The king is dead: Why would America want to retire the F-22?

To be honest, I would rather keep the F-22 and get rid of the F-35 Lt Col Charlie Brown.

Maj Robert Thornton - The F-35 despite is problems is a far more capable airplane than the F-22. The problem is there aren't enough F-22s to go with the F-35s, so we build more F-15 to act as missile trucks to carry the load the F-35 can't. The latest numbers I can find are from 2015, there are 150 combat capable F-22s left in service, the others are used for training and are about to be retired. They cost just over $15,000 per flying hour to operate each in maint. costs. There was talk of restarting the prod. line, but since some of the tooling was destroyed on purpose, having to rebuild it, find new vendors, training new workers etc. new airplanes wouldn't have been on the line until about 2030 at the soonest, all of this for an airplane design that's already 32 years old. It's still a great airplane, but it's time is coming to an end. We need a replacement for it and soon.

Currently the F-35 cost approx $30,000 per flight hour SPC Bill Bailey. They are trying to get it down to $25,000/flight hour by 2025. It seems to me we need to build mission capable aircraft with lower operating costs, IMHO.

Maj Robert Thornton - Oh, I agree 100%, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Modern aircraft, esp. Fighters are Maint. intensive even with all the self diagnostics. The Low Viz paint/materials used need constant upkeep and it's very labor intensive for one thing. Another is the constant manpower/parts shortage. Ground crews are worked near to death keeping what airplanes they can mission ready, the contractor overtime hours are unbelievable. Parts shortages have been an ongoing problem for years, Congress doesn't allow enough $$ to purchase enough to start with, contracts are cancelled/cut off and vendors go under. So parts that were part of the original contract can lo longer be found and a new source must found at a higher cost. Congress and the Military HAS to stop thinking about aircraft procurement like buying a car, it doesn't work like that, you can't go to Auto Zone and pick up spare parts for an F-35. You need a long term parts train from a steady vendor base. That would be one way to slightly lower the per flying hour cost of ops. But the more zoot electronic gee whiz shit you add to it, the more it's going to cost and the more $$ per flight hour to maintain. The sad thing is we NEED more zoot shit to stay ahead of the game. It's a never ending spiral.

Of THAT I have no doubt!