F 22 Raptor Acquisition Essay

The after taking 25 years to develop the F22 Raptor from conception to operational certification the United States Air Force (USAF) produced the world’s first 5th Generation air superiority fighter. (site) This revolutionary fighter plane leveraged its very low observable stealth (VLO) and thrust-vectoring and digital fly by wire technology, to produce an extremely fast, agile and deadly air to air combatant. (GEO P 2) However, in 2009 Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, (SECDEF) convinced the President (POTUS) and Congress to truncate the F22 program, leaving the USAF with less than 187 operational F22 Raptors, this number was well short of the 381 the USAF estimated they needed to meet their mission requirements. (AWC 1/ site) Gates made his controversial decision based on three factors. This essay will explore these factors and explain how the 2009 U.S strategic environment, the overall cost of the F22 and Secretary Gates’ desire to change the Department of Defense (DOD) all lead to the decision to limit the production of the F22 Raptor at 187 aircraft.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… it is the F-35 Lighting. This newly born fighter jet is having some growing pains and causing the taxpayer’s all kinds of headaches. With the United States trying to be on the cutting edge of technology, the military though up of a plan that could modernize the jet fighter, by creating an all in one type of plane called the F-35. According to a 2014 article in The New York Times, “Rough Ride for the F-35” America was going to show case its state-of-the-art war plane at the international air show, the single-engine F-35 was a no-show. A tough blow to the America’s Military, which under took the “world’s most expensive weapons project”. This plane was crippled by a series of seatbacks, thus making the tax payers think is this plane

The decline in ROA, ROS, Gross Profit Margin and OIRI in 2009 was caused by the decline in Net Income from $2676 to $1312. In 2009 the company to write off $2.7 billion because it considers the first three Dreamliners built unsellable and suitable only for flight tests. These expenses could be found in income Statement as R&D expenses. R&D increased in 2009 by $2738 million in comparison to 2008 and resulted in significant

The third issue that was discussed in these articles is a strong disconnect between what is being planned vs reality. Following 9/11, Pentagon budget went up significantly to justify the ongoing fight against global terrorism. However, if we look carefully, it is obvious that a higher percentage of the defense budget is going to fund Cold war era programs and may reduce readiness for Asymmetric warfare we are currently experiencing or may experience more in future. Additionally, unreliable information coming from DOD’s accounting system makes it extremely difficult to generate future force projections and cost estimates based on past and present status of expenditures. Overall, it creates an unrealistic ballooning defense budget that is not economically sustainable.

9/11 changed all that. At a time when the nation was in turmoil, the government immediately began to raise the military budget. The Budget rose by 5% in 2005 for the invasion of Iraq and again to 5.7% in 2011 for the stepped up efforts in Afghanistan. With this inflation of funds allotted to the Department of Defense, it opened up more funding for projects that were not able to acquire funding in the past. As the money was shoveled into these technologically advancing projects, as with many projects, failure happened regularly; causing a large portion of the newly acquired budget to be squandered. Just a few years ago in 2011 Defense Secretary Robert M. Dates made this statement to

In 2009, Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) convinced the President (POTUS) and Congress to truncate the F22 program, leaving the U.S. Air Force (USAF) with less than 190 operational 5th Generation air to air and air to ground combatants, this number of operational F22 was well short of the 381 the USAF estimated they needed to meet mission requirements. (AWC 1/ site) Robert Gates terminated the F22 production because of its low return on investments (ROI) for the U.S. taxpayer caused by the change in the U.S. Security and Strategic Environments and the obsolescent nature of the U.S. Department of Defense acquisition and development process leading to very expensive and marginally effective aircraft, which simply was not worth the investment. This essay will explore how the actual cost, including opportunity cost, of F22 capabilities were too expensive and unnecessary in today’s security and strategic environments. It will also expose the obsolete and probably corrupt nature of the Department of Defense weapons procurement process and Secretary Gates attempts to change this process.

The study revealed that due to budget cuts from the army downsizing and consequent loss of contracts, Lockheed Martin is facing a noticeable financial loss. This report describes in detail the depth of this problem and identifies potential remedies for the company to be able to recover on that loss.

