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USAF Problems with Congress and the Pentagon

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iluveagles:
I have been hearing more and more about this type of stuff. Congress and the Pentagon seem to think the USAF don't need any more F-22s for the sole reason that the F-35 is a better buy. They continue to think financially instead of strategically. The F-22 and the F-35 are supposed to overlap in their roles instead of just having a multi-role fighter. The F-22 is nessecary to remove all air threats and sweap the area of all enemy aircraft. The F-35 is supposed to be mainly used to knock out ground targets.

This type of stuff is really getting on my nerves. Especially, because we need a strong air force to continue to avert wars through the fact that smart people understand that they can't stand against the might of the USAF. That is not going to be possible if we continue down this road.

If you are an AFA subscriber, I am refering to the article, "Fighting for Air Dominance" in the April 2008 issue of Air Force Magazine.

Webmaster:
I agree so some extent, however making the JSF program a success is also of huge strategical importance, and indeed maybe more important than having 200 more Raptors. I agree that the USAF would need more F-22s without any doubt, but I am concerned if this should cut into JSF funding. I am sure though that resources can be found elsewhere, maybe at the expense of the nuclear arsenal and a few US airbases. But any such plans would probably also receive opposition from Congress.

AFM (Air Forces Monthly, UK) has also published some critical articles with regards to the US fighter force lately.

I'm also concerned by the (increasing?) power the big defence contractors have on Congress members. Judging from my observations, but maybe I should not make any judgement on this, because I am not too well informed about it.

iluveagles:
See the thing about the JSF program is that congress doesn't want to give them the amount of F-35s nessecary either. It is some where upward of 3,000 that they want for the JSF. In my opinion cutting them 500 short of the JSF or even 1,000 short to give us a full F-22 force (500) would be a much better idea. Due to the fact that not only is air superiority key, but also because the Raptor has the capability to carry out precision air-to-surface strikes, hence the F/A. So getting more Raptors would work out either way. Besides that, the Raptor is a better aircraft than the F-35, at least from my point of view it is.

The other thing about it is, we need to not worry about cutting either program's funding and instead just give the USAF all the aircraft it needs. At this point Raptor's aren't even used in combat(at least last time I checked) because they are such a small force that it better to use them for air defense of the US.

The defense contractors are less of a problem than the democrats. They are what is causing the major funding issues because they want to cut down on the military so they can force us out of Iraq, which needless to say is a bad idea.

Gripen:
Hang on, Raptor's cutting into F-35 funds, did i read the right?

If i remember rightly, and i'm pretty sure i do, isnt the F-35 program have hundreds of millions of dollars put into it by other countries, so if they use F-35 funds for the Raptor, wouldn't countries be paying for planes that they have no hope of actually getting?

 ???

iluveagles:
Not quite, though everything kinda cuts this or that, what we were saying is that I do not care if we cut down on F-35s(ie taking some funding away for more aircraft)and instead getting the proper amount of F-22s versus the Webmaster had, more or less, the opposite opinion on it.

Yes other countries are putting money into it, but cutting funding to buy less jets for the U.S. would have no effect on other countries purchasing it. Regardless, each country pays and gets what they pay for.

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