Well, as JM says, the F-22 was never going to be offered for export, so there's no way to compare how other factors might have impacted its sales or cost. But yes, it does seem foolish to have spent all that money on development and then only make 189, not all of which were produced to the same standard.

While the F-35 seems more advanced from what we know, I wouldn't be surprised if there were things about the F-22 that were using more advanced and secret technology, but no one outside of the top secret circles would know.

Just like the B-2. The public doesn't know everything it can do by design.

To contrast that, the F-35's general capabilities are known because it is being bought all over the world, even if the details are classified.



The Jedi Master

I guess I could do some research on this, but I haven't - I always wonder if the planes the US sells have been "de-tuned" in some way vs. the American version, like there's a "secret sauce" kept just for the US versions.

on the f-16 the software source code is not sold, for example.
exception israel hence israeli vipers are somewhat unique.

We been using the air taken from the engines with passenger planes for decades without much problems. There's no way a 16 hour flight will have enough air on board alone for 600 passengers unless air is taken from an outside source.

Yes, the F-35 is only offered to the closest US allies, at least in the foreseeable future. That pretty much means NATO members and only a very few other countries (and close US allies) outside NATO such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Israel and Singapore.
But wait! Of those 5 countries listed above 4 of them already ordered the F-35 while the remaining (Singapore) is said to be very interested in acquiring the F-35.

Regarding Brazil, yes like you posted the initial favourite of the 3 finalist (Rafale, Super Hornet and Gripen NG) was the Rafale however this fighter aircraft was found to be extremely expensive - just look at Qatar's Rafale purchase contract value!
Next it was said that the favourite fighter aircraft was the Super Hornet, this with the new (back then) President Dilma Rousseff which albeit from the same political party as her predecessor claimed to favour closer relations with American countries (including the US) than for example Europe. However like you said, due to the "NSA/espionage scandal" the Gripen NG was chosen instead. Gripen NG program also promised to Brazil a closer partnership compared to the other two competitors.

Well I won't say that stopping the F-22 production was a mistake.
Of course having more F-22s would be great - Who wouldn't like to have more F-22s??

However the truth is that the F-35 is a far more capable aircraft than the F-22. Perhaps not performance wise (in terms of max speed, supercruise and perhaps even agility) but in the rest the F-35 should be much better than the F-22 and specially and above all the F-35 is better in one of the most important factors - Cost! Yes, the F-22 was costing around $140-$150 Million USD each in later production stages however the F-22 doesn't have nearly the capabilities of the F-35 - we just need to look at the F-22 and F-35 cockpits respectively.

Honestly I believe that the F-15C will inevitably be replaced by the F-35A. However this is something that the USAF won't admit anytime soon since this would be a sort of admitting that the F-22 program somehow failed or that it was/is pointless/redundant.
Resuming, I believe that the F-35A replacing the F-15C will be something that will be done "silently" and "slowly", with the F-15Cs being retired at a slow pace while more F-35As come online.

I pretty much doubt that the F-22 has more advanced technology than the F-35. It seems clearly that's exactly the opposite where some of the (more advanced) technology of the F-35 is being retrofitted to the F-22 - The RAM/stealth coating being a top example of this.

From what I could gather and read there's only a technology which the F-22 likely has which surpasses everything else, which is: Stealthy Variable Air Intakes.

In order for an aircraft to effectively surpass Mach 2 (something that the F-22 is quite capable of) the aircraft must have Variable Air Intakes. However Variable Air Intakes drastically increase Radar Cross Section (RCS) or resuming an aircraft with Variable Air Intakes will be much less stealthy than aircraft without Variable Air Intakes, like the F-35, F-16, F/A-18, Rafale, etc...

However it seems that LM somehow managed to equip the F-22 with Variable Air Intakes that don't increase the RCS much.

Regarding the F-22 not being offered for export while the F-35 is, again remember that the F-35 is only being offered to the closest US Allies. Even countries that are considered "traditional US Allied" like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are being "excluded" from the F-35.
Besides the main reason why the F-35 was designed from the beginning to be exported was exactly to drive down its costs (both acquisition and operational costs) - basically the only way for even the USA to be able to acquire thousands of these aircraft.

The main issue is the F-35 isn't capable of the speed, range, or altitude of the F-22. It will have the same AAM armament, which means outside of gun battles it will be equally capable in an A2A battle.

