-22. Mostly worked, except for promised low-maintenance stealth (which still seems to be a problem), less-than-expected combat radius and horrible costs for DMS and upgrades...
Young: 100 F-22s Need $8 Billion For Upgrades
Pentagon acquisition executive John Young says the U.S. Air Force will spend $8 billion to upgrade 100 F-22 fighters, which he said would be "lesser models" without the modifications.
The money, which will be used to create and install better software and make other unspecified modifications, is included in the 2010 defense spending blueprint that will be handed to the incoming Obama administration, Young told reporters during a Nov. 20 breakfast in Washington.
"The Air Force had planned and accepted to have a two-tiered structure where some of the earlier jets were not fully capable jets, not to the Block 35 configuration, which provides important capabilities. I think something like 100 jets would kind of be lesser models" under that plan, Young said. "One thing that's in the [2010 budget plan] is to bring more of that fleet to common, high-end, capable configuration. The cost of that is $6.3 billion of [research and development].".........
But that's not all the next Pentagon leaders will have to debate about the super-secret Raptor, he said. He said operational tests have showed the plane is "proving very expensive to operate." Those tests have shown what he called a negative trend, meaning the "maintenance man-hours per flying hour has increased through those tests. The last one was a substantial increase."
Young also expressed concerns about the plane's mission-capable rates, saying recent marks in the "62 percent kind of range" are "troubling." He also said data shows the plane "meets some but not all" of its key performance parameters. "We're not seeing the mission-capable rates that we expected. And it's complex to maintain," Young told reporters. "I would highlight the maintenance on the plane is too high. They are struggling with some of the [low-observable features] and other issues.".............