose to be carrier capable ?
I was fortunate to view and photograph an F-117 on display at the Hill AFB Museum near Salt Lake City.
If Congress had funded 749 Raptors, China and Russia would be very quiet right now.
Not really wouldn’t have changed a thing. The F22 would still be expensive. At most the F15 EX wouldn’t have been cancelled and the NGAD program would’ve been delayed. Chi and Russia would have still developed their own platforms.
We can handle them with our current fleet, and the NGAD will position The US to be able to handle them in the future.
If congress had funded 200 B-2s they’d be quiet!
200 Raptors in the Pacific, 200 in the Middle East and 200 in Europe, with the rest in various stages of maintenance/upgrades/training would have meant that we would not hear a peep out of China and Russia today.
Btw, one of the biggest myths is that the Su-57 is a stealth aircraft.
That may be, however you're forgetting we have the JSF which is years more advanced and quite capable of handling any of this. Remember the JSF is a 3-in-1 platform capable of doing many things not advertised for. It is an AWACS, quarterback, interceptor, designator. It is dominant in red flag and in the hands of foreign customers such as IAF.
there is NO WAY the NGAD fighter will have even reached IOC by 2030. Can't even get the T-7 Red Hawk (a trainer jet) done in 6 years. The T-7 first flight was in 2016. The T-7 IOC target was 2017 with full service by 2020.
It's already 2024.
there is a major difference between a plane made by a floundering boeing and one built by northrup/lockheed
meanwhile the F-35 isn't in full rate production, has huge maintenance problems, and may be one of the DoD's largest financial boondoggles. Furthermore the F-35 took 9 years from first flight before being introduced to the first service (USMC) @@FELiPES101 .
My point is making a NGAD is going to take time... more than 6 years.
I think they'll get a couple near finished prototypes in the air and the assembly lines close to beginning to start production but yeah, my guess would be closer to 2035
We probably wont see commissioned NGAD till 2035 2040 hell we still havent been shown a flight mock up or anything beyond paper aspects of the NGAD dont get me wrong i want the NGAD but its gonna be a long while before they take the F-22 out of the picture. Hell by time the first commissioned ones roll out we might already be in a massive scale war considering current geopolitical climates.
Yep. Plan to see NGAD in production in 20-30 years.
Finally! A well thought out and educated take on this situation.
A heck of a new Thunderbirds show...
or
enhanced, stealth drones
or
adversary training
or
all-the-above.
No to the idea of drones. They shouldn't be used as targets.
@@Dragon_Werks It would be an interesting way to train pilots to fight stealth aircraft. They could be used to create more advanced radars that nullify stealth capabilities.
Go the F-14 route? Strip and display a few, scrap the rest. Maybe keep a few for testing/adversary roles.
For national securities sake, this is the correct option, provided NGAD is a success. It's decades old technology would still be a huge upgrade to China's future ambitions
Fascinating commentary on the Raptor. Through your videos, Alex, I have learned so much about the capability of this fighter. Thanks.
An f22 airframe with f35 internals (I believe you mentioned there was a potential option for this a few years back) could be a good export plane. We'd probably grab a few for ourselves too, as the ngad wont be able to be shown to the public.
The Japanese would cover the entire cost of that project to get the plane you describe.
@@Red.Hot.Chili.Beans63 The Japanese wouldn't be the only buyers.
you cant get the f35 internals into a f22. its waaaaaaaay too much for the f22. the airframe of the f35 is literally just made for that. also the RCS of the f35 is almost the same as the f22
@@lars9966 I'm not saying it wouldn't take some development to get everything in the right position, but it should be doable. The f22 wouldn't have need of a lift fan or changing any of the mechanical aspects of the airframe, so the majority of what you'd be transporting over would just be electronics.
@@Jeff55369 It would be cheaper to develop a new aircraft... which is why NGAD (rightfully) gets priority.
