If President Trump wanted to restart the F-22 production line to create the “F-22 Super,” it might be the best of many bad options in terms of the Air Force’s ongoing procurement and production crises.
While on his historic Middle East excursion last week, President Donald Trump not only called for the creation of an upgraded F-35 variant—the so-called “F-55”—but also spoke about something that he described as the “F-22 Super.”
At the time Trump made those comments, he was speaking to a group that included the heads of Boeing and GE Aerospace. “I think the most beautiful fighter jet in the world is the F-22 but we’re going to do an F-22 Super and it’ll be a very modern version of the F-22 fighter jet,” Trump said to his rapt audience.
But what does that even mean? And is it even possible?
The F-22 Production Line Is Gone—Period!
After all, the production line for the F-22 was unceremoniously shuttered by the Obama administration in 2010. At the time, the Pentagon reasoned that the Air Force did not face any real near-peer threats. Considering that the F-22 Raptor is an air superiority warplane, Pentagon bean counters thought that the more pressing project was the fifth-generation multirole fighter, the F-35 Lightning II.
In the long run, this was a poor decision. As it would happen, only a decade after Obama’s decision to scrap the F-22 production line, America’s greatest geopolitical rivals would not be the transnational terrorist groups and so-called “rogue states” that dominated the post-Cold War era—and that the F-35 would be the most useful against. Instead, America would again find herself in the midst of great-power competition with China, Russia, and other rising powers. In such a geopolitical environment, the F-22 air superiority fighter is infinitely more useful than the F-35 multirole warplane—particularly given the F-35’s legion of problems ranging from cost to quality to quantity.
A simple fact that proves this claim is that the U.S. Congress still refuses to allow for the F-22 to be sold to foreign nations, even close allies like Israel or the United Kingdom, whereas the F-35 was always intended for such sales. The only reason that there is any hesitancy on the part of the U.S. government in selling the F-22 to allies is expressly because the F-22 is so much more advanced than the F-35.
What’s “Super” About the F-22?
Which brings us back to Trump’s “F-22 Super.” What does Trump mean when he says he wants to create a new, improved F-22 variant?
Remember, the production line is gone. The Air Force has never expressed serious interest in restarting it. If they did, according to many sources, the process of reconstituting those lost production capabilities 15 years after they were scrapped would be as—if not more—costly than the Air Force’s much-ballyhooed F-47 sixth-generation warplane.
At the same time, if President Trump wanted to restart the F-22 production line to create the “F-22 Super,” it might be the best of many bad options in terms of the Air Force’s ongoing procurement and production crises. Yes, the F-22 Super would be expensive. Yet if the president and his team—with enough congressional support—could get the F-47 and any further upgrades to the F-35 canceled, it might be worth the cost.
After all, the F-22 remains an extremely relevant plane today. As for the “super” element of the proposed F-22 “Super,” many of the components of the still developing F-47 could theoretically be folded into an upgraded F-22—notably the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) element, which essentially hybridizes the manned-and-unmanned aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, allowing a pilot to deploy a swarm of drones as easily as he might deploy missiles while in combat.
Once deployed, the CCA unmanned systems act either as a defensive screen, a “loyal wingman” of sorts, or can fly ahead of the manned system and conduct surveillance or deep strikes.
Trump Could Trade the F-22 “Super” for the F-47 and “F-55”
There is no reason that the F-22 Super could not perform this function. The F-22, unlike the F-47, is a viable, proven aircraft. While some of its critics insist that it has never truly been tested in combat, the fact remains that it is far more useful and proven than any theorized F-47 would be.
Further, it is more necessary in today’s battlespace than is even the F-35—or its proposed upgrade, the F-55. That it can be fused with the “Loyal Wingman” concept makes the F-22 “Super” concept all the more tantalizing.
But this concept—which is certain to be fantastically expensive—only works if Washington reins its egregious defense spending in. A disciplined focus on the requirements of air superiority is key. All America really needs is one manned warplane to rule them all. And that warplane must be significantly augmented by unmanned systems.
Rather than reinventing the wheel by creating an entirely new advanced sixth-generation warplane, like the F-47, the best warplane in America’s arsenal—the F-22—should simply be augmented. Eventually, though, the entire cult of the cockpit must be done away with. As Elon Musk has repeatedly warned, anyone who still wants to rely on manned warplanes like the F-35, the F-47, the F-55, or even the F-22 “Super,” well into the twenty-first century are “idiots.”
But fundamentally moving the Pentagon away from manned warplanes needs to be the long-term objective. This is why wasting money on a sixth-generation warplane is ridiculous. If the Pentagon can start that transition by augmenting what it already has—notably by adding in the mixed manned-and-unmanned platforms—then that’s the way we should go.
Sadly, it doesn’t sound like Trump wants a careful cost-benefit analysis. Instead, he wants it all. At this rate, he is unlikely to get any of it.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / Philip Pilosian.
