F-22 Update

i keep on hearing they should have picked the F23. Why? What are the advantages of the F22 over the F23 and vice versa?

IMHO, the biggest junp in technology was when the wright brothers used wood and metal unlike the wax wings of Daedelus and Icarus which had a heat shield problem

I worked for a company that did some work with on the F/A-22. The latest rumor going around is that the Air Force wants to scrap the F/A-22 and start from scrtach.

The F/A-22 was designed in the 80's, any thourghly modern fighter would look VERY different from the F/A-22. Check out Boeing's bird of prey.

The real push now is toward unmanned combat aircraft. Unmanned beats manned period. And the US is by far the world leader in Unmanned COMBAT aircraft. No other nation even comes close

Originally posted by BillHicksRules
AMM/Warlord,

I was thinking of the change from biplanes to monoplanes and the change from props to jets.

Cheers

BHR

I was speaking of fighters, as in jet powered fighters.

Like I said, when speaking of generations, IMHO, you are talking about improvements in a weapons platform.

A bi plane would be a first generation prop, a monoplane second generation.

Of course I would not argue that in terms of flight those are larger improvements

My comments are in regards to the evolution of the jet fighter, from being a pure dog fighter, to an advanced pure dogfighter, to a primitive missle platform, to a modern missle platform, and now to a stealth missle platform.

Well propellor planes can be quite clearly be devided in more generations than that.

I guess it would be like this.

1st generation. The recon planes during the beginning of ww1 and before
2nd generation middle too end of ww1 till say 1930. Clear distinction between classes of planes. Improved designs and engines.
3d generation Last biplanes the peak of biplane developement. Allof of them had some of the features of later or in some cases contemperairy monoplanes.
3.5 generation. Monoplanes but still with features of biplanes.
4th generation Starting with the I16 till say 1940 planes?
5th generation peak of propellor fighters including fighters like the Later model spitfires, Fw190, Tempest, later model Bf109's and the true peaks Ar335 and Ta152H.

Originally posted by tomcat ha
i keep on hearing they should have picked the F23. Why? What are the advantages of the F22 over the F23 and vice versa?

I made a thread comparing the two aircraft, but it won't come up on a search.

Basically, the Y/F-23 Black Widow II had slightly better stealth and was slightly faster. I would guess it also had better range because the wings were bigger (hence, it could hold more fuel).

The Raptor was slightly more manueverable and slightly less expensive. From what I remember of the thread, most agreed that it was chosen largely based on the fact that Lockheed was the designer, and wWashington may have thought them more able to make the aircraft at the stated price.

If anyone could find that thread, it would be most apreciated. It was called something like "F/A-22 Raptor vs Y/F-23 Black Widow II: Manueverability and price vs speed and stealth"

Madman,
I found your Post entitled "F-22 vs YF-23: maneuverability vs speed and stealth"
For some strange reason it is in Below Top Secret... can't figure that out.

Originally posted by KyleChemist
I worked for a company that did some work with on the F/A-22. The latest rumor going around is that the Air Force wants to scrap the F/A-22 and start from scrtach.

The F/A-22 was designed in the 80's, any thourghly modern fighter would look VERY different from the F/A-22. Check out Boeing's bird of prey.

The real push now is toward unmanned combat aircraft. Unmanned beats manned period. And the US is by far the world leader in Unmanned COMBAT aircraft. No other nation even comes close

I think I'd have to disagree there. Any thoroughly modern fighter design would look different maybe, but the time it would take to construct it and test it enough would take so long, that by the time it came into production it too would be outdated. Any modern fighter in production was usually designed about 10 years before, at LEAST. Even the Typhoon was designed 10+ years ago.

And I disagree that "unmanned aircraft beats manned by far..." HOW could anyone know this?? It takes a lot of communications and processing power and encryption if you want to fly groups of unmanned aircraft, and there's no way to know if an unmanned aircraft would match up against a manned aircraft. Your field of view for the armchair pilot would be too limited, as they'd be staring at screens most likely, not looking out of a cockpit with a full view. One of the new targeting systems for aircraft is where you just turn your head and look at your target and fire; one could not do that with a UAV.

ALL weapons systems first have to prove themselves on the battlefield; until then, the current method is always better. When the cannon first came out, it was a joke. Armies mainly relied on the traditional bows and arrows and swords and shields. As cannons advanced, they proved to be much more effective weapons however. The gun was the same.

The battletank was a joke when it appeared in WWI; it did virtually nothing (though the smaler French tanks I think were effective, but not the big British ones); but then the Germans improved the design greatly and the tank was a crucial weapon come WWII.

The submarine had to prove itself. The carrier ship had to prove itself. The jet fighter plane had to prove itself. So did the machine gun, and the helicopter.

UAVs will not replace piloted aircraft until an event comes around in which they are used and it is shown that they provide a clear advantage over manned aircraft. Until that day comes, it is all speculation.

Originally posted by BillHicksRules
Intelgurl,

You and Broadsword's opinion that the Raptor is a leap forward in fighter design is simply that, an opinion.