I think shifting to an aggressor airframe probably makes sense, they should be able to match or exceed current and near future adversary platform performance giving them the ability to provide a realistic simulation but the reduced numbers and flight hours could extend the longevity of the type. While I don’t know if the super-maneuverability of something like a Su-57 is all that essential to modern air to air combat, if the need arose to simulate or test that for some reason the F-22 might be the only airframe that could do it.
Additionally, the F-22's a pretty smart plane. If you want it to perform like a given adversary aircraft, you can just program the flight computer to limit itself so that it doesn't exceed the capabilities of that adversary aircraft. Pilots can't be expected to respect something like a maximum turn rate or a G-force limit in a dogfight, they're extremely competitive in military exercises and will pull out every stop you give them the tools to pull out.
But you can't just pull out the stop of a flight computer imposed limitation, not while in-flight.
So it's an effective handicap for the purposes of mimicry of adversary aircraft, while still allowing the pilots to be as competitive as they wish to be.
Military pilots especially instructor and aggressor/adversary instructors probably don’t need to stroke their ego while teaching. They’re there to give pilots going down range the experience and skills they need to come home. I’d be very surprised if an instructor could last if his priority was to win vice train. This isn’t a Tom Cruise flick.
@@sonar8594
Need has nothing to do with it. If you watched the Sandbox video on the SR-71 being used for aggressor training, you'd know that they chafed under the limitations, and would regularly violate them (just enough to win). What makes you think the F-22 being used in adversary training would be any different? Fighter pilots of yesteryear think pretty much the same as fighter pilots of today, even if they're instructor types.
My single source for US aerial news and commentary. God Bless You Alex.
It breaks my heart to think of the raptor being retired even if they were 60 years old it would hurt😂
Why? They're only machines and you don't fly one.
F-22s were my favorite jet I always thought they were the best I don't know why they weren't more produced
Bonus points for the Sandlot quote at the end!
Immediately following my tour in the USMC, I was there at McDonnell Douglas Longbeach building C-17s (Nose section), AND watching the battle between the 22 and the 23.
It is inconceivable that we are discussing the retirement of the 22, even if it is ~10 years from now.
I refuse to believe that I'm that old, or that the 22 is that old...
And I wonder where the secret squadron of 23s is operating out of too...
; )
Semper Fi
I hope your guess is correct!
Very well reasoned as always. Thank you. Dead on intelligent. I live in Las Vegas and I am certainly an aviation nut. So I recognize the JANET 737 commuter planes that go up to Area 51 when they fly over my house. Fortunately, I do not live close to Nellis. The folks in that part of town get to hear lots of roar, full afterburners out bound for practice, all types. F-22 aircraft are particularly loud to my ears. I also lived in Tonopah a short time. I am not sure what the aboriginal pronunciation should be, though we mostly say Toe nuh paw. When I was little, I was very aware of XB-70 sonic booms. They were not terrible, but they did give the glass quite a blunt shake. Would also say thank you for not being pedantic or boring. You get to the point and you do not make mistakes. Otherwise wannabe types say stuff all the time that make knowledgeable people roll their eyes, which I think comes from not knowing how to do good research, perhaps because they cannot understand it.
I’ve seen the F-22 in person at a stunt show, full afterburners, and that thing is LOUD! You gotta expect that from those strong engines
Are there any signs that the politicians have learned the value of an active production line for their highly priced military toys throughout their active service?
It seems to me that the F-22 story is an example of what not to repeat.
Love this channel. Can never get enough.❤🇺🇸.
I would have thought that the F-22 would get the F-14 treatment, and torn down so far that it would be impossible for an unfriendly nation to steal anything from them. I totally forgot about the F-117's situation! Very cool to think about.
I would hope though that at least a couple go to NASA for testing purposes (like the F-15 ACTIVE), with some more kept for parts for NASA's little fleet!
No other country flies the 22...
