Blake Hall
The Air Force is finally closing the book on the F-22 Raptor and confirming that it will not resume production of the aircraft.
Designed during the Cold War for air-to-air combat, the F-22 Raptor started performing combat operations in the mid-2000s. Its stealth technology and weapon system was so sophisticated that it became a federal crime to export the fighter jet or any of its blueprints abroad. However, this embargo spelled the jet’s demise after only 187 were made. Critics claimed it cost too much to make the F-22, and since it couldn’t sell overseas the military might as well replace it with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The last F-22 was delivered in 2012.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the complications with the F-35 and demand to send better aircraft against the Islamic State in Syria caused both Congressmen and military officials to hope that the F-22 would make a comeback.
But it is not to be. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said that even though most people want the F-22 Raptor to come back, restarting the program was too expensive and time-consuming to meet the service’s needs.
If you were to ask [air force chief of staff Gen Mark Welsh] or any of the uniformed officers in the Air Force, they would probably tell you they would love to have more F-22s.
The original plan was to have quite a few more additional F-22s, and it was a regrettable set of circumstances – a combination of budget overruns and taking way longer than originally projected – that actually caused what became an early termination for the F-22 program.
The very prospect of re-opening that [F-22 line] is pretty much a non-starter. We’ve got what we’ve got. We’ve got the F-35 coming, approaching initial operating capability. It’s not the same, but they will complement one another and we’ll have to go forward as is.