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

[Muck]

Originally Posted by martinss01

np, i wouldn't let the wording get you riled up. you always have to take the media slant into consideration anytime you read something. all i took it to mean was they won more than we did. which as you noted, can have a lot of factors play into it.

Oh it doesn't get me too annoyed, we're all Buckeyes here. I just used to spend a lot of time on some of the mil.av boards and some of the bull[censored] being slung about by the russian fan boys get way too deep.

ill buy that the f-16 has better speed and bvr capability than the mig 29. but i think im going to need some proof on the f-18. expecially the super hornet which is less effective in air to air than the original.

The Hornet has better radar than either the Viper or the Fulcrum...

(that of course depends on exactly which model vs model we are talking about. An "A" model Hornet with the old APG-65 will probably be at a disadvantage against an 16 with an upgraded APG-66(V)9 but matching models of similar generations and the 18 usually has the advantage.
The Rhino's APG-79 is better than anything the other two air frames currently carry*.)

The Fulcrum's BVR capability quite frankly sucks ass. It's radar is garbage. It has a short range, can only track targets in a 45-60 degree cone and can only engage a single target at a time.

During the DACT engagements the F/A-18 pilots found that the 29 pilots had serious problems with situational awareness...1 Because of the restricted sight lines of their canopies and 2 because when firing a missile off boresite they had to keep their reticle trained on the target until impact. So in 2v2 & 4v4 engagements the Fulcrums became easy targets whenever they engaged an adversary.

The 18 & the 29 are far more similar than either is to the 16, with some of the same advantages/disadvantages vis a vis the viper.

The Super Hornet is all about BVR, it may give up some of the turn & burn of it's smaller brethren but with the AMRAAM, AESA radar & RCS reduction it has the advantage that has consistently won engagements in every air battle from Vietnam on...it can see the enemy first and shoot first.

* A block 60 Viper with the APG-80 AESA might have something to say about that.

really? i was under the impression that US pilots had to make visual confirmation that the aircraft was a hostile before they could engage. that isn't to say the kill itself wasn't bvr, but i didn't think the entire engagement itself was completely conducted bvr. i probably wasn't very clear on that, sorry. but is that true? has the majority of the US kills been entirely bvr?

During desert storm the ROE dictated that solo flights have two independent electronic means of verification before being allowed to engage.

That meant either having the aircraft designated as a hostile by the radar and then verifying it with an IFF ping.

There was a major brouhaha with the Navy over that issue because the Navy didn't feel a need for the secondary check as they placed their faith in the AN/AWG-9 on the Tomcats. The F-14 also had an older IFF set that wasn't guaranteed to work with other coalition aircraft so it was unable to meet the "two check" criteria. The Navy wanted to lay waste to Iraqi formations with AIM-54s before coming anywhere near enemy weapon ranges, while the AF was more worried about fratricide incidents*.

On the other hand if an AWACS declared a target hostile, it was fair game.

The ROEs were made more restrictive after the Blackhawk fratricide during the no fly days and I'm sure how they were modified for Bosnia in 99 (or GW2 for that matter).

*Those ROEs were the reason the Navy only had two A2A kills during Desert Storm. The AF had promised to create special AORs where the Navy interceptors would have free reign to engage targets without fear of any coalition aircraft wandering into the box. According to the Navy those AORs were never actually enacted as promised. The Navy felt the AF was purposely trying to cut them out of the A2A arena for political purposes (prestige, funding etc etc). That probably has at least some merit but it also has a lot to do with the very different environments the two services had trained to operate in. The Navy trained to be forward deployed in situations where they had no allied assistance and also over large distances of empty water or enemy territory exclusively while the AF trained to fight over Europe which was jam packed with good guys, bad guys & neutral guys in a relatively small area.

[Tresselbeliever]

The F-22 is a transformational weapon, and has place in future battlefields.

F-15Es, F-16s and F/A-18Es are not bad at all. They can probably win 6 out of 10 engagements vs. top line Russian sukhois, but when you are talking about fighting a war in the future, which is far away from the US mainland, it means you will have far fewer basing options at your disposal, which means you must be able to achieve an incredible high kill to loss ratio given the limited assets that you have. The F-22 is the only one that can offer that.

Plus, with the introduction of other 5th generation fighters over the next few years, it's a no-brainer to procure the F-22 now. The only problem with stealth fighters is the introduction of AESA on 4th generation planes, allowing them to fry the radar seeker of incoming missiles, thus rendering the first shoot advantage of the F-22 useless. But that's a totally different topic for a different day.

