The F-22

From what i've heard, the F-22 is meant to be "simply the best" in every way possible ever... Its the fastest fighter in the USAF arsenal and it has an extremely low radar profile and is meant to be capable of extremely tight aerial manoeuvres. So far it has only been tested in combat exercises against the F-15 Eagle, during which the 8 F-22's mopped up 33 F-15's with no losses... and somehow this makes the F-22 superior to all other aircraft. What i want to know is whether the F-22 would yield such results against any MODERN fighters; not 20-year old F-15's which were no match even for the Indian Air Force's old Su-27's... how do you think the F-22 will compare to current fighters such as the J-10, the Eurofighter, the Super Flanker, the Dassault Rafale and the Saab Gripen? I am sure that all these planes (except perhaps the J-10) can be considered to be technically comprable to the F-22 .

 

I'd say that a modern F-15E with AWACS support would kick Indian SU27 tail.

 

And given the fact that modern fighter still haven't cought up with it...Avro Arrow armed with modern fire control systems mops up with shrapnel. :kill:

 

The result of that "fight" had more to do with the enforced rules of engagement and politics than pilot/ aircraft capabilities.
Arrow wouldn't have much chance of spotting F-22, whereas F-22 is capable of launching AMRAAM on data from another aircraft.
Personally I preferred the YF-23 anyway. Far better looking.

Depends what you mean by technically comparable. On L-O technology (i.e. stealth) then they are not in the same class.
But that's acceptable since they were designed to different criteria and are considerably cheaper.
And the rules of engagement for the Raptor vs. Eagle fight must be looked at, F-5 Freedom Fighters scored 1:1 kill ratios against Eagles in some USAF exercises, and HueyCobras have scored 2:0 in one particular exercise!

 

Smeg:
There ain't a Sukuoi-27 out there that could hang with an F-15-E. (Nor even a 20yr old one...)
The F-15 has never lost an air-to-air encounter with an enemy aircraft and I expect that is exactly the reason why it has remained in service for 20-odd years. The F-22 Raptor can take on five F-15-Es at once and shoot them all down without even being seen.
Now that's Shock and Awe.

Tim

 

Not even with equally well-trained pilots? I can't agree on that. The basic aerodynamic form of the Flanker was designed as a counter to F-15, and later versions (specifically the vectored thrust variant) are even better than the original. Instantaneous turn and sustained turn rates are better than F-15 IIRC.

So what's it done with the sixth AMRAAM? Probably it could, but not acting alone. If it uses its own radar to locate the targets then there's chance it'll be picked up despite using LPI.

 

How many weapons can the Raptor carry in its internal bay (disregard this question if that info is classified)? The reason I ask is that any weapons mounted on the plane's external hardpoints will greatly increase the radar signature, which should allow at least one of the Eagles to get the drop on the Raptor.

I remember reading that the F/A 22 project was being cancelled due to its enormous cost. Is there any truth to this?

 

Personally I preferred the YF-23 anyway. Far better looking.
Yes I prefer that plane to although the Military thought it would cost to much to maintain not that the F-22 is any less LOL YF-23 is way better looking I think we should have both in production .I mean for what we are paying to keep the planes in the air why not

 

Apparently 6 AMRAAM and 2 ASRAAM internally. Which makes it quite low on combat persistence (when stealthy) against F-15 and Su-27.

 

Now... the F-22 is not the JSF, is it? I get quite confused with the current crop of new US designs, as they all look similar and have similar designations...

Really? according to http://www.f22fighter.com/Specs.htm it goes 921mph
Is that really the fastest they have?

 

The F-22 Raptor is NOT the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. They are built with different purposes in mind - the F-22 is an air superiority fighter while the F-35 is an "allrounder" - some models will for instance have VTOL capabilities.

