The Lockheed Martin F-22 production line is dead, dead, dead. The US Air Force won't buy any more and foreign customers can't by any more. The age of Raptor production is over; long live the Lightning II.Or, is it?
Rand's Project Air Force today published a 120-page monograph titled: Ending F-22A Production: Costs and Industrial Base Implications of Alternative Options.
Hold on. What "alternative options"? Didn't we already decide the F-22 is dead -- no ifs, ands or earmarks?
Rand's analysts explain in their report that the study was commissioned by the US Air Force before the decision was made to terminate production.
Some might wonder why Rand didn't think to simply cancel the study after Congress approved the termination order, but let's leave that aside for now.
Rand's analysis calculates the costs of restarting production after a two-year hiatus, producing 75 "zombie" F-22s (zombie=back from the dead) between 2012 and 2016. The study concludes that the average unit cost for the 75 F-22s is $227 million, including re-start costs. The average flyaway unit cost, which exclude re-start costs, is $179 million.
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