Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

www.airandspaceforces.com

Air Force Mission Capability Rates Reach Lowest Levels in Years

The Air Force fleet's mission capable rates declined again in fiscal 2024, suggesting more readiness funding is needed.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com

F-22 readiness fell from 52 percent to just 40.19 percent; it had been at 57.4 percent two years ago.

Overall 4th worst.
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That was the plan to replace parts with them being replaced with other parts cannibalised from the retired Block 20s but that has unfortunately gone up in smoke now.
 
Also resources that were supposed to be kept in reserve for the F-22 long term were illegally diverted to propping up the F-35 a number of years back.
 
I did not know that the money that was for the F-22 was illegaly diverted to keep the F-35 propped up Grey Havoc.
 
Was it money, or was it production machinery? For some reason I want to say tooling that was supposed to be kept for the f22 went missing, and it ended up in the f35 program, but don’t quote me on that.

*EDIT*

As Josh_TN points out below, while the tooling went missing, it’s not known that anything went to the f35 program, so I was conflating my misappropriation rumors.
 
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Tooling allegedly going missing for the F-22 ending up on the F-35? Things are getting rather strange.
 
quellish said:
What is this nonsense? The tooling is in storage at Sierra Army Depot, where it has been since 2012.
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There were reports/rumors that it was incomplete. Matters not at all now; my main point was that certainly nothing pertaining to F-22 production was used in F-35 (ETA: outside possibly funding; no idea there).
 
Josh_TN said:
There were reports/rumors that it was incomplete. Matters not at all now; my main point was that certainly nothing pertaining to F-22 production was used in F-35 (ETA: outside possibly funding; no idea there).
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I think the confusion stems from a TWZ article.

www.twz.com

Here’s The F-22 Production Restart Study The USAF Has Kept Secret For Over A Year

We finally see the study that was oddly classified on arrival and it has new relevance based on Japan's desire for a new stealth fighter.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

The Air Force also noted that while approximately 95 percent of the F-22-related production tooling is still available, the physical productions facilities either no longer exist or are supporting other Lockheed Martin programs, such as the F-35.
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Note the difference between tooling and facilities. It's great to have the tooling but without a factory floor to use it on (and the people to run it), nothing is going to happen. Building a new factory (and especially finding skilled aero manufacturing folks) is a non-trivial hurdle. But people may have conflated the tooling with the facilities and concluded that the tooling was being used for the F-35.
 
TomS said:
I think the confusion stems from a TWZ article.

www.twz.com

Here’s The F-22 Production Restart Study The USAF Has Kept Secret For Over A Year

We finally see the study that was oddly classified on arrival and it has new relevance based on Japan's desire for a new stealth fighter.
www.twz.com www.twz.com



Note the difference between tooling and facilities. It's great to have the tooling but without a factory floor to use it on (and the people to run it), nothing is going to happen. Building a new factory (and especially finding skilled aero manufacturing folks) is a non-trivial hurdle. But people may have conflated the tooling with the facilities and concluded that the tooling was being used for the F-35.
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This. Everybody wants to be an "influencer". Very few want to build things.
 
TomS said:
(and especially finding skilled aero manufacturing folks)
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Yep skilled manpower. Like toolings are not only useless without real production floor but also people to operate and work with those tools. F-22 has been out of production for like decade now.. Those workforce might not necessarily still there as they may quit, retired or work on different project that they may lost the skill.

It's maybe kinda like why something like F-1 engine can no longer be built. The welder etc who actually build the thing is no longer there.
 
TomS said:
I think the confusion stems from a TWZ article.

www.twz.com

Here’s The F-22 Production Restart Study The USAF Has Kept Secret For Over A Year

We finally see the study that was oddly classified on arrival and it has new relevance based on Japan's desire for a new stealth fighter.
www.twz.com www.twz.com



Note the difference between tooling and facilities. It's great to have the tooling but without a factory floor to use it on (and the people to run it), nothing is going to happen. Building a new factory (and especially finding skilled aero manufacturing folks) is a non-trivial hurdle.
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We (well, the guy who sat across from me) ran an experiment when we tried to bring back an archived Eurofighter FCS software environment after about a year. IIRC there were major problems because of either supporting software moving on in the meantime, or stuff we hadn't thought to archive, because it wasn't obviously relevant. Now imagine doing that with stuff that's been in storage for a decade plus, and where the workforce has long since moved on, retired, or is actively pushing up daisies.

Given the increasing use of CNC machinery in the years since the F-22 line was created in the 90s, are there even enough people being trained as traditional machinists and toolmakers to successfully resurrect the tooling, never mind run it at production pace? And if you need to get into the software, can you source the Ada and/or Jovial programmers to do it?
 
indicisivedivide said:
On the other hand which language has replaced Ada?
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It doesn't matter, because the work involved in replacing an Ada programme (or Jovial) is going to be hugely costly and time consuming, and that's assuming you have adequate documentation to explain what it is, what it does, and how it does it, which is in no ways guaranteed.
 
DWG said:
Given the increasing use of CNC machinery in the years since the F-22 line was created in the 90s, are there even enough people being trained as traditional machinists and toolmakers to successfully resurrect the tooling, never mind run it at production pace? And if you need to get into the software, can you source the Ada and/or Jovial programmers to do it?
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Students in university had CNCs in labs years before the F-22 was designed. (I was generating G-code with APT in 1986. We had a big Okuma in the lab with a 30-tool carousel.) And taking a part from a drawing to G-code is pretty straight forward.
 
Do I am the only one to think that this last contract comes very cheap.
3M$ per engine for 5 year for the best performances engine out there is pretty much reasonable.
(look at what the French have to pay for MRO!!)
 

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