As is my opinion that it is merely a step.

Lets not fall out over it and lets not hijack this thread arguing over the word leap.

I would rather have such a beautiful woman who works (or has worked) for such a groundbreaking company, as a friend than an adversary.

Cheers

BHR

p.s. I have nothing against the F-22.

p.p.s. I also preferred the F-23 but that was simply the look of the thing.

[edit on 4-3-2005 by BillHicksRules]

Just purely wondering here is all, but which groundbreaking company?? Which also leads me to one other question; Intelgurl, are you an aerospace engineer who designs UAVs?? I am just wondering is all, as you seem to have a huge amount of knowledge on all these subjects.

[edit on 5-3-2005 by Broadsword20068]

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
Just purely wondering here is all, but which groundbreaking company?? Which also leads me to one other question; Intelgurl, are you an aerospace engineer who designs UAVs?? I am just wondering is all, as you seem to have a huge amount of knowledge on all these subjects.
[edit on 5-3-2005 by Broadsword20068]

I am a certified instructor of Raytheon sensing, processing, and dissemination technologies, currently assigned to a F2T2EA UCAV development program at Indian Springs AAFB, Nevada.


[edit on 5-3-2005 by intelgurl]

Greetings,

I want this post to be made clear from the start, as my own opinion.

The F/A-22 in my opinion is an aircraft that has had tomuch thrown on its shoulders, I personally don't believe all the hipe that some of the americans on this seem to be pumping out instead of CO2. The Aircraft it's self was designed to "knock out the next generation of Soviet Aircraft in the late 1980's, aircraft such as the resent SU27 etc, being designed to operate from German airfields and in my opinion to a limited degree in a possible Tawian situation.

But, the thing is, things changed. The soviet Union fell, the large lumbering oponent disappeared in a flash and the YF-22 lost its role, as the years passed the enemies where no longer the lumbering armies of the Warsaw Pac [Spelling?] they where the quiet and stealthy terrorists. The Pentagon realised that this fighter program would fail if they didn't add more features that would help with the war on terrorism, that started with the added air to ground systems, some thing which the aircraft was never designed from the start in mind. Its like buying a sports car and adding a tailer hitch to it. The aircraft was never designed to operate "far" from base without tanker support, with the new types of missions that require longer loiter times with out tanker support, hell a B52 or B1 with BVR Missiles and Mk 82s could fulfill half the roles that the F/A-22 could.

I know people will say that I am nuts in saying that a 40 year old B52 or the newer B1 could fulfill the roles of the F/A-22, but am I... Think about it.

The only things that in my opinion on the F/A-22 that are any good is the stealth, any thing can be fitted with BVR, a B29 could be fitted with BVR missiles if the airforce take the time to fit the electronics. The B1 bomber would make a great BVR platform not to mention an amazing CAS craft.

Like all the F/A-22 fans have said, they where designed to launch at BVR, then sneak away, well hell the B1 could fulfill that role amazingly and if need be drop to 'COLA' and evade using the new Electronic counter measures that the F/A 22. hell I am saving the American Tax payers a bomb!

The F/A 22 has no real new role and because of that, they threw in the ground attack option. When looking at the JSF it was designed using some the technology designed for the F/A-22 program, so I would class that as a TRUE 5 gen fighter.

The Raptor is just an aircraft with little goodies that have popped up over the years as the program progressed, so the raptor = 4.75 gen fighter ::grins::

Final Conclusion:
Pull the B1 out of mothballs, update them with F/A-22 technology and let the bomber crews get the credit, as they can do the job better with more range, more weapons and more cost effective that the white horse, and then when the JSF is operational, there will be a true 5th Gen fighter to support the HFB1 [Heavy Fighter Bomber]

::grins::

- Philip

[edit on 5-3-2005 by gooseuk]

[edit on 5-3-2005 by gooseuk]

I think I'd have to disagree there. Any thoroughly modern fighter design would look different maybe, but the time it would take to construct it and test it enough would take so long, that by the time it came into production it too would be outdated. Any modern fighter in production was usually designed about 10 years before, at LEAST. Even the Typhoon was designed 10+ years ago

.

That is just the rumor at the company (I won't say which one), there were A LOT of people VERY nervous about the F/A-22 getting cancelled. Sometimes these rumors are true, sometimes not. That was just what I was hearing from people in and out of uniform. The Air Force would not really be starting from scratch, there has been much work on stealth design since the F/A-22. Check this out:

www.boeing.com...

This development made very many senior VPs a little nervous.

And I disagree that "unmanned aircraft beats manned by far..." HOW could anyone know this?? It takes a lot of communications and processing power and encryption if you want to fly groups of unmanned aircraft, and there's no way to know if an unmanned aircraft would match up against a manned aircraft. Your field of view for the armchair pilot would be too limited, as they'd be staring at screens most likely, not looking out of a cockpit with a full view. One of the new targeting systems for aircraft is where you just turn your head and look at your target and fire; one could not do that with a UAV.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Unmanned beats manned for several reasons:

1. Unmanned aircraft can perform manouvers humans simply cannot withstand. ie High G turns, acceleration, etc.

2. When you remove the pilot, there is a HUGE weight savings and space available for weapons, engine etc. making UCAVs much lighter, faster, and more manouvrable. Again, this allows UCAVs able to do things manned aircraft simply cannot do.

