The F-22 Raptor is certainly one of three new fighter sorts to have entered service within the U.S. Armed Forces because the finish of the Chilly Conflict, and started improvement within the mid-Nineteen Seventies to offer the U.S. Air Power with a fifth era successor to the F-15 Eagle for top depth air-to-air missions. It’s right now thought of one of many least profitable fighter packages of the post-Vietnam Conflict period, with the plane’s capabilities having been regularly watered down after the top of the Chilly Conflict, whereas deep cuts to deliberate orders meant solely 187 serial manufacturing plane have been ever constructed. The Air Power has from 2022 sought to start retiring F-22s from service only a fraction of the best way by their service lives, whereas availability charges have remained by far the poorest within the American fighter fleet regardless of the plane being among the many latest airframes in service.
A major shortcoming of the F-22 program has been its main overruns in upkeep wants, and in consequence in operational prices, that are by far the very best of any fighter kind within the Western world. The fighter was initially meant to have decrease upkeep wants than the F-15, permitting it to keep up larger availability charges and making it extra inexpensive to function. Though the F-22’s value per fighter was near triple that meant on account of main overruns, overruns in sustainment prices, which make up the massive majority of any fighter’s lifetime prices, have been the first issue which made it unaffordable. It was highlighted in early 2023 that maintaining the fleet of an estimated 184 remaining F-22s in service for the subsequent six and a half years to 2030 would value the Air Power $9 billion, equal to the price of procuring one other 110 new F-35As, which raised additional questions relating to the fee effectiveness of the Raptor fleet.
The F-22’s mission succesful charge has been round 50 % because the fighters have been first inducted by the U.S. Air Power in December 2005, and is anticipated to proceed to fall because the plane age, significantly because the Air Power is more and more compelled to cannibalise them for spare components. With the variety of plane in service already being small, this severely limits the F-22’s means to contribute to a serious battle. Low availability charges, and the restricted variety of fight coded plane, imply solely round 70 fighters will likely be accessible for fight operations, which is a restricted quantity when contemplating the immense prices of the broader fleet. Though the newer F-35 has additionally suffered from main overruns in operational prices and upkeep wants, which have equally compelled the providers to cut back deliberate procurement numbers and minimize flying hours, these points have been extra excessive on the F-22.
Had the F-22 fleet been extra inexpensive to maintain, and required much less upkeep to take action, it will seemingly have appeared value efficient to broaden manufacturing past 2011, permitting the plane to part out Chilly Conflict period F-15C/D fighters that suffered from many years of wear and tear that elevated their very own operational prices. An extended manufacturing run, in flip, could have allowed most of the obsolescence points dealing with the fighter, and significantly its avionics, to be addressed on later manufacturing batches. With the F-22 being impractical to area significantly in higher numbers, and much from value efficient particularly in comparison with the newer F-35A and F-15EX, nonetheless, the slicing in need of manufacturing was extremely helpful for the Air Power’s general fight potential.
