Comparing them to the Russian’s brochure paper airplane isn’t fair. Even if the PAK-FA cost 100 mil (which it won’t even approach)…nobody could afford it (from its traditional pool of customers). Yes you can always make a program cheaper by reducing features. Do you think that it translates directly in the same way between F-22 development and the mythical paper-airplane development? There’s a learning curve thats not very forgiving in these things…and if you’ve never build anything of the sort (nevermind had a fully functioning aviation industry for the past 20 years)…you’re not going to be able to acheive the same technological level at the same price. Far from it.

Thats not really the point of it…in the air nobody cares how much your plane costs compared to mine.

But again I don’t think any of you are making a very convincing case here for the NEED for more F-22s. If the purpose of the F-22 was to replace the F-15C in the air superiority role…then its doing so on a 1-2 basis. For an aircraft offering a 10 fold improvement in capability, I don’t see this as such an unreasonable rate of replacement. And cosndiering it has a good 20 year lead an any other similar aircraft that might pop up…the urgency isn’t there. Not when its part of a combined arms team made up of F-35s, UCAVs and lots else.

However, they also retired all F-117 wit hthe expection of more F-22s.

One must not forget that America has lots of allies fighting against organizations labelled terrorists which need dedicated COIN aircraft (for example the Phillippines, Thailand or Indonesia).

For those they make a lot of sense. But for the RAF?

The RAF and NATO might be out of Iraw and afghanistan before the first Sqn. would be ready for battle. And then, what are they good for. The next conflict might have advanced enemy fighters and SAMs and a real threat from air defence systems, which would make those fighting crop dusters sitting ducks.

The F-35s are getting cheaper every year.

attached at full res
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There were similar graphics available for the F-22 showing that the last of the 750 would cost less then the F-15E. We know how it ended.

In 20 years the USAF will have less combat aircraft, so detachments will be smaller. Strike groups will be smaller. So in the end they will need more small tankers, then few big ones. KC767 fits that need perfectly, while KC-777 is the ultimate KC-10 replacement.

That is the point. If you think KC30 is better ,then you must ahree that KC-777 is even better. So either KC-767 to meet the baseline needs of the USAF or KC-777 to get the best. There is not a single reason to pick KC-30.

Page 14 says it all. BUY AMERICAN

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As I have already pointed out, the last A310 was delivered in in June 1998.

BUT given that the A300 was still in production & the commonality of the A300/A310, ‘bringing back’ the A310 would not be THAT difficult.

Not difficult at all, but the A310 was inferior to the 767 and Airbus knew this.

No the fault was made by US politicians when they though they could ‘fix’ the problem of the tanker lease by requiring another competition even though the only ‘competition’ to what the USAF had chosen had been rejected as not meeting its requirements.

I agree on this

Unfortunately since the just HAS to be a competition, the A330 can not (even though it should) be rejected.

Has the American leadership really gotten that spineless?