Force size -- The U.S. Air Force initially decided that to fight any serious opposing air force would require 750 F-22s. For development and procurement, Congress is providing $65.3 billion -- a huge sum. However, because no stakeholder was interested in exercising discipline over the design, weight and cost of each F-22, that $65.3 billion will buy only 184 aircraft. Given the need to maintain a training base in the U.S., and considering the demonstrated daily sortie rate of similarly complex aircraft already in our inventory, the Air Force will be lucky to be able to fly 60 deployed F-22s per day at the start of a major conflict overseas. ...
Pilot skill -- We can expect that same tiny F-22 force to attrite all too rapidly in combat because the Air Force funds only 10 to 12 hours of flight training for F-22 pilots per month. That amount of realistic training is completely inadequate. At the height of their prowess in the 1970s, the Israelis gave their fighter pilots 40 to 50 hours of flight training per month. ...
Cost -- The current plan is to buy 184 F-22s for $65.3 billion, or $354.9 million per aircraft. The Air Force contends that such a calculation is unfair; it distributes the cost of all testing and development -- thus far -- equally to every aircraft. ... The Air Force has failed to reach a point in F-22 production where it can be bought more efficiently. There is no "bargain" in going beyond the 184 that the taxpayers have already paid for.
The most telling characteristic that Lockheed and the Air Force are pushing to acquire additional F-22s is demonstrated in recent newspaper articles and advertisements. Nowhere do these items talk about a dangerous threat that makes more F-22s mandatory. Instead, they address how money for additional F-22s would be spent for defense corporations and jobs in more than 40 states.