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by Bleed S & G

There was a show on the history channel over the weekend that was about 2 hours long and was about the generation 5 fighters.. a lot of knowledge dropped about the raptor and the new mig... recommend you guys check your tv guide and see if you can't DVR or catch the special

Saw it and it was great. They had the Berkut in it (AF Tech link), and then they had an edge-of-space dogfight between US and Russian scramjets.

Bottom line is, this minute you stop developing, you're history.

[martinss01]

Originally Posted by Muck

Oh it doesn't get me too annoyed, we're all Buckeyes here. I just used to spend a lot of time on some of the mil.av boards and some of the bull[censored] being slung about by the russian fan boys get way too deep.

i used to as well. its where i originally heard about the su-30 vrs f-15 boeing test.

The Hornet has better radar than either the Viper or the Fulcrum...

really? i always thought european and to a much lesser extent russian radar was atleast on the same playing field with the US primarily because of our reliance on awacs support.

The 18 & the 29 are far more similar than either is to the 16, with some of the same advantages/disadvantages vis a vis the viper.

The Super Hornet is all about BVR, it may give up some of the turn & burn of it's smaller brethren but with the AMRAAM, AESA radar & RCS reduction it has the advantage* that has consistently won engagements in every air battle from Vietnam on...it can see the enemy first and shoot first.

* A block 60 Viper with the APG-80 AESA might have something to say about that.

while ive always been more interested in naval aviation, i have to admit that the navies current lineup sucks balls. the old hornet is solid enough. but on its own merits without the electronic upgrades, the super hornet is junk imo.

During desert storm the ROE dictated that solo flights have two independent electronic means of verification before being allowed to engage.

That meant either having the aircraft designated as a hostile by the radar and then verifying it with an IFF ping.

There was a major brouhaha with the Navy over that issue because the Navy didn't feel a need for the secondary check as they placed their faith in the AN/AWG-9 on the Tomcats. The F-14 also had an older IFF set that wasn't guaranteed to work with other coalition aircraft so it was unable to meet the "two check" criteria. The Navy wanted to lay waste to Iraqi formations with AIM-54s before coming anywhere near enemy weapon ranges, while the AF was more worried about fratricide incidents*.

On the other hand if an AWACS declared a target hostile, it was fair game.

The ROEs were made more restrictive after the Blackhawk fratricide during the no fly days and I'm sure how they were modified for Bosnia in 99 (or GW2 for that matter).

*Those ROEs were the reason the Navy only had two A2A kills during Desert Storm. The AF had promised to create special AORs where the Navy interceptors would have free reign to engage targets without fear of any coalition aircraft wandering into the box. According to the Navy those AORs were never actually enacted as promised. The Navy felt the AF was purposely trying to cut them out of the A2A arena for political purposes (prestige, funding etc etc). That probably has at least some merit but it also has a lot to do with the very different environments the two services had trained to operate in. The Navy trained to be forward deployed in situations where they had no allied assistance and also over large distances of empty water or enemy territory exclusively while the AF trained to fight over Europe which was jam packed with good guys, bad guys & neutral guys in a relatively small area.

i believe thats what i remeber reading about. that the iff ping wasn't reliable. in this case i was probably reading about the navy version on the tomcats and assumed it was for all US aircraft and this made visual identification a requirement without awacs assistance.

[Muck]

Originally Posted by martinss01

really? i always thought european and to a much lesser extent russian radar was atleast on the same playing field with the US primarily because of our reliance on awacs support.

The Russians rely almost entirely on GCI and traditionally their radar sets have been less capable because of it.

The Mig-29s radars have been especially bad. The "A" model radar was little more than a modified set from a Mig-23.

As with everything else they've placed a lot of time in effort & making their radar systems more capable.

I'm not saying all Russian radars are junk only that the Mig-29 had one that was at the bottom of the barrel for them. Keep in mind the Fulcrum was mostly designed as a point defence fighter....take off, follow directions from ground control, lob some missiles, go home...rinse repeat.

FWIW the Mig-31 had a pretty good radar for it's day and age.

while ive always been more interested in naval aviation, i have to admit that the navies current lineup sucks balls. the old hornet is solid enough. but on its own merits without the electronic upgrades, the super hornet is junk imo.

Don't place too much faith in the internet stick jockeys. The pilots who fly it love it.

As the current Rhinos are all brought up to Block 3 spec it'll be in the top 2-3 interceptors in the world (behind the Raptor).

The avionics package is already world class (in some ways better than the F-22s) & the uprated F414 will more than make up for the last performance due to weight gain over the C/Ds, it already has a lower RCS than anything outside of the 22/35/117/B2, it finally has the legs the C/D needed, and when the AMRAAM "D"s come online the performance gap caused by the loss of the Phoenix will be mostly eliminated.

BTW you've probably already seen it but this pic is from the gun camera of a VFA-11 Super Bug doing DACT up at Langley.