@@georgesmith8268 the problem is worse than we have with Iran and the F-14 I would think. The skin of the aircraft is the most secret part (I imagine). Cut off a piece of the wing and take it home to reverse engineer.
As a military aviation nerd, I love the F-22, just like I love the A-10. Both of these platforms are highly specialized making them the best at the types of missions they were designed for. The United States has been blessed with a long period of technological dominance compared to its rivals, but that dominance comes at a high financial cost.
The F-22 and the A-10 are amazing aircraft but it seems like it’s becoming difficult to continue to justify their cost. The F-35 had one of the most expensive developments in modern aviation history, with a major to move towards more standardization among aircraft used by both the United States and its NATO Allies. If this works or doesn’t? I don’t know, but as a US taxpayer and voter I would agree that to reduce the strain on our economy by military spending, cuts are needed. I would love to see more money being spent on improving our country’s many internal issues like our aging infrastructure, roads, new improvements to the energy sector, and the elimination of our extreme amount of debt.
Why was a carrier variant never made? I know the F-35 is "kind of" like a carrier version of it, but the air superiority of the F-22 compared to the F-35 is still on another level.
Possibly adding an arrestor might compromise the stealth aspect or adding one requires RnD (a very scary word for majority of country except Soviet), while F-35 has already designed to have one.
Building a carrier capable aircraft requires lots of strengthening, and much stronger under carriage, you would be building an aircraft maybe with 40% different parts to the land based fighter it would be much more expensive and time consuming, a better option has always been a dedicated carrier design.
It was too expensive for the navy. The navy has around the same budget as the air force. But needs to keep a fucking fleet afloat at the same time.
The F22s will go to AF reserve units and Air National Guard units.
Another great option would be to replace the cockpit with an advanced computer and sensors to make autonomous air dominance fighters which can be sent on special missions deemed too hazardous to human pilots. The flight hours and maintenance would be negligible because they would only fly when they have a high chance of not returning.
The F22 was so advanced that they did not want them sold to their own allies and it's predessor the F15 is still a dominant air superiority fighter with improved long range radar and long range missiles
Somewhere, there’s a human in the ITAR world who’s brain just exploded at the mere suggestion of selling F22 Raptors to, anyone.
why not Obama sold an Aircraft carrier to china for scrap price that China now has in service...
The F22 designs and materials data were stolen by a Chinese businessman called Su Bin operating out of Canada in 2016
I first encountered the F-22 in the old 1993 DOS game "Strike Commander" and even within the game narrative they had to sell off the rare airframe due to being too expensive to maintain! (though it makes sense for the character story arc, them being budget conscious air mercenaries).
And I concur with others about the export ban. We'll never know if today's global F-35 operators would've purchased the F-22 if they could at the time.
I know it's just a fever dream idea, but can you imagine that when they finally put the NGAD into service, they find capability gaps that only the F-22 Raptor can fill in? Thus extending its service life further with a few avionics upgrades here and there. 😅
Would be a nice thought, although improbable. And no, we're not wishing for wide scale war but... Really though, before it retires, we are all begging to see how the Raptor will mop the floor with every opponent it will face from adversary nations.
Sure, just like historians wished they could've seen what the Bearcat and TigerCat and P-51H and B-36 could've done in WWII, or the A-10 in Vietnam, or an SF team equipped with miniguns on humvees in the American Revolution. There are sim channels dedicated to stuff like this.
You might get what you wish for. Introducing: The QF-22.
Yes, it's a "drone conversion" of an existing manned fighter aircraft, just like the QF-4 and QF-16 are.
But there's a critical difference. It's a stealth fighter.
That means that with the right ground-based control scheme, you can get a "real" F-22 that flies probably better than an F-22 with an actual pilot in it. How is that possible? The drone controls won't have that pesky 9-G limit that human bodies do, but it's still being controlled by a REAL fighter pilot on the ground (in as close to a real cockpit as possible, probably).
