Fake News? Trump approves F-22s for Israel
 

Has anyone else seen the chatter about F-22s for Israel. As the story below says the Obey Amendment to 1998 Department of Defense Appropriations Act still prevents this. So I assume this is mainly to satisfy either internal Israeli concerns about the F-35s for the UAE and/or the US Israeli lobby in the run up to the US elections.

I can't see F-22 production ever being restarted unless the the USAF had approved funding for a substantial number of additional ones. Nor, as the Forbes article quoted below says, does the US have an excess of F-22s to offload.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-...israel-report/

Forbes' report a few days earlier added a note of realism:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebasti...likely-to-fly/

The Haaretz story also quotes IDF sources about opposing views over the agreement to acquire V-22s the Airforce not wanting them but the ground forces are in favour. THe airforce would prefere CH-53Ks.

Japan would be doing backflips if true. Emphasis on the if true bit and Trump not trying to buy more votes...

USAF leadership is on record of recent saying the next generation fighter (my presumption being an eventual replacement for the F22) has already flown. Think it would be off to restart the F22 line given this.

The Executive Branch doesn't authorise foreign military sales, Congress does. Congress has already passed a Bill in 1998 that banned the export of the F-22 to foreign nations.

This is fake news.

Maybe, maybe not.

But, to be frank, the F-22 force is a token gesture that has no real military value in the defence of the USA. Three squadrons outside Washington, two in Alaska and one in Hawaii. The last time they were asked they could generate 33 airframes CR between them.

The maintenance is mind-blowingly expensive, upgrades even more so and long delayed and repairs take years.

If they passed on 24-48 of the 187 airframes produced to the Israelis I’m sure it could be talked up as a major gesture, and doubtless the Israelis would modify the software and get them working in short order. But the major effect would be political, not military.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericteg...fight-tonight/

Whilst there will likely be no more F-22s because of the cost of starting a manufacturing line, there is talk of more than one country (Japan is one) approaching the US for an F-22/F-35 Hybrid.

Perhaps there will soon be clean desk space within contractors for a new long range Air Dominance fighter airframe with F-35 generation electronics that can be 'safely' sold to friends as a 5.5 Gen Fighter, whilst the silver bullet 6th gen fighter is being worked on behind the curtain? You might even sell a Super Duper Hornet with the CFTs, low RCS podded weapons bays and the latest electronics in the interim.

I feel that aerospace mega corps will be looking to their defence businesses to prop up the civil side for the next 5 to 10 years.

All of the speculation about this comes from a statement made to Defense News in September by USAF's top acquisition official. ALL he said was that a "Demonstrator" had flown and that they had broken records doing it. He did NOT say it was a production-ready craft or even a prototype. There was no information about what it was, what it did, how representative of an operational aircraft it might be, if at all. The "records" could be how they did it, how fast they did it (you can move really fast in the Black world) if Virtual Reality or Artificial Intelligence was used, if it was an advanced unmanned platform, the type of construction, how it flew, how it achieved any stealth it might have, etc.

For example, look up TACIT BLUE. That was a demonstrator, not an operational craft or a prototype of anything. We're probably seeing something similar here. Still impressive, but not something that's going to be filling the flight lines in a few years.

If there is a difference between Israel and Japan, it will be in their respective abilities to stop leakage of highly classified information to those whose names shall not be spoken. (Assuming that it has not all been leaked already.)

Boeing: Airpower Teaming System

Don’t think the F22 will be competitive for much longer.

Or did someone confuse the F-22 for the V-22 perhaps?

I'd argue that "loyal wingman" combat air systems such as this one will only make the F-22, and the F-35, considerably more competitive in heavily contested environments. The unique command and control capabilities of the F-22 makes it a force multiplier, and putting more assets in the air with similar low observable capabilities will only make it more effective.

I just hope the RAF follows this path. I think Taranis might be similar?

Another difference is that one of them can pay for it with their own money.

DoD and State decide who they think should get what. Congress is then informed of the decision and they have the power to overrule the decision. The legislation you're thinking of is the Obey Amendment to the 1998 Defense Appropriations Act. Each year after that it was renewed for that year's appropriations act. I don't know if they still add it each year since at this point the chances of F-22 production resuming are slim to none. The production line no longer exists. Were not even sure if all the tooling that was supposed to be preserved is intact. The skilled workforce has disbursed, as has the supply chain that provided subcomponents (some companies no longer even exist).

We're talking mega bucks to get it back into production and you'd end up with an aircraft that would have some dated technology for not that much less than a new design aircraft.

Given that not all of those are combat capable, can't see USAF being willing to give up any of the ones that are. To get an idea of how precious they are, one badly damaged Raptor instead of being written off was painstakingly repaired at a cost that exceeded what it cost to build the complete plane initially . This was because there was no chance of getting a remplacement so it was considered worth the cost.

BVRAAM, forget Taranis as a teamed asset. That large and expensive UCAV seemed to vanish into a Franco-British agreement a few years back though it may yet resurface as a national project. What you mean is LANCA (Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft) - and associated projects such as the Mosquito TDP, which will deliver a flying demonstrator in the next couple of years. It’s designed to give Tempest (and probably Typhoon/F35) a ‘loyal wingman’ and to beef up the RAF’s combat mass for less money than buying manned aircraft. Similar in concept to the USAF’s Skyborg and RAAF’s Airpower Teaming System.

That's the badger.

I do find the 'Affordable' part of the acronym rather amusing, if I'm honest. I can't name a single O/S major defence procurement in the last 20 years that has been remotely 'affordable' off the top of my head. Late and over budget seems to be the popular thing - it keeps the shareholders happy, I guess...

Great to have you back. :hmm:

‘Affordable’ only in relative terms. IIRC the stated aim of LANCA is a cost of 10% of a manned fighter to buy and fly - hence you dramatically boost your combat mass for the same outlay. More sensors/weapons/jammers in the fight, an increased sort issue for the enemy and, ultimately, some decoys to ‘suck up’ the first volley of spears if needed......

Will they be controllable via the pilot in the cockpit of the piloted asset? Or will they be controlled similarly to conventional RPAS systems, via a GCS?
Surely for jets such as F-22 and F-35, that would require a significant upgrade to achieve? It may be something that comes as standard with the 6th gen.

The clue is in the term ‘loyal wingman”. The plan is that they are capable of either autonomous action or respond to commands given by a formation leader. My sense is that they will not be ‘flown’ in a traditional sense (too much workload for the manned aircraft, lack of real estate and far too much bandwidth/electronic noise), more given tasks and then rely upon AI and programming to execute them.