Think carefully! The US "Never Takeaway" F-22 will be exported, and restarting production will pose a huge threat!

According to a report on the “Times of Israel” website on October 31, the Trump administration has recently approved a plan to sell a batch of F-22A stealth fighter jets to the Israeli Air Force. Esper told the Israeli army. If this matter is true, this will be the first time the US military has "relaxed" to provide foreign countries with the F-22A fighter aircraft, which the US military has always "not sold" ace equipment.

How to evaluate this policy?

Of course, if we are to analyze the political considerations and geopolitical factors behind the "Last Deal" approved by the Trump administration in the context of the approaching U.S. election, Great Ivan has only two words to say:

1. The relationship between Trump and Israel is really iron. After all, everyone knows that the F-22A has long wanted to purchase more than one or two "allies". The most typical one is Japan. Since the F-22A has just entered service, it has been staring at the United States and even Japan itself. All of the FX fighter plans have a bit of "calling" in it.

However, Japan’s "unrequited love" went from F-22A batch production to F-22A production line dismantling, and even prepared to pay a certain production line restart cost. In the end, the U.S. Air Force did not let go, determined to sell F-22A to Japan, and even repeatedly Reiterated the so-called "F-22A never takeaway" principle.

▲ Japan has been begging for so many years, and it has bought the F-35, which is a "big road commodity"

Relatively speaking, the Israeli Air Force has not had much demand for F-22A. After all, it depends on the F-15I on hand plus more F-16I Block60-70, coupled with the latest F-35I. Enough to form air superiority over neighboring countries.

It was only recently that the US Department of Defense went crazy and said that it would sell part of the F-35A to the UAE, which caused Israel to complain. Only when Israel finished complaining, the U.S. military over there decided to resell the "never-sold" F-22A to Israel. From this point of view, Netanyahu had previously boasted to Pence that "your career is The nasty term "our career" is not groundless.

▲Israel F-35A

The second sentence is that it seems that the arms race in the Middle East, including Southeast Europe, is about to set off another bloody storm. After all, recently, the two more important military trade programs approved by the U.S. Department of Defense’s International Cooperation Bureau are all concentrated in Southeast Europe, the Near East, and the Middle East. They are the resale of F-35A fighter jets ordered by Turkey to the Greek Air Force and the UAE. The Air Force sold a batch of F-35A fighters. These two arms purchase plans seem to be arrogant, especially when selling Turkish F-35A to Greece, which Nima Turkey can bear? !

▲The F-35 produced for Turkey was sold to Greece

The U.S. military sold F-35A to the UAE, and now decided to sell F-22A to Israel for a new round of "Middle East balance of power." These two rounds of arms sales continue. I don’t know how many local tyrants in the Middle East can get two more pieces on hand. Those who take advantage of it, continue to grit their teeth and purchase more fourth-generation fighters and fourth-generation advanced area air defense systems. It is estimated that Russian Su-57 fighter jets, S-400 area air defense system, and China’s FD-2000B area air defense system will continue to sell well in the Middle East. This is also an opportunity for us.

Where do these F-22As come from?

However, Trump, facing the "critical juncture" of the new presidential election, has again taken to Israel an arms trade move that is not good or bad, but is certainly very casual, but the key issue is the arms trade agreement. Beyond: That is, does the U.S. Air Force really have the ability to transfer some F-22A to Israel? In other words, is the US military prepared to use this military trade route to resume production of F-22A?

▲F-22A was closed in 2011

F-22A deployment

After all, we all know that after the US Air Force completed the batch production plan for 187 F-22A fighter jets in 2010, the F-22 production line was officially closed in 2011 according to the 2010 Budget Act of the National Defense Budget Committee.

The current F-22A fighter jets can be described as a nail-biter, one carrot and one pit. They are deployed in the following combat units of the US Air Force:

One is the 3rd Wing of the Elmendorf Base under the Pacific Command, which has 2 F-22A squadrons, namely the 90th Squadron and the 525th Squadron;

The second is the 1st Wing of the Langley Joint Base under the Air Combat Command. There are 2 F-22A squadrons under the jurisdiction of the 27th Squadron and the 94th Squadron. In addition, there is also an Air National Guard No. 192 at the Langley Base. The 149th squadron of the Wing. The squadron also deployed F-22A fighters, but it is not clear whether there is an independent organization or a shared fighter organization with the 1st Wing;

The third is the 15th Wing of the Pearl Harbor-Sikam Base under the Pacific Command. This Wing has 1 F-22A Squadron, which is the 19th Squadron, but Pearl Harbor also has an Air National Guard, the 154th Wing. The 199th Squadron of the Wing also has F-22A fighters deployed, and it is not clear whether it is an independent or shared organization;

The fourth is the 325th Wing of the Air Combat Command in Tyndall Base, Florida. This wing has 2 F-22A squadrons, the 43rd and 95th squadrons, and there is also an air force at Tyndall Base. The 301st Squadron under the 301st Wing of the Reserve Command is also equipped with F-22A.

This is all the F-22A units currently under the jurisdiction of the US Air Force.