It's doable, but the drone controls will need to be a lot more advanced than just a front-looking camera and some flight control hook-ups, obviously.
The aim is to give a fighter pilot in training as close to an actual "living, breathing" target as possible, and allowing them to use live ammunition and missiles, without actually needing to risk a human life in the adversary aircraft's cockpit.
Far sight better than what they can pull off with Top Gun training as it is right now, I think.
@@44R0Ndin Pulling G's isn't what wins a dogfight and it's a last ditch measure anyway. If it comes to that you've basically reduced a sniper to the point of hand to hand combat. Remote or AI piloted aircraft aren't going to be any more lethal than piloted aircraft.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about using these F-22's as drones for combat. I'm talking about using them as "better than straight and level" target drones for pilots in training to work on their aim against. With a real (remotely located) pilot that has the ability to know when something has been fired at them and try to dodge it.
It's about allowing use of armed missiles against these drones, with a distant and not at all focused on side benefit of "maybe the drone can turn tighter sometimes because it can pull more than 9 g's", like you said pulling G's isn't what makes a good fighter aircraft. We're skipping past the point where the drone would have had a chance to shoot at the pilot in training, we're focusing on the part where the pilot in training gets to shoot at the drone.
EDIT: In any case, with the high thrust to weight ratio and 2-d thrust vectoring of the F-22, it theoretically should excel in "hand to hand fighting" as you put it in any case, no? Sure, it's designed to not NEED it, but it HAS it, in spades.
I lobe the F-22. Really hope it keeps flying .. such a bad ass machine. 🇺🇸
Greatest air superiority jet ever to fly
I think they will be used in small numbers as adversary trainers for use against Chinese stealth fighters
They cost far too much to maintain.
There's already specific stealth drones for that task....
The early model F-35s already transitioning to the adversary role.
Legend! Great vid
There will eventually be a time when a bunch of senior citizens will maintain and do "historic flights" with an F-22 at an air show....
I seriously doubt that. They're just too expensive to purchase and difficult to maintain, and there's not enough of them to surplus out like the fighters you see in airshows today. Ask yourself where are all the civvie F-14's, F-104's, F-105's, F-111's, B-47's, B-58's, etc. etc. Thing is, military aircraft have become too expensive to surplus out, even if they wanted to sell to civilians, there's only a handful of people that could afford them. A millionaire post-WWII could've bought several hundred P-51's, no sweat. A surplus F-86 after Korea, maybe a dozen. A surplus F-4 after Vietnam, maybe one. A surplus F-16? Not a chance, there's never been one sold that cheap, in fact, the only one in a private collection was sold for $8.5M (gov contractor recently paid $25M for an Israeli surplus F-16 in flying condition). By comparison, a P-51 adjusted for inflation cost the US $0.5M, the F-86 $2.3M, F-4, $22M, F-16 $35M (80's variant), and the F-22 at $184M. The trend is such that even if the USAF didn't demilitarize the F-22 (cutting them into pieces, stripping all avionics, removing the RAM coatings) before selling them, and sold them in airworthy condition for the purchase price not adjusted for inflation, only billionaires could realistically afford one. Good luck getting insurance on that lol
Unllikely. It took a literal act of Congress to allow the Collins foundation to own an F-4 phantom, and that's 70 year old technology.
Hugely grateful for this video! It was very informative and interesting
Outside of the obvious as training adversaries or emergency reserve aircraft, I'd guess Japan would be the only ally to trust with such aircraft. But that would depend on if they were even interested, since I'm sure they're part of a development program for something else newer.
Yeah because the UK just can't be trusted, huh? Interesting how Japan is partnering with the UK and Italy to develop its next generation fighter instead of America.
Great insight. great news Thanks.
Sell them to Japan.
3:05
It's unlikely at this point.
First congress would have to lift the sale ban. (Unlikely and that's the easy part.)
Another thing is that you'd have to completely restart production for logistics. Which is extremely expensive.
