F-22 Raptor, What the hell are we doing?

[Muck]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

At a time when the Soviet Union and China have nothing in the air to challenge the F-15, let alone the F-22,

Take a look at the results of the Cope India training with India (duh) a few years back.

The entire F-15 fleet (minus the strike eagles) was grounded earlier this year due to fears over structural problems (due to a catastrophic failure where an Eagle literally broke in half during flight). They're 30+ years old and will be heading past their designed life span in the near future.

And as I discovered during a tour of the Air Force Museum restoration hanger, this aircraft was outperformed in the trials leading up to the awarding of the contract!

The YF-23 was marginally faster & stealthier than the YF-22. The YF-22 was more agile, easier to maintain, had a higher ceiling for growth and was a lower risk from a production standpoint.

Six of one, half dozen of another...each plane has strengths and weaknesses vs other.

Originally Posted by t_BuckeyeScott

The soviets definitely have a jet to challenge the F 22: the new MIG 35. It's a serious plane. I was trying to find the website I was on months ago comparing the two, but I failed. The F22 and the MiG 35 definitely have slightly different purposes. The F22 would probably still win in an outright dog fight. But there are longer range stuff that the MiG 35 can do that the Raptor can't. Also the MiG 35 could definitely take the 15s 16s.

The 35 is an updated Mig-29, the airframe has grown quite a bit (kinda like the F/A-18 E/F frames are much larger than their F/A-18 C/D forebears).

Realistically a much better comparison to the Fulcrum "F" is the aforementioned Super Hornet. The F-22 is out of both of their leagues. In a BVR engagement the Raptor would splash the Mig without Ivan ever knowing he was there. If they get to the furball yes the Mig-35 will have some advantages over the F-22 (the Raptor currently lacks a helmet mounted site and the russian OBS missile performance is a better anyways) but the whole point is to kill the bad guy before you get to the merge.

Originally Posted by cincibuck

It's not a case of if the Raptor is excellent... it is. But what do we need now? We need troops on the ground.

The Army is increasing active duty strength by 65,000 and the 'Corps is growing by 20,000.

We need an updated A-10, we need more drones, we need low and slow and the Air Force gives us the Raptor, a plane so expensive it will swallow the AF's budget whole.

The AF is in the process of going from 3 active UAV squadrons to 15.

The Army & Marine Corps have hundreds of smaller battlefield sized UAVs.

The F-35 will be the replacement for all the strike aircraft in the inventory.

It's the same story on the Navy side. The Marine's harriers are well past their prime but the Navy is buying the sea version of the 22.

Navy procurement isn't directly related with USMC procurement.

The Corps is replacing both the Harrier and Hornets in their inventory with the F-35b which is the S/VTOL version of the JSF.

The Navy pulled out of the ATF program years ago. There will be no navalized F-22 or equivalent. Their procurement route is F/A-18 E/Fs to replace the aging F-14s and the F-35c to replace the older F/A-18 C/Ds.

Originally Posted by BrutusBobcat

Just hypothesizing, but we do have a few client/customer states out there flying F-15s. Maybe the F-22 was built to either A) remind them that we're still the top dog and can take their entire Air Force down in an afternoon, or B) have an upgrade path to sell to them in a few years once their F-15 fleet has aged.

Regarding B, the F-22 is banned from foreign military sales by Congress. Under the current law no one outside of the US will be able to fly them (Japan, Israel & Australia have expressed interest).

The aforementioned F-35 is the 800lb export guerilla with everyone and their mother qeueing up to buy them.

---The procurement system is certainly FUBAR in this country and I've been labeled an AF hater more than once in my life BUT the F-22 is not the end all, be all poster child for the problems in the system. The reality is that the AF does need a replacement for the F-15 and there is no realistic alternative to the F-22. Kill it and 20 years from now whatever the next program is will have similar issues but we won't have any F-15s in the air. Meanwhile PAK-FA (Russia's "answer" to the Raptor) is slated to be in production with the Russians/Indians by that time.

The problem crosses all of the services. Not only does the conversation cover "what exactly do we need when it comes to weapons systems" but it also goes into "why are the contracting companies so [censored]ed up".

The Comanche & the Crusader for the Army. DD (X), CG (X) & the LCS for the Navy (and that is not even close to covering the issues they've had with Naval aviation since the cancellation of the A-12 & deciding not to update the Tomcats). The Osprey & EFV for the USMC. The AF also has issues regarding the tanker & cargo fleet...

[AKAKBUCK]

Originally Posted by BrutusBobcat

Just hypothesizing, but we do have a few client/customer states out there flying F-15s. Maybe the F-22 was built to either A) remind them that we're still the top dog and can take their entire Air Force down in an afternoon, or B) have an upgrade path to sell to them in a few years once their F-15 fleet has aged.

