The jet was brought down by mechanical failure and not a missle. The pilots were recovered safely. You don't think our government could be sweet-talked into building an F-22 to replace this one do you?
May be very difficult to find out what happened because we are not going to send an accident investigation team in for quite a while. Either the aircrew has a really good idea what happened or it will remain speculation. About the only thing I can think of that would bring down a twin engine fighter as tough as an F-15E would be an engine explosion that took out the hydraulic lines or started a bad fire. They were at medium-high altitude so enemy action is very unlikely, especially with their ECM suite and Libya's antiquated SAMs. With JDAMs and good target coordinates, no need to get low at all to have really good accuracy. The near vertical impacts also cut down on collateral damage. Killing the F-22A was a Holy Grail for the liberals. There will very likely be no more attrition F-22s, but Boeing can still pump out F-15Es. Taz Terry Phillips
For a moment I thought an F-15 was lost in an Air to Air battle I was gonna say..... Most F-15's are lost by its own power, a few years ago there was a structure failure on a C model during flight. Japan had problems with its missle systems and fired on another one blowing it out of the sky so yeah the F-15 pretty much is so great that its pretty much defeats itself sometimes The F-22 is kind of pointless because it was designed as an Air supriority fighter to defend against Russian Migs back in the 80's, I strongly doubt we can send out F-22's to do the same job as an F-15E Strike Eagle which is why the F-35 was created. Even then do we really need stealthy fighter bombers? The F-15 by far the greatest aircraft built and will remain that way for many years. The F-22 is waaaaaaaay to expensive and limited for what it can do.
The problem is that we would be overwhelmed by any serious encounter with China simply by the numbers. We would need ALL the F22's that we could ever get and they would still overwhelm us with numbers. Yes the F22 is expensive, but you actually need a lot more front line fighters than we currently have to remain a world power as the F15 becomes increasingly obsolete. Against a third world power that doesn't have a modern air defense system, the F15 is fine, but heaven forbid if we ever really need an air force, ours is getting more outdated every day.
Please explain to me how the overwhelming numbers of Chinese fighter planes are going to defeat 12+ Ohio-Class Trident Ballistic missile submarines, each able to launch over 96 individually targeted nuclear ICBM's ? Do F-22s serve a valuable purpose? Sure they do. Can we afford to buy 800-1000 of them? Nope. Can we defend our nation without them? Without question. For decades the US has gone at defense spending as if foreign invasion was imminent despite the obvious fact that we have a nuclear capability that ensures no invasion will ever occur. Its way past time to realize that the most effective defensive strategy is also the cheapest: nuclear weapons. Terry
You're dreaming.... The only way that you can project power is with conventional systems. I you belive that we would pull the nuke trigger over Taiwan you are dreaming. Same thing with Japan or South Korea. The only way that we would pull that trigger is if there was a nucelar attack on the USA. If US territory isn't attacked we won't use the nukes so there is no deterrent. China can and soon will simply take over Taiwan when they know that we can't stop them. Without a credible conventional deterrent we have nothing.
Terry- That is a really infantile view of national defense. The reason we have nukes and they have nukes is to ensure nobody uses them. Do you honestly think we are going to nuke China if they, for instance, invade Taiwan? Obama has already stated no first use of nukes against other nuclear nations (not rogue nations, mind you) and that includes China. Dumb thing to say, but he said it. We had no such policy in Europe when it appeared (probably not true) that the Soviet Union had overwhelming conventional superiority and the only way to stop them was with nukes. So any wars we fight will, in overwhelming probability, be conventional and the nuclear forces we have will remain deterrents. Maybe you have heard the term? If your conventional forces get their rears kicked, you have lost the war. Invasion of the US is not the question. Who wants to invade a nation where nearly every household has a gun? Rethink on your part necessary. Taz Terry Phillips
Yeah, that's what they said about the F-117 before the Gulf War. And when Russia and China start exporting their Pak-FAs and J-20s and other advanced surface to air defenses to all the countries we might be at war with in the future (North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, etc) we'll wish we had more F-22s. In the first Gulf War, downtown Baghdad was one of the most heavily defended airspaces in the world and the F-117 was the only jet that could fly in and out untouched. Before that war, people said the F-117 was a relic of the cold war and wouldn't be useful. The same shortsighted clowns are saying that about the F-22 as well. Also, when the F-15 was built it was an air superiority fighter and not a strike fighter like it is now. Chances are, like most every jet ever built, the F-22 will be adapted to roles that it was not initially built for.