Any guess what that is under the pipper?

[Thump]

I'd be interested to hear SATXBucks's opinion if we could drag him away from the Kardashian thread long enough to comment.

[BuckeyeMike80]

F-22 Secrets Revealed
by James Dunnigan
March 13, 2009

The U.S. Air Force has released some performance data on the F-22. The stealthiness factor of the F-22 has turned out to be better than predicted. For radar purposes, the F-22 is about the size of a steel marble. The F-35 comes out as a steel golf ball. The AESA radar turned out to have a longer effective range of about 210 kilometers, versus a 200 on the official spec sheet. The AESA radar is also able to detect enemy radars at a considerable distance, meaning that, if an approaching enemy aircraft is using its radar, an F-22 can detect it about 300 kilometers distant. That gives the F-22 more time to get into position for a decisive first shot at the enemy aircraft.

These goodies are being released as the Air Force makes a pitch to delay some F-35 production in order to build more F-22s. The air force generals point out that the first 500 or so F-35s will cost $200 million each (without taking R&D into account), while F-22s only cost $145 million each (without taking R&D into account). The construction cost of the F-35 will eventually go to about $100 million each as more are produced.

The air force also points out that their simulations (which are classified, so it's difficult for anyone check their accuracy) indicate the an F-22 would destroy 30 Su-27/MiG-29 type aircraft for getting destroyed. But the F-35 would only have a 3:1 ratio, while the F-15 and F-16 would only have a 1:1 ratio (there are a lot of F-15 and F-16 pilots who would dispute this). Thus the need for more F-22s, even if it means fewer F-35s (in the near and long term).

The air force also points out that, with a force of 183 F-22s (all Congress will allow them to build at the moment), only about a hundred would be available for combat (the rest would be down for maintenance or used for training.) By building another 60-100 F-22s, and reducing initial F-35 production by that much, American air superiority would be much improved, at no (well, not much) additional expense. Or so goes the pitch.

F-22 Secrets Revealed

A 30:1 ratio probably shouldn't be ignored so I wanted to put it in this thread. While I'm certain our pilots are good enough in the F-15s and 16s to get a better than 1:1 ratio, certainly it wouldn't equal what the F-22 is capable of.

As I have said in previous posts in other threads, the F-22 is a weapon unlike any other. And while it is clearly the cream of the crop right now (and it should be, mainly because it's AMERICAN) it won't likely always be. That said, the plane itself is likely capable of things that the human body can't withstand (meaning Gs and whatnot).

The F16s and F15s and F18s are old and getting older. The F-22 can replace all of them if ONLY we build enough of them.

[FrancisSawyer]

Did someone mention friendly fire earlier? Warthogs?

LiveLeak.com - A-10 Close Call

LiveLeak.com - A-10 (Very) Close-Air Support

I'll bet these guys had to change their knickers afterward.

[billmac91]

can someone break this lingo down? what are the ratio's they speak of?

30:1?

1:1?

[IronBuckI]

Originally Posted by billmac91

can someone break this lingo down? what are the ratio's they speak of?

30:1?

1:1?

Kill ratio. 30 enemies for every F-22.

[billmac91]

Originally Posted by IronBuckI

Kill ratio. 30 enemies for every F-22.

Thanks.

Still more info needed.

Kill ratio of what? Civilians on the ground, destroyed targets? Clearly, I'm a novice in this field.

[IronBuckI]

Originally Posted by billmac91

Thanks.

Still more info needed.

Kill ratio of what? Civilians on the ground, destroyed targets? Clearly, I'm a novice in this field.

an F-22 would destroy 30 Su-27/MiG-29 type aircraft for getting destroyed

Air to air combat, I guess. Ground targets stand no chance in hell against an F-22. Too high...too accurate...too fast.

[billmac91]

Originally Posted by IronBuckI

Air to air combat, I guess. Ground targets stand no chance in hell against an F-22. Too high...too accurate...too fast.

It just seems so ambiguous to me.....how is 1 aircraft measured at killing 30 other aircrafts??

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by billmac91

It just seems so ambiguous to me.....how is 1 aircraft measured at killing 30 other aircrafts??

Not quite one aircraft killing 30 others, but rather how many kills one side would get compared to the amount of kills the other would get. In the Korean War, IIRC, we had a 7-to-1 kill ratio, which meant we shot down seven of their aircraft for every aircraft we lost to them.

[Wingate1217]

Originally Posted by billmac91

It just seems so ambiguous to me.....how is 1 aircraft measured at killing 30 other aircrafts??

Advanced radar systems allows U.S. pilots to target multiple contacts at very long distances and shoot them down even before the enemy even knows the F-22 is there......