Military equipment sales are both an integral part of our economy and our foreign policy.

Replace F-15 with F-35 and you probably have a point.

[martinss01]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

At a time when the Soviet Union and China have nothing in the air to challenge the F-15

umm, negative.

Su-30MK

In May 2002 it was reported that studies in a Boeing simulator complex show that the Su-30MK can defeat an F-15C ?every time? by using a combination beyond visual range (BVR) attack with an AA-12, followed by a close approach and attack with an IR-guided AA-11. The Su-30 penetrates the F-15?s Doppler radar net because it can rapidly dump speed to zero relative to the F-15, then attack from below and accelerate away.

Mikoyan MiG-29 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In joint USAF-Luftwaffe exercises, the MiG-29 that the Luftwaffe fielded defeated the F-16 in close combat almost every time using its highly practical IRST sensor and helmet-mounted sight, together with the Vympel R-73 (NATO: AA-11 'Archer') missile.

the f-15 and f-16 are NOT the end all be all of air to air combat.

when the war we are fighting is centered on the ground and on a people-to-people basis,

nearly all wars are centered on the ground on a people to people basis.

when the enemy has no air assets

they have no air assests because we either shot them down or they didn't have the balls to challenge us in the air. either way, thats a reason to continue to progress in the air to air arena. not to stop.

Originally Posted by cincibuck

Experts quoted during the Soviet May Day parade stated that modern Russian equipment, to include the 35, is well behind our current equipment... across the board. Not hard to believe. the two wars in the desert and the recent bombing of Syrian nuke facility by Israel taught us a great deal about Russian equipment.

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?

The military is in a real mess, (as is the economy, the politics... ) corruption is rampant, so is alcoholism, investigations into the beastly treatment of young conscripts and the failure to consistently pay the full time NCOs and officers, their equipment, never known for reliabilty in the first place, remains in the shop more often than a Jaguar sedan.

russian military equipment isn't known for its reliability?

If it weren't for the huge gas and oil deposits the whole place would be ripe for a new revolution, up [censored] creek without means of propulsion.

agreed.

[cincibuck]

Soviet equipment reliability... the T-72 did not have a shell ejector. You had to open the top hatch and throw the casings out. Understand there were problems with the loading mechanism and the arms of the loader. Targeting Opticals became fouled by the burning oil during Desert Storm, blinding the T-72s while the M-1s functioned perfectly. Soviet repair and resupply units had language issues, small in relation to need, poorly trained. One third of the tanks in a guards division (elite formations) could not move out during exercises.

Time and politics have not improved the issues.

Understand that the F-15 is worn out, but much of that was by design. Repair parts were non-exsistant for something like the last 5 years and the basic air frame had been out of production.

Muck obviously knows the procurement issue far better than I do. I had not seen any information on Eagle vs Mig in awhile. What concerns me is the cost. The 22 just eats chunks out of the AF budget for relatively few aircraft. It runs in the back of my mind that early in its introduction, when the Eagle was put up against smaller cheaper aircraft in numbers we could have expected in a full scale war with the Soviets (now Chinese), it lost. Numbers trumped technology. Maybe Muck can enlighten.

But the feud about providing fixed wing aircraft for ground support has been long standing between Army and Air Force and Marines and Navy. One side always wants to focus on higher and faster and the other always worries about the need for close in support.

As I understand it, the problem with the higher and faster, including the Raptor, is that the aircraft can do more than the human body can withstand. Next weapon series will be pilotless and there goes the need for an Academy, O' clubs and golf courses.

Understand the F-35 is supposed to be a joint aircraft and up for export. The question is, aside from being ugly, can it do the job on the ground?

[AKAKBUCK]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

Soviet equipment reliability... the T-72 did not have a shell ejector. You had to open the top hatch and throw the casings out. Understand there were problems with the loading mechanism and the arms of the loader. Targeting Opticals became fouled by the burning oil during Desert Storm, blinding the T-72s while the M-1s functioned perfectly. Soviet repair and resupply units had language issues, small in relation to need, poorly trained. One third of the tanks in a guards division (elite formations) could not move out during exercises.

Time and politics have not improved the issues.

Understand that the F-15 is worn out, but much of that was by design. Repair parts were non-exsistant for something like the last 5 years and the basic air frame had been out of production.

Muck obviously knows the procurement issue far better than I do. I had not seen any information on Eagle vs Mig in awhile. What concerns me is the cost. The 22 just eats chunks out of the AF budget for relatively few aircraft. It runs in the back of my mind that early in its introduction, when the Eagle was put up against smaller cheaper aircraft in numbers we could have expected in a full scale war with the Soviets (now Chinese), it lost. Numbers trumped technology. Maybe Muck can enlighten.

