Penny-wise and pound foolish. Plus, the current administration wants us to be less powerful

F-22 Or F-35: The Plane Truth

Defense: The administration decision to scrap a proven aircraft in favor of a supposedly cheaper, more flexible replacement is proving to be an expensive mistake. We may wind up defenseless and broke.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was supposed to be America's frontline fighter for the foreseeable future is in big trouble. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the general in charge of the program this week amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays.
Gates also announced he is withholding $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin's project managers, has acknowledged that the program is running at least six months behind schedule.
Gates was questioned about the program at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said he was unaware of a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008 that found development of the plane could be delayed by 2 1/2 years with $16.6 billion in cost overruns. Judging by his decisions, he is not unaware that the F-35 program, designed to fill the needs of all three services, is in trouble.
After hearing Gates' testimony, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: "I'm still concerned about whether the services will get the (Joint Strike Fighters) when they need them."
He's right to be concerned: Further program delays will drive up per-unit costs, the wings are literally falling off our F-15s and F-16s, and the administration has killed further production of the F-22 Raptor. With what will we fight?
We've seen this one-size-fits-all, on-the-cheap procurement policy before. The 1960s saw the development of the TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental), later the F-111, which was supposed to fill all requirements from being a land-based fighter-bomber to a carrier-based aircraft. It wound up too heavy to be a carrier jet and not fast or agile enough to be in a dogfight. Other aircraft had to be procured to fill those needs.
Production of the F-22 Raptor was capped at 187 in the defense cuts slated for the fiscal 2010 budget, with the last aircraft slated to be delivered in late 2011 or early 2012. It was felt we couldn't afford both an F-22 dedicated to air superiority and the F-35, even though the latter is vastly inferior in both air-to-air combat and ground-defense penetration.
The Raptor is perhaps the only plane that could evade the sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system Russia has contracted to sell Iran. "Only the F-22 can survive in airspace defended by increasingly capable surface-to-air missiles," declares Air Force Association President Mike Dunn.
The F-22 can fly 300 to 400 mph faster and two miles higher than the F-35. The F-35 is cheaper, but you get what you pay for. And the F-22 is flying now, when we need it.
While we spend untold billions to create nonexistent jobs in nonexistent zip codes in nonexistent congressional districts, our defense needs go wanting. Reopening the F-22 production lines would aid our economic as well as national security. At stake is not only America's continued air dominance, but also 95,000 highly paid and highly skilled jobs in 44 states. How about saving them?
Russia recently announced the first flight of its "fifth-generation" stealth fighter, scheduled for delivery in 2013 with serial production beginning in 2015. The Chinese Air Force has announced that it has a F-22 type aircraft ready to make its first flight within a year. The Chinese believe this aircraft will enter service within 10 years.
Clearly we can't afford to wait or accept a troubled and less capable aircraft merely because it's less expensive. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may want to freeze defense spending, but we ask the question: What price freedom?