He said the force has "embarked on what we used to call unilateral disarmament."Īccording to Pierre Sprey, one of the founding members of the so-called ''fighter mafia'' the group that conceived America's most successful modern combat aircraft, the F-15, the F-16, and the A-10 - from the beginning, the Air Force designed the Raptor to be "too big to fail, that is, to be cancellation-proof."
Former top Pentagon weapons testing expert Thomas Christie (2001-2005) has been quoted as saying that the plane's huge costs has resulted in the Air Force lacking funds to modernize its other components adequately.
The massive maintenance bills are also draining away air force funds urgently required for other projects.
This is far short of what the USAF and the contractors had anticipated.ĭefense officials in the know have been quoted in the media as saying that the aircraft can just about manage 1.7 hours of hassle-free flying before contracting a 'critical' ailment other point out that the Cold War-era conceived fighter has, so far, cost an average of $350 million apiece and are just not a priority in an age of small wars and terrorist threats. The Raptor has become a contentious issue between the US Congress and the Obama administration with defence secretary Robert Gates halting further production of the $138 million aircraft, beyond the stipulated 187. The F-22 has never flown in combat missions over Iraq or Afghanistan. On an average, the Defense Department acknowledged this week, just 55 per cent of the deployed F-22 fleet was available to fulfil stipulated missions in the period from October last year to this May. Local media reports reveal that even as most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, the reverse is the case with the F-22. (See: Lawsuit claims Lockheed's F-22 Raptor has defective stealth coatings ) Pentagon sources say that these problems have been bedevilling the aircraft since the mid-1990s. Olsen claims that Lockheed covered up its problem with defective coatings by applying 272kg (600lb) worth of extra layers. Seemingly lending credence to whistleblower ex-employee Darrol Olsen's claims, that the company knowingly used "coatings that Lockheed knew were defective," are reports that not only are these coatings susceptible to peeling off but also that they are vulnerable to rains and other abrasion. This adverse ratio effectively pushes its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, which easily outstrips the cost of keeping other fighters in the skies those which the Raptor is meant to replace. Internal documents, as well as Pentagon officials, reveal that Lockheed Martin's F-22 now requires more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour that it spends in the skies. With a whistleblower lawsuit against Lockheed Martin grabbing headlines for making the startling allegation that the US Air Force's top-of-the-line fighter, the F-22 Raptor, has been supplied defective stealth coatings, further information is now emerging from Pentagon sources that the F-22 programme is indeed the source of substantial worry for the defence establishment. Lockheed's F-22 Raptor – a maintenance nightmare