BUT

In a scramble from a QRA base, the F-22 and F-15C will beat an F-35 in time-to-intercept every day. The F-35 will remain hidden, unlike the F-15C, which will help in that arena, but if it's another 9/11 "race to stop the plane before it reaches the target" scenario, the F-35 may not get there in time. Sure, even the F-15s failed that day because of when they were scrambled, but they had a better chance.

The F-35 wasn't designed to be an interceptor, and it will always fall short in that area compared to the F-22.



The Jedi Master

negative as speed and altitude gives huge boost to missile range. high alt super sonic maneuverability also means it is easier to defend against enemy. even without stealth or those high tech gadgets the f-22 simply would pwn bvr like nobody due to its aerodynamics.

however i feel that none of that is really relevant as given the huge payout incentives to involved parties (e.g. defense big corp, political elites, military top brass..) of the f-35 deals, the equation is unavoidably skewered towards the -35 and against the -22. i think following the money, tis a problem the anti f-35 guys can get at.

for fighter capability everything is classified so it's i say you say but in the end nobody really knows:|

When comparing the F-22 to the F-35, sure the F-22 is faster than the F-35. But now in terms of altitude or maximum operational ceiling things aren't probably much different between both aircraft. The F-22 is reported to have a ceiling of around 60,000ft while the F-35 "exact" ceiling is unknown it's however known that the F-35 ceiling is very high and well above 50,000ft which is still impressive.

Now the F-35 has a huge advantage over the F-22 which is DAS. As I mentioned here in the past quite often, DAS functions as a 360 degree (spherical) IRST a capability that the F-22 completely lacks. As such I would say that there's a good chance that when facing head to head that the F-35 may have an advantage over the F-22 due to carrying an "IRST" (DAS) which could potentially detect the F-22 before the F-22 radar can detect the F-35.

But yes, the F-22 is better performance wise than the F-35 but then again, what's better: To be faster or to be able to shot and kill first?


Now comparing the F-35 to the F-15C namely in terms of speed, it seems to me that you're looking at the max. speed "paper specs" figures for both aircraft - Mach 2.5 for the F-15C and Mach 1.6 for the F-35 - but you're forgetting the most important part:
The F-15C can only reach its max. speed of Mach 2.5 in a clean configuration, which means completely unarmed and without any pylons and any other kind of external stores. On the other hand the F-35 can reach Mach 1.6 with a full internal weapon load such as 2xAMRAAMs and 2x2000lb Bombs or in an air-to-air configuration with 4xAMRAAM's or in the future Block 4 configuration with 6xAMRAAMs (all internal).
Moreover the F-35 was so far tested at a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 or 1,200mph (1,930 km/h) - but in order to attain Mach 1.6 and 1,200mph this was likely done at altitudes of around 10,000ft (since Mach is not a constant - it's a speed which varies with air temperature and as such with altitude). What I mean with this is that the speed of 1,200mph is equivalent to around Mach 1.8 at for example 40,000ft and this is likely the F-35's true maximum speed (in Mach values).

Now getting back to the F-15, once you start adding pylons and weapons (even lighter air-to-air missiles) the maximum speed drastically drops. For example it seems that the F-15C max. speed with a loadout of 8 (eight) Air-to-Air Missiles is Mach 1.78 - That means that the operational maximum speed of the F-15C is around the same or even slightly lower than the maximum operational speed of the F-35 with an internal load of 6xAMRAAMs and again the service celling of both aircraft seems to be similar.


Therefore I'm pretty confident that the F-35 will be a better "interceptor" than the F-15C.

The problem is that you can only shoot what you can "see" or more precisely - detect and track!

If the F-35 can detect the F-22 first (see my previous posts about DAS and frontal RCS) than any performance advantages such as speed become secondary if not "useless".

The same also and obviously apply to any other aircraft - For example in the past, the F-16 shot down the much faster and much higher celling Mig-25 without suffering losses.

If they worry about their taxpayer money, find what's wrong with it. Everybody would then understand. The 35 program gets much publicity anyway. the root cause of the controversy is whether tax money are being mishandled, rather than whether the lightning is a capable fighter, isn't it? Surely it's about the money? So why not follow the money and see how it's being spent? why haven't some good old investigative journalist or motivated citizens went and dug at the money problem.

Instead every article is by some amateur blogger that doesn't even know more than me except he Googled more. Nobody cares about military hobbyist assessment of fighter capability based on blind guesses. One can only convince oneself with it. Something seems wrong here, maybe something has cracked in this democratic process. maybe it is a clown's scheme to get the stupid ignorant public's panties in a twist so they at least aren't bored.