Not to mention any allied country capable of buying one probably have their own 5th and 6th gen programs or are satisfied with the F-35s.
Unfortunately, raptors would be more trouble than what they're worth to our friends now. The minute the number was slashed from 750 proposed frames to 186, (150 operational), and when congress said it isn't to be sold outside the US, it's export aspirations went up in smoke.
@@mill2712 Yeah, we made that same mistake with drones too. We dragged our feet with selling them to other countries.
Kneecapped the R&D budget / cost savings.
@@HKim0072
Now our allies, "allies" (Cough* Turkey), and rivals are starting to sell drones too.
International weapon sales are going to be interesting...
Nah do a giveaway for F-22 fans, I want a F-22 so bad 😢
Japan is making their own fighter the F22 cost to much to up keep
That was an AWESOME presentation. Thank you!
Thank you for all your efforts to keep us well informed. In a sea of misinformation, this channel is a refreshing wave of veracity.
The F-22 fleet will be around for a while. The competition that resulted in the F-22 started in 1987 and the plane became operational in 2005. Unless the DoD and aerospace companies have made a quantum leap in development speed a 2030 operational date for the NGAD looks very optimistic.
give them to ukraine, lets see what it can actually to, when faced with something more than ballons
It would take out the entire Russian airforce and lead to nuclear war. Nobody wants to back Putin into a corner.
They need 12 with another 12 for spares and about 12 years of spare parts for each plane every year.
trouble with using planes for spares is that they dont provide that many coppies of each spare, and some elements wear out faster than others, it makes sense to send a full fighter wing , that way the f22 has a chance of surpassing the F15s killl record as long as AMRAM D went with it. the VKS would hate this! which is reason enough to do it@@pogo1140
They still have yet to train one F16 pilot that’s why the first 6 aircraft that was supposed to be sent in Dec 2023 is now looking like June 24, the Danes said they hadn’t even decided on the 6 pilots they were to take to train on as pilots!!!!!
@@pogo1140 and 4 years to train the pilots and similar to train the mechanics
Damn Alex!
Killer vid mate!
Nicely done.
😎👍❤️
Would it be possible (and affordable) to keep Raptors as a training fleet for the NGAD or F/A-XX to simulate enemy stealth fighters, or would the 5th generation drones be available by then?
He mentions this near the end of the video, they'll likely be there to help simulate advanced enemy assets or even re-equipped for air combat if the US finds itself needing it.
They need to convert them to carrier capable, then give them all to the Navy. It worries me that we don't have our most dominate air craft on our carriers.
@@raz4371 F/A-XX is supposed to start being deployed to carriers shortly after NGAD starts being put in service as far as I understood.
@@cylentone Ahhhh i see so the F/A-XX is a carrier capable version of the NGAD that is for the Navy.
@@raz4371 Yep. It is expected they will share a few systems but they are not in one project like the F-35. The F/A-XX should also be getting Wingman drones.
The real reason the F22 is being retired is that it costs too much to maintain and operate. They have to reapply radar absorbing materials regularly and at great expense, for instance.
That being the case, I don't see how anybody else could afford to operate them, as maintenance will only go up in price as the airframe ages.
And you can't buy them and just keep them in reserve, the pilots need regular flight time, and the planes still need to be maintained.
I do think maybe a squadron of them will be kept active as agressor aircraft at training facilities like Top Gun, so that our pilots can learn how to survive against 5th generation fighters.
It's going to get stored and eventually used to train other pilots against stealth fighters. Just like the F117
A Chinese businessman operating out of Canada stole the drawings and materials information for the F22 before 2016. A very expensive machine reliant upon secrecy with no secrets left is a tough sell.
I feel that any airframes that find themselves retired should start being looked at to convert to UAVs. Especially A-10s as they are vulnerable but still very useful aircraft.
