Raptor Fails Rationality Test!

The Raptor Fails the Test of Rationality

Would you pay more than double the original asking price for a fighter that was designed for another age and another type of conflict when you already have a fighter that can’t be compromised that costs about one-quarter of the new one?

That is precisely the situation that the Pentagon buyers found themselves in when they decided that they pushed for a new ‘invisible’ jet called the Raptor.

While the Raptor is a real neat looking plane with built-in stealth, it was designed for a totally different mission than we face today. The decision to go with a new fighter was made in the middle of the Cold War at a time before Russia crumbled. .

The problem is that the nature of conflict has changed. We no longer stand toe to toe against the Russians; instead we are trying to adapt the military to a new type of mission to fight an amorphous enemy who live in caves and call no state their own.

To face off against such an enemy, it pays to consider that the Air Force already has a formidable weapon in its F14 Tomcat, an all purpose fighter built thirty years ago which can still do things that separates it from any competition. The trouble is that the new Raptor costs more than four times what the old Tomcat costs.

Nevertheless, what is mind-boggling is that the Pentagon decided to forge ahead even though there is no application for the F22 and the cost of the plane has skyrocketed. This is instructive to anyone who is trying to understand what the Pentagon is trying to accomplish.

The increase in the cost of the Raptor traces back to the original order for the Raptor which was quoted at $85 million a clip. In the intervening time from the placement of the order to delivery, the cost of the plan went up $115 million to nearly $200 million per plane, something like a 135% increase. As a result, the Pentagon had to drop its purchase order by nearly fifty percent to 300 aircraft.

How could that be? What buying authority would go along with such outrageous up-charges? Here’s the answer: Remember the spate of mergers and acquisitions allowed to go through by the government beginning in the 80’s and carrying through to the 90’s? Well, a lot of those mergers involved government military contractors. Now, there are fewer companies who can pick up the slack and provide competitive bids. The remaining companies know that the government is between a rock and a hard place and will pay any price to get what it wants.

Of course, all of this is beginning to look like a case of trying to address one mistake by making additional mistakes when the sane response seems to go back to the drawing board. After all, who could hold your toes to the fire if you’ve doubled your prices per aircraft? The bigger question, however, is why do we need the Raptor in the first place?. For the most part, our enemy are terrorists armed with box cutters and other types of primitive weapons. What do we need 300 Raptors for to fight a war with an enemy who lives in caves and calls no country its own?

One might ask where are the checks and balances? Armed with the F14, the F15 Eagle—a fantastic fighter on its own, the F16 and the F18, which are perfectly adequate to any defense measures, why did our prescient buyers in the Pentagon feel that they needed still another fighter to fight our air battles?

Would common sense dictate that perhaps that $60 billion could have been better used by another branch of the service or perhaps another part of government to address another problem or series of problems? Or does the competitive nature of the Pentagon preclude such thinking?

It seems to this critic that another government investigation is order when we need to spend $60 billion to build a fighter designed for a Cold War mission that no longer applies in order to stave off an enemy that lives in caves and fights us with twenty-five cent box-cutters. Something is wrong with the kind of thinking that seems to suggest “Wink! Wink! Let the boys have a good time with taxpayer money!”

Where are the checks and balances? And when are our legislators going to investigate this canard.

Les Aaron
Hubmaster
Blog: http://lesaaron.blogspot.com