Commentary in East Coast and Middle America newspapers show that some still don’t understand the need for the F-22. On Tuesday, an editorial in the New York Times used the recent grounding of the F-15 fleet to criticize its replacement, the F-22A Raptor, which it terms “both extremely expensive and out-of-date.” And, a report in The Kansas City Star says the reason for the personnel cuts are so the Air Force can “free up money to buy more planes,” specifically the F-22. We believe both articles miss the big picture, which is that the defense budget is too small—read Editor in Chief Robert Dudney’s “The ‘Affordability’ Hustle.”
RTX’s Raytheon unit was able to “significantly” extend the range of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile using mostly software changes in experimental tests last year, expanding the reach and lethality of the standard U.S. dogfighting weapon, company officials said Sept. 15.