The F22 could be used as a stealthy medium-range bomber that can defend itself in a highly contested air space ( The F111 was never replaced ) or be the next Growler ( jamming drones while bombing radars with anti-radiation missiles ) Air Force only unless it gets its sea legs.
Why waste money using the F-22 on a role it was not designed for, and ignore the new shiny B-21.
Absolutely 100% NOT to be sold to ANYONE please!
I do think the Raptors deserve to be the tip of the spear in the next big campaign, even if they're out of date. It only got to shoot down a balloon. Let it at least release all that pent-up rage at being sidelined for so long during the opening assault.
I’m surprised that 3d printing can’t help address issues with spare parts on older airframes.
There is a possibility of the F-22 to be transferred to ANG units. Also with the loss of a B-1B at Ellsworth, one B-1B at the Boneyard will be pulled to replace the lost B-1.
They have four quality retired B-1BS stored for replacements exactly for this reason, the ones at the boneyard are there for a reason and aren’t keep in any ready like condition, you would be looking many months of recomissioning to salvage one of those.
It’s crazy how far ahead of time they are
Love your content and the sandlot quote!
A boneyard deepdive would be a great video Alex! 🤞
What the military should have done in retrospect is to fund both the F-22 & F-23. They should have been able to pool parts from any program to make the development cycles go quicker.
Then we'd have enough of those airplanes flying right now. They should have put a lot of effort into maintainability and modularity.
And they should have been able to go to the market with much of the technology.
At some point, quantity becomes quality, because one can have the best airplane ever made, because having only one of them is really like having none of them.
That would have been insanely expensive, especially since the F-23 was nowhere near as complete a design as the XF-22. It had several problems that the 22 didn’t, and lot of development yet to achieve. We would have ended up with about four of each type and the program would have collapsed.
Likely what they're doing with th F-117, that thing is still capable enough that a few would likely go into a secret black project squadron.
Please keep the F22 don’t throw it away.
Just hit us with that Sandlot at the end there. Nice.
They're using F117s as OPFOR. The Raptor would be a tough challenge in that role.
Way to finish the episode with a quote from the Sandlot.
Unbelievable they would retire it at this point in time. If the NGAD was already done testing, proven in combat, and in production I might understand but I believe keeping a small fleet of these would be invaluable.
If you watched the video, you'd know that the F-22 isn't retiring for AT LEAST another 10 years, and likely much longer than that.
I'd say we'll see the first scheduled retirements in 15-20 years minimum, fully depending on (as you mentioned) when the NGAD enters service in appreciable numbers.
What I mean is that the F-22 will only start retiring 5-10 years after the NGAD enters service in significant numbers.
Sounds like a good deal! 🇨🇦
What traditionally has happened is that front-line fighters are rotated to national guard units all across the U.S. example Kalamath Fall Oregon has F15, as does Portland. Boise ID has A10's etc
Considering how long it took for F-22s and F-35s to get introduced, the NGAD is probably not even truly operational until the late-2030s at minimum.
Can't imagine F-22s going away until the mid-2040s due to that. We're going to have to squeeze as much out of them as we can
They will be retired exactly the same way as the F117....and that's pretty exciting for my children's kids as some day they'll get the chance to see them up close & personal. Heck the Strategic Air & Space Museum is working on a F117 in the restoration hanger right now and I can't wait to see it 1st hand when they are finished.
Japan, Korea, and Turkey have basically restarted the F-22 production line. We might be able to source some parts there, lol. Probably not Turkey, we're not playing nice with them right now.
umm, that's impossible. We never sold them to other countries.
@@HKim0072
They're building their own copies. They're not exactly the same, but they look a lot alike.
BTW, I made that comment in jest. Mostly.
God the F-117 is probably the best looking airplane ever made.
Should have never cancelled this program. The government was short sided on this decision.
lease them to Australia...
Would have made a "Killer" Strike Eagle replacement if it could have been reconfigured as a 2 seater. Many thanx Alex 👍👍
Well. That was fast
Great segment as always. can we get a UAP ep? Whiskey 70 a round for all!
