PC. A True Multi-role F-22 Raptor instead of F-35.

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
With a post 1990 pod, what events, specs etc would allow the F-22 Raptor to be developed into a true multi-role aircraft in the same way as the F-15/16/18 series of aircraft?.

Not only this, it must also negate the need for the development of the F-35 series thus increasing production and dropping the fly away cost per aircraft.

Bonus points if you can get a naval variant developed to replace both the F-14/F-18 plus USMC F/18's.

Cheers filers
 
To kill the F-35 you need to release the F-22 for international sale.

The reason the F-35 and F-22 both exist is not military but political/economic.

If it were simply a matter of providing a replacement for US inventory aircraft the F-35 would have been strangled at birth as it should have been.

IMHO
 
I thought the F-22 was a multi-role fighter, once the skinny bombs had been developed, and it was much longer that the F-15 remained an air superiority fighter. As for stealthy tail-hooks, I have no idea.
 
Have the British do the sensible thing in 2006 and pull out and upgrade the Harrier. It might be 40 odd years old but it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much and it would have been in service and able to do as much as the F-35 (albeit not stealthily). That might have been enough for the white mammoth (it's far worse than a white elephant :D) to be cancelled and the F-22 be developed as a stop gap until a new programme is sorted out.
 
Have the British do the sensible thing in 2006 and pull out and upgrade the Harrier. It might be 40 odd years old but it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much and it would have been in service and able to do as much as the F-35 (albeit not stealthily). That might have been enough for the white mammoth (it's far worse than a white elephant :D) to be cancelled and the F-22 be developed as a stop gap until a new programme is sorted out.

Does the Harrier even have any growth room left by then?
 
Have the British do the sensible thing in 2006 and pull out and upgrade the Harrier. It might be 40 odd years old but it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much and it would have been in service and able to do as much as the F-35 (albeit not stealthily). That might have been enough for the white mammoth (it's far worse than a white elephant :D) to be cancelled and the F-22 be developed as a stop gap until a new programme is sorted out.

Our Harriers were knackered (literally, apparently the number left airworthy by the end was dropping by the week) and it would have left us with a carrier fleet with no aircraft when the Harriers were scrapped to save money in 2010.

The Harrier was nowhere near the F-35 in anything other than landing vertically. I liked them as an aircraft but they were what they were - modified light bombers from the 1960s.
 
The F-35 appeared from the merging of the requirements to replace the Harrier and replace the F-16

IMO having the F-22 completely replace the F-35 is unlikely, more likely you see what happened with the F-15 and F-16, a Hi/Low Mix

IMO one POD would be no 9/11 and an earlier pivot to Asia, without everything in the middle east sucking out all of the budget, more is spent on conventional capabilities, so the US keeps the 381 plane buy, and cost per aircraft goes down. With the pivot to Asia earlier there is greater tension with China and the US is more willing when Japan express interest, and sells to them, and with the ice broken Israel buys 24, and because Israel gets some the Saudi's want some and end up paying for upgrades for a more multi role version that gets sold to South Korea as a successor to their Slam Eagles and Canada to replace the CF-18 instead of the F-35, with other export customers to follow. Likewise in 2006 absent Iraq, the FB-22 gets developed as the Interim bomber. Thus you get the same dynamic as existed with the F-16 and F-15
 
Why would the British benefit from pulling out of a joint program that gets them access to the latest stealth aircraft knowledge without paying for it all themselves ? not to mention that they know the F35 has to be made to work as its the main aircraft for the USAF/USN/USMC/NATO and somebody else will pay 90% of the cost to fix it... (and the HMT can't cancel it without upsetting the rest of NATO so MOD is happy)
 
Why would the British benefit from pulling out of a joint program that gets them access to the latest stelth aircraft knowledge without paying for it all themselves ? not to mention that they know the F35 has to be made to work as its the main aircraft for the USAF/USN/USMC/NATO and somebody else will pay 90% of the cost to fix it... (and the HMT can't cancel it without upsetting the rest of NATO so MOD is happy)

Further not to mention the huge production share that BAE and a multitude of other UK companies have for the F-35B which means that a lot of the 'cost' to the MOD actually goes straight back to the UK Treasury.
 
Have the British do the sensible thing in 2006 and pull out and upgrade the Harrier. It might be 40 odd years old but it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much and it would have been in service and able to do as much as the F-35 (albeit not stealthily). That might have been enough for the white mammoth (it's far worse than a white elephant :D) to be cancelled and the F-22 be developed as a stop gap until a new programme is sorted out.
You might have a chance of the UK deciding to develop the CVF as CATOBAR carriers and deciding to ditch the F-35 in favour of the F/A-18 Advanced Super Hornet, but they're not going to build a pair of 70,000 tonne carriers only to fly a Harrier variant off them.

Talking of the Advanced Super Hornet, might that not provide the answer to the OP? It'd be cheap to develop and buy freeing up funding for more F-22's. Certainly it would have to be positioned as an interim replacement for the JSF requirement while a 5+ or 6th generation programme developed. It'd also mean either the Marines losing their ability to fly fixed-wing aircraft from their LHD's or developing a separate STOVL aircraft with an export potential limited to small guaranteed orders from Spain and Italy and possibly an order from Australia.

One thing's for sure, with no F-35 the Eurofighter and Rafale will likely do a lot better in international procurement competitions. Particularly the Eurofighter because the UK and Italy will still need to replace Tornado with something, so buying more Typhoons and accelerating development of its air-to-ground capabilities would be the most likely solution.

As for the USAF, Assuming that they procure around 400 F-22's in total and completely replace the F-15 C/D's what are the chances of them looking seriously at replacing the F-15E's with an F-22 derivative to increase the production up to around the 600 mark?
 
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The F22 is not a real multirole fighter. It mainly is an air dominance fighter, designed to shoot other fighters in air to air combat. It was designed to succeed the F15 that fills the same role. Usine the F22 for air to ground combat is like usine a formula one to deliver supplies.

Both planes never were conceived to be the only not even the numerical most important fighter of the USAF. They always needed a cheaper, lighter and more multirole fighter in big numbers. And that was the F16 for the F15.

Now the problem if the F22 were really multirole would have been its ridiculously high acquisition and iperating costs. Which would lead the US to have far less fighters than It actually has. And quantity has a quality of its own : that of being able to saturate the enemy forces.
 
-Have the ATF program be a multirole one from the start rather than an F-15 successor. (In other words, it's an F-4 successor instead). That way, it gets a streamlined targeting camera mount and a weapons bay designed for air-to-ground munitions from the get-go.

How you're going to do that is trickier-the ATF program started in the 80s, where the air-to-air threat was a lot more pressing, and the technological paradigm less conducive to such a plane. (See the A-12 Terrible Triangle).

If that does happen, then it's a piece of cake-it gets a higher priority regardless of threat context, and hundreds get built no matter what.
 

Archibald

Banned
I can't see why the F-22 couldn't pull a F-15E - Strike Raptor, now that's a name.
The F-22 has tremendous performance, notably supercruise, and delivering LGBs while super-cruising would extend their range and hitting force.
Wasn't the Tomcat "interceptor uber alles" adapted to carry bombs ?
It is just a matter of political will.
Of course the F/A-22 won't replace the A-10 in the CAS role, but neither the F-35 will.
 
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