BTW to the best of my knowledge the F-22 program takes up about 5% of the USAF's annual budget.
Edit: Ahh-ha found one of the quotes:
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"In its highest cost year -- its first year of full-rate production -- the F-22 will consume only 6.5 percent of the Air Force's total budget," said *Hawley. "It's average consumption of the budget through 2010 is only about 3.5 percent. In terms of the DOD budget, it averages less than 1 percent from now through the end of production in 2010.
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*Hawley = General Dick Hawley, CG of Air Combat Command at the time
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Originally Posted by martinss01
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No they aren't. However in an operational environment they are still superior to anything the Russkies are
currently fielding.
The Boeing sim specifically took advantage of a bug in the radar software of one of the types used on the 15's (can't remember if it was the original APG-63 or the APG-70) which has since been corrected. The AA-12 (R-77) being modeled was a guesstimate on the high end of it's projected performance envelope. The reality has been much less optimistic. The Russians have been trying to replace it for quite awhile now.
AMRAAM armed F-15s still have an significant advantage over anything the Russians (or their clients) are using right
now. Better radar, data links & missiles win over the aerodynamic advantage enjoyed by the SU-27 series long before that advantage can come into play.
The training with the Luftwaffe merely showed that in close an aircraft with an HMS/OBS missile combination beats one without it. That is no longer an issue with the JHMCS/AIM-9x combination (btw the Luftwaffe was flying mixed Mig-29/F-4 formations operationally because the Fulcrum's radar was less capable than that of the Phantoms. Think about that for a minute).
The "every single time" comment doesn't equate with the views of pilots who were actually there.
For a more accurate description of how things transpired:
Russian Aviation Page: Aviano Vigileer: 'Buzzards' Fly With MiG 29s.
The Mig-29 & SU-27 are excellent airframes but the reality is that engines, radars, electronics & all the fiddling stuf inside still leaves them at a severe disadvantage against US front line fighters currently.
However the Russians/Chinese/Indians & everyone else are dumping tons of money into those aircraft to bring the subsystems up to a similar standard to western aircraft and are working very hard to expand their capabilities far beyond what they are currently.
An SU-27 with PW or GE engines, a raytheon radar w/other western electronics and flown by a well trained pilot would probably be more than an F-15 can handle.
Luckily there is no such thing but the other guys are doing everything they can to get it to that equivalent technologically.
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im curious, outside of stealth (ie the b-2 and f-22) and better trained pilots. what do you think we have on the rest of the world exactly?
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Electronic subsystems, materials technology, engine designs, information fusion...
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russian military equipment isn't known for its reliability?
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At the low end....very.
At the high end...not so much.