In the past 15 years, the battlefield has been in the open desert and urban environments. The geographical locations where the United States have fought their wars have had a demand for armored troop vehicles. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) has met and exceeded that demand since 1981. With the possible new threat in Eastern Europe, there is a more demand to have a solid armored troop carrier in the Army’s arsenal. The Bradley is the right vehicle for the current and possible future threats. The Army wants to erase the M2A3 BFV from its inventory and replace it with a new and improved fighting vehicle. Replacing the Bradley without doing an effective cost analysis would be a huge loss to the Army’s budget plan. This would be detrimental especially when the Bradley is not the only vehicle program the Army is trying to replace. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the rationality behind not replacing the BFV at this time.

2. A problem with the current United States Air Force philosophy is that it tends to favor efficiency over effectiveness.1 With an increasing need to streamline procedures, the Department of Defense claims it can operate more efficiently by reforming weapons acquisition with an emphasis on operating jointly and attacking redundancies among military services.2 The Air Force continues to decline in numbers and strength as the American perception of air threats decreases and the focus on land campaigns increase.3 This shift is best characterized by a quality over quantity mentality, upgrading the current fleet with new sensor suites, avionics and weapons.4 In terms of sustained deployments and wars of attrition, mass quantities of advanced aircraft and highly skilled personnel are needed to meet the demands of a worst-case scenario engagement.

The birth of the F-35 has sparked congressional debate on the fate of the A-10. The A-10 is an older airframe that does have a broad spectrum of capabilities. It is also expensive to repair. The F-35 is to be considered a suitable replacement for the A-10 and it has more air to air capabilities. The Army loves and needs the A-10’s dominate close air support capabilities but due to the Key West Agreement, the Army has no say in aircraft retirement decisions.

Military experts describe as the future fighter aircraft, which excels at all fourth-generation aircraft, and can be used in the US Air force, the US Navy, and Marines. It is a supersonic, and multi-roles, that will give the United States control of air. F-35 JSF is characterized as a stealth, this technology provides the fighter the capabilities to penetrate the atmosphere of the enemy, it is difficult to be discovered to attack its targets. It has an electronic technology, it provides F-35 JSF superiority over their counterparts from electronic jamming and electronic countermeasures. F-35 JSF has a great ability to attack air and ground targets at the same time, it also has the ability to do multiple tasks during a sortie without having to return to its base. F-35 JSF is characterized by the ability to identify and track enemy forces, as the radar has features of superior characteristics provide the pilot with the latest data from the battlefield. it also has the ability to reach its objectives and destroy enemy defenses and radars easily and conveniently. F-35 JSF can take off and landing vertically

History has shown that weapons systems that have a 30 year life cycle or longer, incur approximately 60-80% of the cost associated with the platform in the operations and sustainment phase of the system’s life cycle. (Figure 2) Therefore, in order to maximize recapitalization and modernization efforts, the Air Force must consider the extensive myriad of types of logistics support required to field, operate, employ, and sustain a new weapon system in the post-Sequestration environment. Moreover, the Air Force must effectively balance DoD directives for joint-service interoperability, industry’s desires to maximize profits, and the reality of Congressional politics in an effort to optimize scarce program dollars- in particular the effort to make possible the most efficient use sustainment dollars.

When one hears the word “Navy”, one generally thinks of ships and submarines, which is a correct but incomplete picture. Light aircraft, especially fighters, have been crucial to naval operations since the creation of the aircraft carrier (Taylor and Guilmartin). BAck in World War II, the United States Navy (USN) possessed three primary fighters. The Grumman F4F Wildcat was the Navy’s first and most basic fighter, with heavy armor, good maneuverability and decent performance at high altitude, but also with a slow top speed and climb rate. Eventually, General Motors’ FM-2 variant entered service as a more advanced version of the Wildcat, but it failed to overcome all of the original model’s deficiencies (Crawford). The F4F’s intended successor,

CW3 Wacasey experience and professionalism was imperative as the functional lead and voting member of the KBOSS 2.0 Evaluation team. He conducted a comprehensive review and evaluation of proposals based solely on the evaluation criteria outlined in the Request for Proposal (RFP) to obtain the best value thru the competitive acquisition strategies to identify for the next five years who will be the best stewards of tax payer dollars to provide the quality support to the most advanced war fighter in the

The market share for mid-to-large passenger aircrafts is comprised of five major firms including; Boeing, Northrop, Grumman, McDonnell/Douglas, and Lockheed. The increased competition in this space puts downward pressure on the price, forcing Boeing to evaluate the possibility of a market price below the baseline assumption of $130M. The provided data illustrate the scenario in which the Boeing 777 price could be forced lower to