“Fighter Crisis”: The US wants to retire its best-ever F-22 aircraft

“Fighter Crisis”: The United States wants to retire its best-ever F-22 aircraft Anzhelika Baybak

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Fighter/US Air Force Photo

The US Air Force plans to get rid of its best in history Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters. The reason for this is the inability of the Block 20 version to conduct combat operations, as well as the very expensive maintenance of the aircraft.

The media note that F-22 fighters – the most powerful and most advanced fighters in the US arsenal. Moreover, these aircraft are probably the largest fighter aircraft available today. However, half a billion dollars a year are needed to repair and maintain them.

Why the US wants to retire the most powerful F-22

According to The Telegraph, maintaining old F-22s is very expensive. This is especially true now that the US Air Force is trying to finance new fighters, bombers, radar aircraft, drones, satellites and nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

So the US government plans to retire 32 fighters The F-22 is a modified version of Block 20, but the aircraft will not be eliminated. The fact is that Block 20 is a training aircraft on which American pilots train. If they are eliminated, the military will be forced to transfer to conventional F-22s, and therefore the number of aircraft available for combat operations will decrease.

The Air Force has not documented how it would train or test the F-22—current Block 20 functions—without Block 20 aircraft. It also does not document the challenges combat units might face without mission-ready Block 30/35 aircraft. will be used for training or testing instead of Block 20, says a document from the US Government Accountability Office.

The media note that today the US Air Force has 150 combat-ready Block 30/35 . If the Block 20 version is written off, there will be 129 Block 30/35 fighters that are capable of combat operations. Other aircraft will have to be allocated for exercises and testing. In practice, the US Air Force will have only 75 combat-ready aircraft, and the withdrawal of Block 20 will further reduce this number – to 64 – 65 fighters.

“That's awfully low considering the enormous responsibility that Raptor squadrons bear. The Air Force, and indeed the entire US Army and those of its closest allies, is counting on this tiny force of F-22s to lead the fight for control of the air in the great a war, say, with China,” journalists note.

Moreover, the publication notes that the United States could find itself in a dangerous position if it retires 32 fighters. Thus, the Air Force may lose control of the sky.

It is known that the US Air Force also wants to prematurely retire Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle bombers, as well as reduce the purchase of new ones F-15EX.

These cuts would have been less of a concern if the Air Force's other production fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, had not was such a disaster. The air force is facing a fighter crisis. But this crisis will not be solved by decommissioning training aircraft and reducing the air superiority force, which is probably already too small, the publication concludes.