..

And at almost $200 million a piece! But at least this aircraft lives
up to its name "Raptor"- a dinosaur... which should get Congressional
extinction!

It's funny that people who don't want America to be a powerful nation also
want to axe the F-22 (among other things).

Not at all... it's a wasteful, obscene amount of money to pay for an
aircraft the USAF hasn't been able to justify by any means. The
Eurofighter by comparison can fulfill most of the Raptor's job at
one-third of the cost. If Sukhoi built the Su-47 it would still be
less costly, more heavily armed, and more powerful with dogfighting
skills we can't duplicate. Hell, even the Superflanker costs just a
fraction of the F-22. Ansd since the USAF knows its a wasteful program
they have tried to sell other proposed versions, turning it into the
F/A-22, FB-22, and even a more distant X-44 MANTA version. Give us
taxpayers a break- buy the F-35 for all services.

Please explain, factually and technically, how the Raptor is 'obsolete' as
you consistently assert? Do you not believe that it is an order of magnitude
more capable than any other fighter plane in the world? If so, please cite
by using a direct comparison.

I was using dinosaur in context of the wasteful overbudget program.
The Europeans and Russians have aircraft that could take the F-22 on:
Eurofighter, Rafale, Gripen, Superflanker, Su-47, etc...

By the time full production is achieved the aircraft won't amount to
any significant number, not being able to replace the F-15 by any
means.


You do realize that we only have 342 active F-15C's right now, right? Seems
to me that the 339 Raptors we ordered will be able to take over their role
quite well, all things considered.

Uh I believe the DoD only approved 295 back in 2001 and the current
USAF inventory of all F-15s (including the Beagle) is 613 aircraft
plus 116 of the ANG. How many F-22s will be produced ultimately with
the ungodly cost overruns and FY budget adjustments? Nowhere near
enough... destined to follow the B-2 bomber's reduction.

Rob

p.s. Did you know that the reputed cost of the black project ASTRA is
an incredible 4 billion each! How many of those do we have- one maybe?