But the feud about providing fixed wing aircraft for ground support has been long standing between Army and Air Force and Marines and Navy. One side always wants to focus on higher and faster and the other always worries about the need for close in support.

As I understand it, the problem with the higher and faster, including the Raptor, is that the aircraft can do more than the human body can withstand. Next weapon series will be pilotless and there goes the need for an Academy, O' clubs and golf courses.

Understand the F-35 is supposed to be a joint aircraft and up for export. The question is, aside from being ugly, can it do the job on the ground?

Just quickly...

And I'll leave it to the "experts" to answer this... but... my understanding was that helicopters were supposed to fill the role of the A-10, etc... (AH-64, as an obvious example). The UAV's certainly fill a role as well, and... as (I think) they use missiles, I'm assuming JSF/F-35 can deliver those too.

At any rate... what is needed "now" needed to be thought of 20 years ago...

We're always preparing to fight the last war, right?

Anyway, F-22 is an air superiority fighter... and... to have all the other stuff work... A-10's... Apache's... any gorund support aircraft... there still needs to be an aircraft in the air superiority role... or none of the rest works.

That it doesn't do other things well might be a knock... I can see that... flexibility is a good, cost effective thing... but... the need to control the sky (or be prepared to) isn't going to change.

[cincibuck]

Originally Posted by AKAKBUCK

And I'll leave it to the "experts" to answer this... but... my understanding was that helicopters were supposed to fill the role of the A-10, etc... (AH-64, as an obvious example). The UAV's certainly fill a role as well, and... as (I think) they use missiles, I'm assuming JSF/F-35 can deliver those too.

You never have too much. The AH-64 has lift and distance issues and got the [censored] shot out of it in several dust ups early in the war. It's also very expensive.

At any rate... what is needed "now" needed to be thought of 20 years ago...We're always preparing to fight the last war, right?

No one ever lost a defense budget debate using that quote.

Anyway, F-22 is an air superiority fighter... and... to have all the other stuff work... A-10's... Apache's... any gorund support aircraft... there still needs to be an aircraft in the air superiority role... or none of the rest works.

When the enemy has aircraft, yes. My concern is that the proportion of money in the military budget spent on air superiority may leave us with clear skies and no money for the ground task. Could we retain air superiority with more aircraft and fewer bells and whistles? I don't know.

That it doesn't do other things well might be a knock... I can see that... flexibility is a good, cost effective thing... but... the need to control the sky (or be prepared to) isn't going to change.

If we think of the Chinese or the Arabs in Ronald reagan terms it may be that the way to defeat America is to push her to spend more money than she has on weapons. It worked against Russia and given the amount of American capital now in the hands of Beijing, it could happen again.

[Muck]

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:

"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.

*Hawley = General Dick Hawley, CG of Air Combat Command at the time

Originally Posted by martinss01

umm, negative.

[url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/su-30mk.htm]Su-30MK

Mikoyan MiG-29 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


the f-15 and f-16 are NOT the end all be all of air to air combat.

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.

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?

Electronic subsystems, materials technology, engine designs, information fusion...

russian military equipment isn't known for its reliability?

At the low end....very.
At the high end...not so much.

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

I'm sorry.... there are still Soviets?

[Bucky Katt]

Originally Posted by Buckeyeskickbuttocks

I'm sorry.... there are still Soviets?

Da...



..errr.....nyet! Nyet!

[AKAKBUCK]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

When the enemy has aircraft, yes. My concern is that the proportion of money in the military budget spent on air superiority may leave us with clear skies and no money for the ground task. Could we retain air superiority with more aircraft and fewer bells and whistles? I don't know..

Well, its my understanding, and, I may be wrong... but.. I think that this has been addressed to some degree in the fact that there are going to be many fewer F-22's ordered than originally planned and many more F-35's. My understanding is that the unit cost is much less, but also its a more flexoble platform... but... I'm not an expert.

Originally Posted by cincibuck

If we think of the Chinese or the Arabs in Ronald reagan terms it may be that the way to defeat America is to push her to spend more money than she has on weapons. It worked against Russia and given the amount of American capital now in the hands of Beijing, it could happen again.

What possible motive would the Chinese have to "defeat" America? Who would buy their lead ridden toys? I'm sure they like getting their hands on American Capital... bankrupting the US.... or whatever it is you're worried about would kind of [censored] such Chinese plan up... you know?

Quips-- even if there is some truth to it-- aside.... yeah, if you're talking missile defense systems and antisubmarine warfare measures... sure we could spend a lot of cash on such a threat... but that's not so much what you're talking about...

As for the Arabs... if they are following the "Afganistan" portion of the plan... and... for all intents and purposes, they are... it didn't work out very well for the Afghans... so...