 

Quote Wikipedia :roll: :lol:

 

Then you would be suprised to hear about this
http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/exercise-ia ... cle01.html

"Duke Cunningham (R-CA) said in a Feb. 26 House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing that U.S. F-15Cs were defeated more than 90 percent of the time in direct combat exercises against the IAF"

So even the old Su-29 can achieve victories against F-15's comprable to the F-22's records, even without the stealth capabilites. And Hoosier; like the F-15, the Flanker has also never lost an air-to-air encounter . I have no doubt that an F-22 would win one-on-one with an Su-35 or a Eurofighter, but if you had group-on-group combat with AWACS support so as to nullify or at least minimize the stealth advantage, does the F-22 actually have an aerodynamical superiority to contemporary fighters? I dont think it does. While i am sure it is faster than any other plane (it is the only aircraft that can break the sound barrier without afterburners) the F-22 Raptor does not have the climb rate of the Eurofighter nor the sustained turn-rate of the Super Flanker or the Rafale... Overall, maybe the F22 is superior, but that doesnt mean it cant be beaten :smok:

 

Well, the only one currently in service, anyway

The RAF was doing this regularly in the 60s with the EE Lightning.
http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk ... story.html

But I digress, smeghead is perfectly correct.

 

well the F-22 has the capability to shoot you down from a long distance .So it might not matter if the F-22 doesnt have the climb rate ect

 

But so does pretty much every 'fighter' aircraft in service (depending on their missile load carried at the time).

F-22 would be harder to shoot down due to its stealth attributes, but (as smeghead said) proper AWACS support would help nullify that advantage.


F-22 appears to have gone for the fast & stealthy approach, whereas pretty much every other aircraft has performance put over stealth (though all incorporate some stealthy ability).

The F-22 has some impressive abilities in tests, and it certainly had some impressive costs. But (I have seen it argued) for a fraction of the cost you could get an aircraft (ie: Eurofighter) that is overall almost as good (depending on your critera for good). Heck, you could probably buy 4 Eurofighters for every F-22, and still have change (this is a guess ).


As to 'killing' 5 enemy aircraft - in training maybe. In reality missile launches get noticed - and a missile launched does not equal a missile taking out its target.

 

True, but the point of F-22 is that it supercruises (not "break" the sound barrier without afterburner (Hawker Hunters did that ), but maintain a respectable supersonic speed without them - which Lightning could certainly do). Apparently there's a correlation between speed of an aircraft in the combat zone and the chances of it getting spotted/ shot down, the higher the speed, the lower the chance.
Without afterburner the fuel use is approximately 1/5 to 1/8 what it would be with. So any aircraft attempting to intercept F-22 will quickly find itself running out of fuel.
An added bounus is that missile F-Pole (don't ask me why it's called that ) increases with increasing closure speed, i.e. the distance the two aircraft are apart at launch is higher if the relative speeds are higher. F-22 is supposed to launch and then turn away, which will reduce the F-Pole for any return shots.
I believe that Typhoon (Eurofighter) has been assessed as having 80% of the capability of F-22, but how the assessment was arrived depends on classified performance figures. Rats.
PS the Lightning happens to be one of my all time favourites (as well as being the ONLY British supersonic fighter to see service). Those things used to intercept U-2 spyplanes from ABOVE

 

The Typhoon can also supercruise....just like the good old B-58 Hustler did....nuthing special :roll:

 

To be truthfull any respectable fighter of last two generations is able to superceruse.

On F-22 they still have to perfect canopy lock mechanism :
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2006/04/why_is_this_man.html#comment-16449597

It still lacks HMTS like russians have in their MiG-29 and Su-27 and it's derivatives. HMST is Helmet Mounted Targeting System - targeting with turning your head - current russian system 90deg. on each side of the plane axle. Couple that with newest versions of R-73 and R-77 missiles .....

 

Really? I wasn't aware of that, the problem is that transonic drag rise is a massively steep increase, the difference between afterburner and no afterburner is as much as a 60% increase in thrust, and ordinary drag increases as the square of the speed.
So why such a big fuss on the part of USAF over F-22's supercruise ability?