The crash leaves the Air Force with 185 Raptors out of the 195 that Lockheed Martin LMT +0.9 built starting in the mid. But I do know the next time a big military spending bill comes up, some politician is sure to remind us the next Russian or Chinese warplane requires us to spend even more. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter crashed in Florida on Friday.
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Will the F-22 finally be worth what we paid for it? I have no idea. Two contracts totaling 10.91 billion (9.55 billion for the airframe and 1.36 billion for engines) were awarded for Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) of the F-22. Senate in 2009 after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the air-superiority fighter was not well-suited for combat against enemies who didn't have modern planes (Iraq, Afghanistan). The overall sizes of the F-16, F-22, and the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) version of the F-35 that will be purchased by the US Air Force are compared below. But, unlike the F-22, the B-2 has been used frequently since it became operational in the early 1990s.įunding for the F-22 was killed by the U.S. The F-22 Raptors 143 million price tag per aircraft, along with the the declining state of the US economy and changes in the military requirements for post Cold-War challenges, led government. The F-22, by comparison, is much larger and comparable in size to the F-15 that it was designed to replace. Twenty-one of the iconic, stealthy planes were built by Northrop Grumman at a unit cost of almost $800 million each. The most expensive plane? Probably the B-2 Spirit bomber. taxpayers about $377 million including production and development.Īn older F-18 Super Hornet costs about $51 million per plane, while the newest fighter, the F-35, which will seemingly be shared with the world's air forces, costs about $135 million per unit, not counting development costs. The WSJ says an F-22 can drop a 1,000-pound guided bomb from 15 miles away.Įach F-22 cost U.S. The F-22 can also fly higher and drop guided bombs from a greater distance away from its target than other fighters. The US Air Forces F-22 Raptor has been described as 'the most lethal fighter aircraft in the world,' but until recently it was used primarily as a bodyguard for other aircraft. According to reports, Syria has advanced Russian radar installations that would have picked up less-stealthy military aircraft.