U.S Air Force Explains Why They Didn't Use Super Dooper F-22 In Lybia

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: Be sure to read the comments at the end of the original thread.

We currently own 187 Raptors to the tune of $355 million dollars each. I guess they're too expensive to send out to drop bombs.



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A Little More Info on the Raptor and Libya
By John Reed Thursday, April 7th, 2011 3:21 pm
Posted in Air, International, Policy

Donley told a reporter at a Tuesday morning breakfast in Washington that the plane would have flown in Libya if its capabilities were viewed as a requirement for the operation. When pressed for more on what capabilities were needed, he waited a few seconds before saying, “multirole, maybe?”

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. It would seem that if your tax dollars pay for the Army Times and other

publications, (My pet peeve is the copyrighted stuff on Medline, its strictly tax dollar supported) then you should be able to post much of it anywhere you like. This obviously is not how it is though. Pity that.

[hack89]

3. Army Times is owned by Gannet - it is privately owned. nt

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Ahhhh.... a privately owned company raking it in by reporting on taxpayer funded

hardware, personnel and events. Fair enough.

[Baclava]

2. I suspect political reasons.

Maybe we didn't want the French snooping around, eavesdropping on our new toy. The F-22 was designed to be our stealth air superiority fighter for the next generation of air combat threats - none of which Libya has. Curious they didn't want to baptise the new birds under fire, but it's not a bomb hauler, our older planes can do that against a weak enemy and it's not like we are looking to sell them on the open market like the Eurofighter.

It's probably not as big a deal as some people make it. Air supremacy was never a real concern, that's what you use an F-22 for.

Meanwhile...look familiar?


Chinese J-20 Black Eagle



F-22 Raptor




So, we're saving it to fight the Chinese in 2020, when it really counts.

[hack89]

4. The F-22 is an air superiority fighter

F-16s and F-15Es are dedicated strike aircraft. They used the right tools for the job.

[eqfan592]

6. My thoughts exactly. (nt)

[sailor65]

7. +1

Such knowledge is sadly lacking here at DU.