Despite $65B price, F22 jets can’t handle war
It’s the most expensive fighter jet ever built. Yet the F22 Raptor has never seen a day of combat, and its future is clouded by a government safety investigation that grounded the jet. The fleet of 158 F22s has been sidelined since May 3, following more than a dozen incidents in which oxygen was cut off to pilots, making them woozy. The malfunction is suspected of contributing to at least one fatal accident.
At an estimated cost of $412 million each, the F22s amount to about $65 billion sitting on the tarmac. The grounding is the latest chapter for a problem-plagued aircraft whose need was questioned before its first test flight.
The sleek, diamond-winged fighter was conceived during the Cold War in the early 1980s to thump a new generation of Soviet fighter jets in dogfights. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet fighters that U.S. military planners feared weren’t built. Now, while other U.S. warplanes pummel targets, the F22 has sat silently throughout battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
“For all that gigantic cost, you have a system you can’t even use,” said Winslow Wheeler, a defense budget specialist and frequent Pentagon critic at the Center for Defense Information. “It’s a fundamental explanation on how the country has gotten itself in the financial mess that it’s in today.”
Designed in Burbank, Calif., and built in Marietta, Ga., the F22 got the final go-ahead from Congress in 1991, thanks in part to lobbying by the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin — then Lockheed — and its nearly 1,100 subcontractors.
“The Cold War was over; it didn’t make any sense to go forward with the program,” said Thomas Christie, a retired official who worked at the Pentagon for 50 years. “But the Air Force built up such a large constituency up on the Hill that it couldn’t be killed.” The Air Force wanted an engineering marvel with features unmatched by other aircraft. Lockheed Martin delivered.
An engineering marvel
F22 engines have thrust-vectoring nozzles that can move up and down, making the plane exceptionally agile. It can reach supersonic speeds without using afterburners, enabling the plane to fly faster and farther. It’s also packed with cutting-edge radar and sensors, allowing the pilot to identify, track and shoot an aircraft before the enemy pilot can detect the F22.
“The Air Force piled it all on,” said Pierre Sprey, an aeronautical engineer who helped design the F16 and A10 jets. “It became a vehicle to carry a laundry list of technologies. The plane is a textbook case on the dangers of complexity.”
As the Air Force saw more opportunities for design changes, the F22 grew in cost. But when the plane entered service in 2005, it didn’t take long for problems to arise. In 2006, an F22 pilot was stuck in the plane on the ground for five hours because the canopy wouldn’t pop open. Firefighters had to cut the pilot out. A replacement canopy cost about $71,000.
In 2007, a software error in the navigational systems caused 12 F22s to turn around from a flight to Hawaii to Okinawa, Japan. Six days later, engineers corrected the error at a cost of $200,000 to $300,000, the Air Force estimated.
Last year, the fighters were inspected for corrosion “due to poorly designed drainage in the cockpit,” according to the House Armed Services Committee. Fourteen F22s had rusting parts replaced, the Air Force said.
Corrosion also is an issue with the plane’s radar-evading skin that the U.S. Government Accountability Office said, is “difficult to manage and maintain.” The plane takes about 3,000 people to maintain it, the Air Force said. The service calculated that for every hour in the air, the F22 spends 45 hours undergoing maintenance. Two decades ago, the U.S. government planned to buy 648 of the fighters for $139 million apiece; the cost almost tripled since then to $412 million, the Government Accountability Office said.
Recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the purchase in 2009 at 188 planes, a handful of which are still being built. The $273-million increase per plane translates to $51.3 billion in lost buying power for the F22 program.
“The reality is we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F22 has not performed a single mission in either theater,” Gates told a congressional panel in 2008.
Air Force officials said the F22 hasn’t been used in conflicts because its technology wasn’t needed. They added that all aircraft have problems, and the F22 is worth the high price tag because it is the “most advanced fighter aircraft, with unrivaled capabilities.”
“The aircraft was designed for high-threat environments, not what we’ve seen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,” said Lt. Col. E. John Teichert, who commanded the F22 squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in California until recently. “If the F22 prevents a military engagement with another country, it is well worth the money.”
7 crashes, 2 casualties
Even though the F22 hasn’t flown over a war zone, it experienced seven major crashes with two casualties — one of which may have been linked to the oxygen malfunction. Capt. Jeff Haney, 31, was killed in an F22 after a crash in the Alaskan wilderness in November. An Air Force investigation is examining the oxygen system. The Air Force said the order in May to keep the planes grounded was caused by 14 instances since June 2008 in which pilots experienced sickness related to bad oxygen flow.
John Jumper, a retired Air Force general, former Air Force chief of staff to President George W. Bush and fierce backer of the F22, said the problems need to be resolved soon so the planes and pilots return to service. “It’s very troublesome,” he said. “This is the sort of thing that deserves a thorough examination so it never can happen again.”
