Here's Why can't the U.S Just Build Any New F-22 Raptors

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.

As the Air Force explained in the report, the aging F-22 design will not be competitive against an evolving threat as nations like Russia and China continue to invest in new technologies. “Moving closer to 2030, it is important to acknowledge that threat capabilities have and will continue to evolve at a rapid rate, creating highly contested environments, An understanding of the threat along with necessary capability development will help provide an understanding of how restarting F-22 production will not fulfill capacity and capability requirements in the future.”

Thus, the Air Force needs to move ahead with its Penetrating Counter Air (PCA) program. “The Air Force should proceed with a formal AoA in 2017 for a PCA capability,” the report reads. “Consistent with an agile acquisition mindset designed to deliver the right capability on the required timeline, this AoA will include options to leverage rapid development and prototyping in order to keep ahead of the threat.

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.

Moreover, the Air Force can no longer afford to develop a new aircraft in the same manner it developed the F-22 or F-35. Doing so would concede the technological high ground to Russia and China.Air superiority capability development requires adaptable, affordable, and agile processes with increasing collaboration between S&T, acquisition, requirements, and industry professionals. Failure to adopt agile acquisition approaches is not an option. The traditional approach guarantees adversary cycles will outpace U.S. development, resulting in ‘late-to-need’ delivery of critical warfighting capabilities and technologically superior adversary forces.”

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