Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: F-22

July 12, 2009: Congressional hearings over building more F-22s has led 
to the release of data about how much it costs, per flight hour, to 
maintain the aircraft. It's $44,000 per flight hour, compared to $30,000 
per hour for the older F-15 that the F-22 is replacing. The F-22 
per-hour cost is nearly twice what it is for the F-16. While it requires 
19 man hours of maintenance for each F-16 flight hour, the F-22 requires 
34 hours. The manufacturer originally said it would be less than ten 
hours. Most of this additional F-22 expense (and man hours) is for 
special materials and labor needed to keep the aircraft invisible to radar.
The main problem is the radar absorbent material used on the aircraft. 
The B-2 had a similar problem, which was eventually brought under 
control. But even then, the B-2 cost more than twice as much to operate 
than the half century old B-52. The B-2 and F-22 use different types of 
radar absorbent materials, so many of the B-2 solutions will not work 
for the F-22.
Some of the F-22 electronics are still not as reliable as the air force 
would like. The F-35 uses a different approach to defeating radar 
signals, and the manufacturer insists that F-35 maintenance costs will 
be closer to that for the F-15, than for the F-22. But Lockheed Martin 
has been saying, for years, that its F-22 would be cheaper to maintain 
than existing aircraft. The air force never challenged this, at least 
not in public. Instead, the air force tried to keep the high operating 
costs a secret.
In addition, the F-22 costs more than three times as much as the 
aircraft it was to replace. The air force wants to build more than 187, 
and has allies in Congress who want the jobs (and votes) continued 
production will generate. But the Department of Defense is reluctant to 
spend that kind of money, especially when there so many other programs 
seeking funds (like electronic warfare aircraft, UAVs and upgrades for 
F-15s and F-16s). Thus, earlier this year, the Department of Defense 
decided to terminate F-22 production at 187 aircraft. This resulted in 
each aircraft costing (including development and production spending), 
$332 million. Just the production costs of the last F-22s built was 
$153.2 million. Added to the cost of the last few aircraft was a $147 
million fee the Department of Defense agreed to pay if the production 
line was shut down. This goes to pay for shutting down facilities and 
terminating contracts with hundreds of supplies.
The F-22 is a superb aircraft, probably the most capable fighter in the 
world. But the development and manufacturing costs kept rising until it 
became too expensive for the media, voters and politicians. The air 
force was able to build it, but they couldn't sell it to the people who 
paid the bills.
A decade ago, the F-22 was a $62 billion program, of which development 
accounted for $18.9 billion (this was a spending cap imposed by 
Congress). A decade before that, the air force was planning to buy 750 
F-22s. Costs kept going up for two decades, and Congress refused to 
provide more money. So, for $62 billion, the air force ended up getting 
fewer aircraft.
The air force ran into a similar problem with the B-2 bomber, which 
became so expensive they were only allowed to build 21, and these cost 
$2.1 billion each. . About half of that was development expense. Actual 
construction costs for each of those aircraft was about $933 million 
each. Still pretty high, mainly because a lot of special machinery and 
factories had to be built to manufacture the many custom components.
The air force likes to point out that if the original (1986) plan had 
been followed, each B-2 would have cost $438 million each. But then the 
entire program would have cost $58.2 billion, versus $44.3 billion for 
the 21 plane program (which included $10 billion more R&D expense).
-- 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZUOkGxGUVs

 for the F-22.
Uhmmm....
Presumo che forse si dovrebbe fare anche un confronto con i costi ed i 
tempi di manutenzione connessi col semi-stealth F-18E/F, ovviamente 
considerando l' ambiente ostile marino. Matteo ? ;)
Saluti,
Dott. Piergiorgio.