Finally, Reagan was "fighting" a basically ideologically corrupt political/economic system... who, in conjunction with their policies destroyed themselves... but.. it was a "now or later" scenario.

Now, you may not like the US "policy" but... at least that can, and likely will change at some point. But, yeah, you get down to the basis of things and the Chinese would have to use our money to "defeat" us... then, no more money, then back to the beginning.

We didn't exactly fund the cold war with Blue Jean sales to the Soviets.

[Piney]

All I know is Lockheed makes money on this... and since I work for Lockheed... it is all good to make sure my paycheck never bounces

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

At a time when the Soviet Union and China have nothing in the air to challenge the F-15, let alone the F-22, when the war we are fighting is centered on the ground and on a people-to-people basis, when the enemy has no air assets, when CENTCOM is screaming for more drones, when soldiers and marines are calling for more "close in, low and slow," TAC air, when the A-10 fleet is aging and shunted off to the AF Reserve, when we are aware that this plane is limited by what a human body-- even one in a g-suit-- can stand, we get the Raptor.

And as I discovered during a tour of the Air Force Museum restoration hanger, this aircraft was outperformed in the trials leading up to the awarding of the contract!

What are we thinking?

The F-18 as a concept is over 30 years old. The F-15 is even older.

Force Modernization is not going to be cheap and the Russians and/or Chinese haven't stopped with the MiGs either.

[Muck]

Originally Posted by cincibuck

Understand that the F-15 is worn out, but much of that was by design. Repair parts were non-exsistant for something like the last 5 years and the basic air frame had been out of production.

The recent crash was due to failure of the fuselage longeron. That's the backbone of the aircraft. That wasn't caused by a maintenance issue it was due to structural fatique. Almost 200 F-15s were permanently grounded and sent to Davis-Monthan after inspections.

The 22 just eats chunks out of the AF budget for relatively few aircraft. It runs in the back of my mind that early in its introduction, when the Eagle was put up against smaller cheaper aircraft in numbers we could have expected in a full scale war with the Soviets (now Chinese), it lost. Numbers trumped technology. Maybe Muck can enlighten.

The last time I checked the Russian AF has about 1,000 front line fighters (Mig-31, Mig-29 & SU-27 based platforms) and had retired most of their older planes to save money. Not sure about their current structure.

The PLA has something like 4,000 fighters! But more than half of those are Mig-19 & Mig-21s. They've been working on massive modernization programs over the past two decades however.

Currently I think they have a little over a 200 Russian built SU-27 platforms (SU-27SK & UBK, SU-30MKK & MK2, SU-33) but they also bought manufacturing rights from the Russians and have started up their own production lines to start pushing them out. They are planning on building 200 or so J-11s (indig built SU-27s) and 150 or so are currently in service.

The indigeneous J-10 (it's the one that looks like the Israeli Lavi from the 80's) has started serial production and there are probably 100 or so in service with a production goal of 200.

There is also the FC-1/JF-17 which was designed in conjunction with Pakistan. It is their version of the modern cheap lightweight fighter and will replace the Mig-21s & Mirage IIIs in Pakistani service. The Paks have ordered 150 so far will an option to expand to 300. The Chinese are also evaluating it as a possible replacement for their older airframes.

But the feud about providing fixed wing aircraft for ground support has been long standing between Army and Air Force and Marines and Navy. One side always wants to focus on higher and faster and the other always worries about the need for close in support.

Easy answer. Lift the "fixed wing" ban the Army is stuck with and let them do their own damn CAS. The AF has never been overly interested in it and Army pilots would be able to integrate with the ground force structure much easier.

*shrug*

BTW the AH-64 as a primary CAS platform has a lot to do with the Army agreeing to only fly rotorcraft.

Understand the F-35 is supposed to be a joint aircraft and up for export. The question is, aside from being ugly, can it do the job on the ground?

Well that remains to be seen. I'm guessing that if all the end users didn't think it was up to the job they wouldn't be on board the program. But keep in mind that it was designed primarily as a bomb truck rather than an A2A platform. So air to ground is what it's supposed to do.

[Muck]

Originally Posted by AKAKBUCK

What possible motive would the Chinese have to "defeat" America?

Nationalistic pride.

In the past Chinese leaders have stated publicly that their goal is to supplant the United States as the world power.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

The F-15 as a concept is over 30 years old. The F-18 is even older.

The F-15 was designed in the late 60's as a response to fears over the capabilites of the Mig-25.

The F/A-18 grew out of the YF-17 which was entered into the light fighter trials of the mid/late 70's which were won by the F-16.

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by Muck

The F-15 was designed in the late 60's as a response to fears over the capabilites of the Mig-25.

The F/A-18 grew out of the YF-17 which was entered into the light fighter trials of the mid/late 70's which were won by the F-16.

....would you believe I actually switched the numbers??