To rethink my take on the F-22, and then to rethink the rethink - meaning, the program ostensibly has been cut, production stopped at 187, even though just a few months ago the Air Force declared they needed at least another 60: 10 squadrons of 24 planes each to fulfill needs of the 10 air expeditionary wings or forces - but after having done some reading up on the F-35 Lightning I decided that, even though the F-22 is a lot prettier to look at than the F-35, I felt I could live with the Raptor being canceled.
Then I read a disgruntled ex-airforce bigwig who basically agreed with my opinion that the best reason to keep the F-22 going was to nurture the the high end manufacturing it necessitates - in essence the Raptor drives the technology forward and America needs to be doing that else the edge will be lost. He also made some other interesting points about the role of the F-22 in AEFs and that no other plane can really fill that role and how the F-35 although a nice plane is still 5 years away from deployment, is untested, and even if it lives up to potential will not be able to fill the advance scout and destroy role that the F-22 was designed for.
And so I don't know what to think now - hard to know where political agenda ends and valid military argument begins. I do know the congress rushed through an 800 billion dollar stimulus plan that is at least half bull shit - some of that could have easily paid for those 60 extra planes - ah. let me see 60x140=8.4 billion, no? I mean, c'mon.