I want to see an F-22 elite flight demonstration team like the BA and Thunderbirds 😂
I’m pretty sure the plan is that by then the military will instead invest in some advanced automated manufacturing tech to be able to maintain the aging planes. They’ll be dominant in a fight for decades to come as they sit now. But with future tech upgrades and ngad/f35 battlefield integration it will be relegated to highly specific roles and will probably ride out life doing that.
extra points for the Sandlot reference.
it's cool to think these platforms too good to share and too valuable to put to pasture but too expensive to maintain on a large scale will still be around. F117s, F22s, and others. I suppose we'll see what happens in the next war.
Convert them to drones. They would require less flight hours. Possibly able to be piloted if needed. Extra tech modules able to be replace the pilots seat. They would not be needed to fly in hi G training ops. Many F-16s have been converted to test drones. They could mainly support F-35 and other fighters to carry extra weapons in higher risk operations. And could still aid with using its sensors and sharing data. And possibly escorting AWACs aircraft. And possibly updated with autonomous combat software at some stage. Existing fly by wire systems making UAV conversion more practical.
A lot will go to museums, and I cant wait to go visit when they do
So we've got the QF-4, and now the QF-16, both unmanned drone conversions of manned fighter aircraft, used for the purpose of target practice and the like where it's too risky to put a person in the cockpit.
Do you think there's any chance we ever see something like a QF-117 or QF-22, in the same vein, with it's radar cross section as intact as possible to give a realistic target to pilots using current and upcoming platforms like the F-35 and NGAD?
With their radar cross section intact, but towing a decoy, they'd also be even more valuable for "standard" target practice, because you can consider it nearly a certainty that whatever is shot at the towed decoy will hit the decoy and not the QF-117 or QF-22, because of the sheer magnitude of difference in radar cross section between the decoy and the drone.
IR missiles can use a Tomahawk missile that has been converted into a target drone or something similar, the F-22 and F-117 do take measures to reduce their IR signatures but AIM-9's can likely still achieve lock at useful ranges.
Yeah right.
'Retired''
Just like the F-117
They're still flying with capabilities we've never even heard of.
Believe that
The next gen. engines coming in offset weight restrictions on F-22s! It may mean moving the shorter engine back further to create more internal space but is doable at a price, less than a new plane or wasting the present investment in the F-22s!
The newer longer range radar being the 1st priority!!!
Swapping weapons out to the accompanying drones is also worthwhile!
So instead of building a new replacement production line a refit/update line is likely more viable!!!
If the F-22 got some upgrades like making sure it was capable of multi-role ops like how the F15’s first version was only air superiority but later versions were capable of multiple roles. Then it should not have been retired
It would probably need a “beast mode” similar package like the F35 does. Aka eternal hard points, but then it’s stealth is ruined.
Should make f22 raptors into drones for very high risk missions at least the high hour ones
The kid will never die lol
I'll adopt one.
I think one of the biggest issue with the F22 was the ban on foreign export. It does not make economic sense for the US to solely develop and procure small numbers of advanced stealth aircraft. It makes more sense to produce a larger number of aircraft and export to trusted partners. Larger procured numbers alos creates more jobs for longer periods.
some for training, some as parts bin... and possibly some for export (at least when NGAD production starts)
my money is on either used as Aggressors for advance air combat training or more likely as dedicated stealth reconn jets, only need a small number for both roles
They wouldn’t risk flying these over any where a loss could be recovered by Russia or worse China. Using them at Red Flag makes sense and part of the red team.
Nice to know that America has F 117s in storage, but how long before they are ready to fly and how many pilots available/ready for operational flight?
I've flown balloons before; can I have a go? Please?
Cool planter boxes at an airport entrance!
A legendary outro Alex ❤
I'd say the BLUE ANGELS are due for an upgrade! Blue angels rocking a pack of F22s! YES PLEASE.