The F-22 Raptor Has One Problem That Won't Ever Be Solved

The time and money needed to develop and build a new F-22s would take money away from PCA and other Air Force program that are more relevant to the 2030 fight. Even an export version of the F-22—should one have been developed—would have used up scarce resources. “The costs to restart production of the F-22 would be extensive even with the involvement of foreign partners,” the report states. “Just as F-22 production would compete for fiscal and contractor resources with other Air Force programs, any F-22 export would compete with FMS customers' resources as well, including countries already committed to F-35 purchases. Most nations are not likely to have the resources available for procurement of an export F-22, which extremely limits the ability of FMS to reduce the costs associated with restarting production.”A 2017 Pentagon report to Congress detailing production retail costs for Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor show that reviving the powerful stealth air superiority fighter would be prohibitively expensive. Moreover, it would take so long to reconstitute the production line that it would not be until the mid to late 2020s before the first “new” F-22s would have flown. By that time, the F-22 would be increasingly challenged by enemy—Russian and Chinese—capabilities.(This first appeared last year.)