The F-22 is a aircraft with NO mission….

[unhappycamper]

$355 million of your tax dollars for this kickass plane.


Is a Lack of Secure Comms Keeping the F-22 Out of Libya Fight?

An anonymous tipster points out another little fact that may have contributed to the lack of Raptors in Op Odyssey Dawn; the jet’s don’t have the ability to pass secure info to other NATO planes due to their lack of the Link-16 datalink. Instead, the F-22 uses something called the Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL, pronounced “eye-fiddle”) to pass all sorts of info to other F-22s without being detected by the enemy. The problem is, the Raptor’s advanced data link only works with other Raptors.



unhappycamper comment: The title of this post comes from the discussion thread at the end of the article.

[originalpckelly]

1. It's also primarily an air-to-air plane.

But it does have a limited ground attack capability. The B-2 was a better choice. More bombs.

However, the air-to-air ability would have been incredibly useful to maintain the no-fly zone.

They could probably design something so it could communicate with other planes.

[notesdev]

5. Nah, totally unnecessary

We can easily maintain a NFZ without F-22s.

The F22 is an amazing engineering achievement, but its alleged mission is a joke, as the Soviet Union no longer exists.

[Wilms]

2. Gives new meaning to the term, "no fly zone". n/t

[Scuba]

3. Mission is actually clearly defined....

..."further enrich the US Military-Industrial Complex"

[tabasco]

6. Bingo!

Pick out a kewpie doll.

[charlie and algernon]

4. So it hasn't even been used in Iraq or Afghanistan yet?

That seems like a mighty big "oops!" to not realize they couldn't communicate with other jets.

[Baclava]

7. I know! It's our new Mercedes, we don't want to get it dusty hauling junk to the dump.

Wasn't it designed to kill the best of the best of the best fighters in the skies?

Or maybe we don't want to give NATO any tips on how it communicates, period. And it's not like we need it for any sophisticated air-to-air missions in Libya, we're shooting down trainer planes and bombing the piss out of all those ground targets with the old planes, The War will go on without it.

[msongs]

8. attack the US treasury is quite a mission... nt