F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor extremely expensive
The Economist titled “The last manned fighter” in an article about the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the most expensive defense project in history. The wildly over budget Joint Strike Fighter project will cost around USD 382 billion after several cuts. That’s near the 2011 GDP of South Africa (USD 408 billion) and above Thailands GDP (USD 345 billion).
The aim of the Joint Strike Fighter program was to achieve huge efficiency gains by replacing most of the ageing fleet of USAF, Navy and Marines military aircraft:
- USAF General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon (replaced by F-35 A)
- USAF Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II (replaced by F-35 A)
- US Navy Boeing A/F-18 Hornet (Carrier variant F-35C)
- US Marines McDonell Douglas AV8B jump jet (replaced by F-35B, the STOVL variant)
With unit cost of USD 154m for the F-35A, USD 237.7m for the F-35B and USD 236.8m for the F-35C it is really questionable if the efiiciency gains are still high with this figures. The Pentagon publicly criticized Lockheed Martin’s performance on the F-35 program. MiGFlug’s American branch FlyFighterJet.com recently published an interesting blog post about the extremely expensive Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor being defeated by German Eurofighters in a dogfight during a joint military exercise. The F-22 is the larger, twin-engine 5th generation fighter with similarities, the F-35 drew elements from it. The unit cost for the F-22 Raptor is around USD 400m.
Today it seems the efficiency gains planned with the F-35 failed, but huge efficiency gains are made by using drones for many tasks.
More drone pilots trained this year in the USAF
The development is impressive: Not only did UAV attacks rise tenfold under president (and 2009 Nobel Peace Price awarded) Barack Obama, in 2012 more drone pilots than ordinary fighter jet and bomber pilots have been trained. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) make up the fastest growing segment within the US Air Force. As pointed out above: This is hardly surprising as the 5th generation fighter F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II are extremely over budget.
The drone pilots trained for remote warfare start as students at Holloman Air Force base. Even pilots who always had the dream to fly a real fighter jet start volunteering to fly Predator drones and other UAVs. The main reason is budget cuts for traditional fighter jets and a shift after the 9/11 attacks with the assymetric and borderless war against Al Qaida and the Taliban that followed. We had a talk with Steve about the changes in aerial warfare (first name only to help protect his identity). Steve is exactly one of those born to be a fighter pilot, who now teaches students how to fly UAVs at Holloman AFB. “I would prefer to fly real fighter jets, but we started to see our squadrons disappear”. Steve is still convinced that there are tasks that will have to be done by manned fighter aircraft for the time coming. Sensors can’t compensate everything. But the development is stunning: All sizes are being built, rumors about an insect spy drone that can not only spy but also inject toxins into enemies are probably not true (or a few years early). But the field for UAVs is huge, and as Steve points out: Often the weak point is the pilot, and we have to invest in his safety. When a UAVs is lost, we don’t have to rescue the drone, we just send another one.
Fighter Jets for Airshows only?
So, in the end, will we see Fighter Jets at airshows only? Are manned fighter aircraft the dinos of the sky anytime soon? Probably not very soon, but more and more tasks will be shifted to drones, that’s for sure. And that development will remain fast. And one thing is for sure: When a few fighter jets are used for airshows only, the Russians have the lead. If you don’t believe it, watch this MiG-29 OVT video:
The MiG-29 OVT is the vector thrust variant. Video has been taken at MAKS airshow on Zhukovsky Airbase near Moscow. Incredible performance, if you are in a hurry watch 05:48 – 06:05.
More Articles and Ressources
No unnamed aircraft cant replace aircraft with human. Aircraft must pilots by people because people have fast reactions and own brain.
Sorry but an unmanned craft and out perform any manned craft.
Agree with you must have pilot
Spread out over decades, dude, and it will be only slightly more expensive to operate than current F-15 and F-16s. Most of the gibberish about how expensive it also works in some accounting voodoo to make it appear more expensive than it is with out actually comparing JSF to equally treated (from an accounting perspective) alternatives… mostly motivated by hippie peaceniks abusing and misquoting GAO & CBO statistics.
What is the name of the author who wrote this?
Hi Steven,
We have different authors contributing to this blog – this article was written by MiGFlug co-founder Philipp
Marines. (Note the capital “M”.) Please get it right.
Thanks for the hint Joel – We corrected that typo!
If you have any doubts about the abilities and reaches of having a pilot in the craft…….just watch “Top Gun”.
Lol really Top Gun we’re all screwed but I like the idea we’ll fight future wars via the best movie dogfight
A drone will never be programmed to have human thought or emotions. These are sometimes needed in situations such as bombing an area with friendlies nearby, or for calculating the political repercussions of a particular action. This is why today’s drones always have remote operators (pilots). Yet even so, these drones will never offer the same situational awareness to a pilot that an actual cockpit offers. No remote camera system will allow an operator to see better than someone who is sitting in the cockpit, and even today there are lag times of several seconds between drone and operator, which can make the difference between life and death for either the drone or for friendlies on the ground. Fighters win.
Dude! You’re not serious. The technology is already here.
Brain computer interface is God Damn awwwwwwsome! There already is a unmanned hyperS jet in flight with astou ding evolution flight time no problems. My money’s in Russian China Aerocorp! The Indic people and north Korea team up is the UK and western countries better competitor! Hah yeah, boys! Even in East Africa and Argentina Air Force aerospace defense program is noteworthy. Why do you think that the Dummycrats are pushing female members of Congress to the Mike bein war hawkish and tough talk ’bout against the donald Trump, Isreal security fears and Jerusalem (the capital of all Christendom) belong to Catholic Palestine Arabs!!! Hey!
Isn’t political science, economic development and industrial engineering so interesting ? Who cares that the Republicans are woman haters and nigger living racists??! The Don can keep my vote! GDAP!
I m proud to be an Ultra Repub and getting a master’s degree in computer science and technology management!!
It’s 2022 and the USAF and Lockheed have announced the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter (6th gen) will be manned. So yeah, manned fighters will be around for a long time to come.