The f117 Nighthawk was the totally geeky little brother of the B1 bomber, equipped with radar-evading technologies and lots of hard lines and sharp angles. The F-117 is being replaced by the much more sexy f22 raptor. The last of the radar-evading Nighthawks will fly to an airfield in Nevada next month to be mothballed.
Wright-Patterson, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal retirement ceremony that will feature an appearance by several stealth aircraft.
The Air Force accelerated the retirement of the F-117s to free up funding to modernize the rest of the fleet. The F-22 Raptor is claimed by several sources to be the world’s most effective air superiority fighter. The US Air Force claims that the F-22 cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.
I guess my question about the whole f22 raptor business would be why do we need a fighter plane, when there haven’t been many real aerial dogfights since WWII? Unless you count the ones that happened in Top Gun and other movies-the f22 raptor was itself featured in The Transformers. The f22 raptor is a very pretty plane, as far as stealth fighter planes go. The F-117 always looked like something that wasn’t quite finished, the F-22 Raptor looks complete.
As with most stories about aircraft and the US Government, it’s really a story about money. The F22 Raptor is certainly an impressive piece of hardware-and an expensive one. The Air Force puts the cost of each F-22 Raptor at $160 million, but this doesn’t take into account the very considerable research and development costs, which combine to push the cost per f22 Raptor up to somewhere between $228 million and $350 million, depending on who you believe.
There is also word that Australia’s defense minister said Saturday he wants the option of buying Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor -the f22 raptor is barred by U.S. law from sale overseas. “The Australian government doesn’t have any view about whether the F-22 should be or should not be part of the mix, but we do want the opportunity to consider the F-22,” Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Well, if can’t trust the Aussie, who can we trust?
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just a clarification
although i do not dispute the logic of your argument against the need for a better air superiority fighter. the statement that their has been no dog fights since WW2 is drasticly inacurate. the korean war, vietnam, the middle wast wars bettween iseal and it’s neighbors are the highlights of this list.