JimNtexas said:The USAF requirement for large numbers of F-22s is ego driven entirely.
Take a look at the numbers being proliferated by countries like China and NK. China is building something like 50 Flankers a year, their F-10 is gonna start ramping up, and their building on top of already eye watering capabilities. Even middle eastern countries are buying SU-27 and 30's. Their capability is very well evenly matched, and the numbers are scarey. There's a silent cold war mindset arms race about to take off, I think anyway.
Hugggyu2 said:#1. Do not believe that it's all about "capability". With the amount of money involved in the F-22 and it's technologies, there are a lot of politics involved, and folks do not want to lose out.
#2. The F-22 program works out to somewhere around $250M per jet. What if the cost was $500M? How about $1B? At what point do we decide "it's too much; too expensive"? For me, we've exceeded that point. Obviously, many of you disagree and think the cost is justified.
Ya... but when you put a price tag on the program for X number of jets... then reduce the number of jets the program cost remains the same, and the value of each unit goes up. It's the reason the B-2 is so expensive. The USAF was supposed to get what like 180 of those? Reduce the number to 27 and we can see what the cost per unit does.
Let me digress and prempt this whole thing with a "of course what do I know?"