It's rather well known that the AIM-120. At best a fifty percent kill rate and that goes lower when the enemy has electronic jamming or makes high speed maneuvers. Newer missiles like the Meteor and the PL-12 pretty much out class the old Amraam.
It is also known that the F-22 is already boarding on obsolete. If the Pentagon cared more about actually winning wars than profit. They would make a Super Hornet style upgrade of the Raptor. The F-22B would have to be a larger plane with better engines, higher payload and more advanced sensors.
Russia only needed eight years to get a plane into production compared too 17 years Pentagon had for the JSF. In the day and age of 3D printers that's just pitiful.
From a person that seems critical of the US MIC, and actually lives in the US, how easy (or hard) would it be exactly for LM to restart F-22 production?
I have heard varying opinions, ranging from "impossible" too "half a year". I heard most of the manufacturing infrastructure would have to be rebuilt.
Not as difficult as claimed. They did store some tooling and about ten percent were damaged when bought out for Raptor repairs. It should take no more than two years at the longest. Half a year would be possible if Congress funds it asap and if the USAF actually stopped playing political games with air frames and actually used the money to purchase more Raptors.
The brass is already thinking about upgrading F-15s due to budget cuts.
It's rather well known that the AIM-120. At best a fifty percent kill rate and that goes lower when the enemy has electronic jamming or makes high speed maneuvers. Newer missiles like the Meteor and the PL-12 pretty much out class the old Amraam.
It is also known that the F-22 is already boarding on obsolete. If the Pentagon cared more about actually winning wars than profit. They would make a Super Hornet style upgrade of the Raptor. The F-22B would have to be a larger plane with better engines, higher payload and more advanced sensors.
Russia only needed eight years to get a plane into production compared too 17 years Pentagon had for the JSF. In the day and age of 3D printers that's just pitiful.
From a person that seems critical of the US MIC, and actually lives in the US, how easy (or hard) would it be exactly for LM to restart F-22 production?
I have heard varying opinions, ranging from "impossible" too "half a year". I heard most of the manufacturing infrastructure would have to be rebuilt.
Not as difficult as claimed. They did store some tooling and about ten percent were damaged when bought out for Raptor repairs. It should take no more than two years at the longest. Half a year would be possible if Congress funds it asap and if the USAF actually stopped playing political games with air frames and actually used the money to purchase more Raptors.
The brass is already thinking about upgrading F-15s due to budget cuts.
Interesting. Upgrading the F-15s to something similar in performance to the Su-35S would be a definite win.