The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> RAPTOR ATTENTION br> Re: Anthony Mirvish's letter ("Rap on the Raptor") in Reader Mail's Retired Reserve and Michael Fumento's The F/A-22 Raptor Must Fly : /p>

Mr. Mirvish's OED-sized letter makes an extraordinary number of claims against the Raptor, such that it is truly marvelous he could be wrong with virtually every one.

1. According to Lockheed-Martin spokesman Greg Caires, "All of Mr. Fumento's claims have been demonstrated during ground-based and flight testing by Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force." Obviously Lockheed has a personal stake, but it is beholden to Congress while Mr. Mirvish is not.

2. The average per aircraft cost of the F/A-22 Raptor is $125 million. I did say the price of the Raptor was extremely high and explained it was partly because of the added ground support role. (And yet Mr. Mirvish has the gall to say, "Don't tell me the F-22 will do this," because it would put the plane within range of small arms fire. Funny, the B1, B2, and B-52 have all been used recently in a ground support role without suffering so much as a bullet hole.) I also explained the relatively high price resulted in part from Congress's decision to scale way back on its order, thereby increasing the per-unit price.

3. The Raptor has "all-aspect" stealth; the F-117 "stealthiness" is only head-on.

4. Pray how does the F-117 qualify as "very small" and the F/A-22 as "very large," when the F-117 is 66 feet long with a 43-foot wingspan, while the F/A-22 is 62-feet long with a wingspan of 44.5 feet. The Raptor is actually a foot shorter than the F-15.

5. The Raptor bristles with missiles, 6 radar-guided and 2 heat-seeking missiles. The F-117 has no defensive weaponry.

6. By Mr. Mirvish's own admission, the F/A-22 can have a full minute or more to identify a foe before the foe can make visual contact. In modern air combat, an extra second or two is all that's needed, thank you.

topics:
Taxes, Business, Islam, Abortion, Environment, Books, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia