Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor F-22A Block 40 (propuesto)

Block 40 was the last of the planned configurations in the F-22 modernization programme and the only one that never materialised as a production batch. It grew out of the Global Strike concept the USAF adopted in the early 2000s, when the fighter, then redesignated F/A-22, ceased to be viewed purely as an air superiority aircraft and took on strike, suppression of enemy air defences and intelligence roles. GAO reports from 2005 record the time-phased modernization road map the Air Force established to bring that idea to the fleet: a sequence of blocks with growing capabilities, of which Block 40 was the final link.

Under that road map, development of the enhancements had begun in 2003 and was to extend over a twelve-year period, with the first set of capabilities inserted into the production line in fiscal year 2007. By the end of development in 2015 the USAF intended to field three distinct configurations: Block 20 or 'Global Strike Basic' (56 aircraft built primarily for air-to-air missions with limited air-to-ground capability and improved JDAM employment), Block 30 or 'Global Strike Enhanced' (91 aircraft with improved radar to seek and destroy advanced surface-to-air missile systems, delivered in two increments in fiscal years 2009 and 2011) and Block 40, whose first phase, 'Global Strike Full', was expected from fiscal year 2013 and whose second phase, 'Enhanced Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance', was scheduled for 2015. The GAO tables assigned 128 aircraft to this configuration. Block 40 was meant to increase the capability to suppress or destroy the full range of air defences, improve the speed and accuracy of targeting against surface target sets, integrate additional air-to-ground weapons and add full integration of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance functions. The German edition of Wikipedia describes it as the definitive Global Strike configuration, based on software block 3.3, with full integration of ISR functions and range increases; within the same framework the helmet-mounted display of the JHMCS programme was cancelled in favour of studying the helmet developed for the F-35.

The GAO also documented the management arrangements and the cost. In March 2003 the Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) of the Office of the Secretary of Defense estimated that the planned modernization would require $11.7 billion through fiscal year 2018; the Air Force's later estimate included about $4.1 billion through fiscal year 2011 for the first two increments (blocks 20 and 30) and about $1.3 billion, over the same horizon, for the two increments belonging to Block 40. While blocks 20 and 30 remained within the F/A-22 acquisition programme, in November 2004 the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the Air Force to manage the Block 40 effort as a separate modernization programme. The GAO itself cautioned that the quantities in each configuration reflected Air Force plans prior to the December 2004 budget decision, which reduced the programme by 96 aircraft, and that at the time of its review officials were still determining the impact of that decision on the content and quantities of the modernization programme.

That cut was only the first of those that left Block 40 without aircraft. The Air Force had originally envisaged 750 F-22s, a figure reduced to 648 in 1991 and to 438 by the 1993 Bottom-Up Review; under Rumsfeld procurement was severely cut to 183 aircraft while the Air Force argued for a requirement of 381. In November 2008 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the F-22 lacked relevance in asymmetric post-Cold War conflicts, and in April 2009, under the Obama Administration, he called for production to end in fiscal year 2011 after completing 187 F-22s; the French edition of Wikipedia dates that recommendation to 6 April 2009. The successors of Wynne and Moseley at the head of the USAF, Michael Donley and General Norton Schwartz, tried to raise the number to 243 but relented in order to convince Gates to preserve the long-range bomber programme. After President Obama threatened a veto, both the Senate and the House agreed in July 2009 to abide by the 187 cap. In a study conducted that year for the Air Force before the termination decision, the RAND Corporation analysed four industrial scenarios for producing 75 additional F-22s and found that shutting down the line, keeping it idle and restarting it would cost $513 million, or $434 million more than outright termination.

The last F-22, the 195th counting the 8 test aircraft and the 187 production jets, came off the Lockheed Martin line in Marietta, Georgia, on 13 December 2011 and was delivered to the USAF on 3 May 2012. Lockheed Martin then stored more than 30,000 jigs, fixtures and other tooling and documented the assembly process on video, step by step, to leave open the option of restarting production relatively cheaply; the programme, which had employed about 5,600 people at its 2005 peak, was down to 1,650 workers, of whom 600 in Marietta would handle technical support and modernization of the existing fleet. Without a new lot, the capabilities once associated with Block 40 could only arrive, if at all, as retrofit modernization of the aircraft already built.

The question of reopening the line returned to Congress years later. In April 2016, citing advancing threats from Russia and China, Congress directed the USAF to conduct a cost study and assessment of resuming F-22 production. The report, submitted on 9 June 2017, concluded that the service had no plans to restart the line because of cost-prohibitive economic and logistical challenges: procuring 194 additional F-22s would cost approximately $50 billion, or $206–216 million per aircraft, including about $9.9 billion in non-recurring start-up costs and $40.4 billion for acquisition, with first delivery in the mid-to-late 2020s. The long gap since the end of production would mean hiring new workers, sourcing replacement vendors and finding new plant space, and the Air Force believed the money would be better invested in its Air Superiority 2030 effort, which evolved into NGAD. That closed for good the prospect of a newly built Block 40 lot; the name survives as the configuration the programme projected and never reached.