Tasks undertaken by F-22A

Judging from the current tactical tasks undertaken by the F-22A fighters deployed by the US Air Force, the F-22A under each wing is basically "a carrot and a pit", and the deployment area corresponds to a specific strategic direction. such as:

The F-22A of the Elmendorf base was placed in the Alaska area. This is the area usually visited by the Russian Air and Space Force Tu-95MS or Tu-160M ​​strategic bombers. The F-22A is deployed in Alaska and is responsible for the Russian air and space. Interception missions of military strategic bombers;

Another example is the F-22A at Pearl Harbor, which mainly responds to tactical missions in the Pacific. It is often strengthened by F-22A fighters at Tyndall or Langley and deployed to Kadena base to take on the responsibility of China. The Air Force’s deterrence mission;

Needless to say, the F-22A at Langley base is facing the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. It can be called the "Air Forest Army" guarding Washington DC (laughs). It also takes into account the possibility of intercepting from the northeast. Russian strategic bombers that penetrated the defense (although not very likely);

As for the F-22A at Tyndall Base, in addition to the training task, it mainly undertakes the strategic reserve task of each wing, and is responsible for strengthening the wing's F-22A to a certain strategic direction that needs support during the war.

In other words, the U.S. Air Force’s current F-22A model is an "optimal solution" that has fully taken into account the operational needs in different strategic directions. If a part of these active F-22As are to be allocated to support Israel It is unclear whether it will have a certain impact on the US Air Force’s troop allocation and overall strategic deployment.

The U.S. wants to resume F-22A production?

Of course, the U.S. Air Force may also choose not to move the existing fighter fleet, but choose a more difficult but more "energetic" route: resuming production of the F-22A? The Great Ivan thinks that although the possibility is low, it is not impossible.

High production cost

It is very simple to say that the possibility of resuming production of F-22A is "very low": we said before that the characteristics of the US aviation industry manufacturing are extremely fast batch production, fast model upgrades, and old models. After the batch production is completed, the existing production line will be dismantled to prepare for the next updated model. The F-22A production line is naturally no exception.

In fact, according to the research conducted by the U.S. Air Force itself in 2016, it is necessary to resume production of F-22A, that is, to restore the original production line that has been dismantled, to re-manufacture a batch of special production tooling and molds, and to restore the supporting parts. The manufacturing capabilities of system manufacturers (such as the F-119PW-100 aeronautical development), and incidental testing of some of the updated avionics (according to the plan of the US military, the re-production F-22A will make full use of the F-35A fighter aircraft being tested). Advanced Avionics), the whole process will cost about 10 billion US dollars.

▲F-22A engine test

F-22A status and role decline

From the current situation of the US Air Force equipment, with the rapid maturity of the performance of the F-35A fighter and the gradual expansion of the scale, the status and tactical role of the F-22A in the US Air Force are in fact declining:

Compared with F-35A, F-22A has the advantages of strong supersonic cruise capability and air combat maneuverability, but the disadvantage is poor situational awareness and lack of passive detection such as EODAS (Photoelectric Distributed Aperture System) ability.

At the same time, when the F-22A performs offensive air control missions in certain configurations, there is a problem that the combat radius is not satisfactory. In East Asia, especially the airports within the first island chain may be suppressed during wartime, It is relatively difficult to organize offensive air-control tasks.

▲EODAS (Optical Distributed Aperture System), the so-called ability to see through the body

Therefore, the U.S. Air Force’s current attitude towards F-22A and the tactical missions it undertakes are actually relatively conservative: most of them are used to undertake homeland or theater air defense missions to intercept Russian strategic bombers. In this case, you Do you really expect the U.S. military to resume production of this kind of air defense interceptor that is a bit out of date?

▲Suspected US sixth-generation aircraft

Not to mention, as we mentioned before, the U.S. Air Force is currently testing the so-called "sixth generation fighter", which is the "Xinbai" fighter plan. If the development plan of this "Xinbai fighter" is really surprising. If it runs smoothly, and can produce practical products and install U.S. troops between 2025 and 2030, there is no need to resume production of F-22A fighters.

The threat of F-22A resumption of production

Correspondingly, if the U.S. military really intends to "sell F-22A to Israel" under the name of "selling F-22A to Israel", and really stirs up the idea of ​​re-batch production of F-22A, then we should really be careful:

First of all, this means that the U.S. military’s "Sixth Generation Fighter Plan" is likely to be a gimmick. It seems that the finished product will not be available in the last few years. To seize air supremacy, we must count on F-22A or F-35A models;

Secondly, this means that the U.S. military is not very satisfied with the F-35A's performance in capturing air superiority, and whether the route represented by the F-35A to rely on informatization capabilities to build a "combat cloud" is appropriate, of course we have to consider a little more;

Finally, if the F-22A really gets the technology transfer of the F-35, and even upgrades the airframe and aircraft, then there is no doubt that the U.S. Air Force will get a super air superiority that has unprecedented performance and is too powerful to be added. Fighters, we should be careful about this "super raptor".

In short, although the news that the U.S. military announced the sale of F-22A fighter jets to Israel does not seem to be a big problem at first glance, after "thinking a little more", what it means behind it can really be thoughtful and scary. We need to face it seriously.