Money is easy. Cost plus contracts. There is zero incentive for gov't contractors to cut costs because the gov't reimburses them for it.

The only time they do is when the gov't forces them to do it. However, considering how much is spent on classified stuff is usually also classified, it's a death spiral.

Combine that with P&W inexplicable hiding of their engine prices "for competitive reasons" (when they have a sole source contract since GE's alternate was cancelled and there are no other engines available let alone qualified) and you can only see high-level costs in the public budget.

Anything else would require violating company privacy or gov't classification laws.






The Jedi Master

the interesting stuff hides behind those. something like say the recent Mossack Fonseca. if they can find something to that caliber they have an impact. anything else i think it's background noise like any other big defense project in the past and it's just a time waster:| the internet only reverberates that noise.

I agree that "almost nobody" or rarely someone seems to have the desire to make a throughout and detailed analysis of the F-35 program, specially in the so called "mainstream press".
I believe that a combination of events surrounding the F-35 program made the program the "perfect target" for all critics, naysayers and "doomsday prophets". Some of these events are:

- The program cost involved huge amounts of money never seen in any other fighter aircraft program. However many people (including many "experts") forget that this is a three-in-one program where basically three different aircraft are being developed, the F-35A (CTOL), the F-35B (STOVL) and the F-35C (CATOBAR) this despite these 3 aircraft share a very similar airframe and the same avionics. On top of this, the F-35 program total cost includes the operational costs of the aircraft during a 40 year timeframe, something that again no other fighter aircraft program ever did!
Therefore, how much would it cost to develop the so needed 3 completely different CTOL, STOVL and CATOBAR aircraft plus their respective 40 year operational costs if the F-35 route wasn't followed?? This is the "million dollar question" that many, including the "mainstream media" don't seem willing to answer or to find the answer.

IMO, this is due to a combination of the following factors:

1- "Bad news" such as a program failure sells much more and much better than "Good news" such as highlighting the good point and success of a program. This is a "major point" for the "mainstream media".
2- Lockheed Martin's PR (Public Relations) department seems to leave much to be desired! Most of the information about all the milestones and the very good points about the F-35 doesn't seem to come from Lockheed Martin (the developer and manufacturer) but instead from somewhere else. Even more important and for people that don't have much knowledge about combat aircraft is that the information that praises the F-35 program that comes out to the public is most of the times somehow hard to understand (a bit "technical") for the same people that again don't have much of a knowledge about combat aircraft.
3- I'm sure there are lots of pressure either on governments and on "mainstream media" by Lockheed Martin's competitors. Two (2) of these competitors are "only" the two biggest aerospace companies on the planet, I'm obviously talking about Boeing (with for example the Super Hornet) and Airbus/EADS (with the Eurofighter Typhoon). Don't underestimate the influence power of these two companies (and not only) over governments and media companies around the western world.
4- There were indeed cost/budgets overruns and delays with the F-35 program. However was there any modern aerospace program that also didn't suffer from cost/budgets overruns and delays? The answer is a clear NO.
5- Many people ranging from journalists, to former "aerospace engineers", to some former "military men", to bloggers, etc... bet on the failure of the F-35 or that the F-35 wouldn't perform as it should/advertised and/or that it would cost much more than it should. However all these people were proved to be wrong, time after time.
Unfortunately nowadays it seems to be so hard to admit: "I was wrong"!
And as such most of these people instead of admitting being wrong they just keep insisting on their fake arguments, perhaps who knows, with the hope that repeating something false/fake arguments over and over again they would someday become "true".

We live in a world where critics have no accountability, and being wrong 9 times in a row is forgotten as long as that tenth time they can triumphantly crow "I told you so!" Then they are seen as knowledgeable experts.

Many of them have worse track records than weather forecasters, which is saying a lot.



The Jedi Master

That's very true indeed, Jedi Master!

And of course the Internet for all the good that it brings, it also brings "bad stuff" and one of these "bad stuff" is exactly helping to perpetuate and promote (worldwide) these so called "experts".

With this edition of Red Flag having ended, the F-35 performance and kill ratio was even better with the F-35 achieving a kill ratio of 20 to 1 (in favour of the F-35, obviously):

https://www.f35.com/news/detail/f-35a-records-20-to-1-kill-ratio-at-red-flag-exercise