3. Modern UCAVs DO NOT have an 'armchair pilot', rather they are intended to be totally autonomous, with no human even in the loop.

I standby my claime that unmanned beats manned. There is an excellent series on Frontline about the advantages of UAVs and UCAVs. Also check this out.

www.fas.org...

UAVs will not replace piloted aircraft until an event comes around in which they are used and it is shown that they provide a clear advantage over manned aircraft. Until that day comes, it is all speculation.

You are right here, UAVs and UCAVS will NEVER completly replace manned aircraft. However, they will be a HUGE force in the future, greatly reducing the relaince on manned aircraft. Even nowadays in modern fighter like the F/A-18 or F-16, the pilot only asks permission to fly they way he wants to (sorry if I offend any pilots out there). Its not speculation, the Boeing X-45 has had many succesful test flights, and will be coming on-line soon, probably within the next few years. I did some work on UCAVs, Of course there will be trial and error, and some hiccups on the way, but this is the way of the future.

Intelgurl, that sounds like a pretty cool job. Are you an electrical or computer engineer by trade, or something along that line, then?

As for UCAVs, this is more my speculation as I am no UCAV expert, but I believe they will slowly replace manned aircraft in many senses, but humans can do certain things that autonomous aircraft simply cannot. Pilots have to be constantly trained in the uses of weapons and tactics and so forth. It would require an incredibly complex and stable artificial intelligence system for such a UCAV to be able to act as intelligently as a human pilot I would think.

And also, HUMANS LIKE TO FLY. It's like with soldiers. I seriously doubt we will replace human infantry troops with complete android armies in the future, even if the technology becomes available, because people simply like to do certain things.

Until an unmanned UCAV goes up against an enemy fighter plane and proves itself far superior in fighting ability to the human pilot, UCAVs are NOT going to replace human pilots in that role. All weapon systems must prove themselves first. And even when that day comes, there will be the problem of keeping the enemy from implanting computer viruses into your UCAVs to basically make them turn against you, most likely. It will require lots of state-of-the-art security.

I think there is a limit as to how autonomous military machinery will become. Humans utilize equipment to AID them in fighting, not necessarily to do fighting for them purely, IMO.

Bloody hell this old F22 doesn't half generate some debate doesn't it?

If you had to go to war tomorow in a fighter currently in production would you choose the F22? Well to my mind you'd be made not to.

Why?

Well the obvious stealth advantages in BVR combat. Let's stick an F22 and a Typhoon in an empty 200nm2 box of sky with no external influences. Who wins? Well you'd say the F22 and with some justification. But let's not go that way, let's assume that the F22 is fighting in airspace that is readily contested, the full works, ground based radar, AWACS, Link 16 or JTIDS or whatever, all of which are fully networked. Is the F22 now so invunerable? I think probably not.

F22 or F15, you still need a significant counter air and SEAD operation before you can operate with impunity. The F22 is certainly a big leap forward, but a quantum leap? I don't know. I guess the jury will be out on that for some time.

I do have a question I would be grateful for your views on though.

What, if any, advantages would you say the Raptor holds over the latest Euro Canards in WVR combat?

I'm curious on this TVC thing. Someone mentioned earlier that it had been around for a good 15-20 years and yet had never really featured on production aircraft to any great extent. It occurs to me that this is because it isn't actually that useful in combat.

What is the point in bleeding off a huge amount of speed and energy using your TVC to point your nose at an enemy when a non TVC plane with HMCS and high off boresight missiles will probably still get a shot off at you? Surely you just end up slow and vunerable whilst your non TVC opponent is higher speed, higher energy and better placed to avoid your missile shot? Keep in mind that the Typhoon for example, was designed for maximum agility, and despite what some may think, is shown to be EXTREMELY manouverable, even in supersonic flight (one of the design specifications), and is capable of sustained high G manoueveres (not saying other planes aren't).

I'm not claiming one is better than the other, just interested as I haven't heard much that says the F22 is anything particularly ground breaking in this region.

No one as ever said the F/A-22 is invincible, but it can handle itself a lot better in the above-mentioned siutation you gave then pretty much anything else out there.

This is actually a very good and thought provoking post on the subject, thank you, as I haven't seen one for a while (and I include my own drivel in that )

Originally posted by Badger
Let's stick an F22 and a Typhoon in an empty 200nm2 box of sky with no external influences. Who wins? Well you'd say the F22 and with some justification.

You can't really argue with that, I have heard that in the frontal aspect the Typhoon is as stealthy as the Raptor but I can't back that up with any facts and figures so it seems to be a generally accurate assessment.

But let's not go that way, let's assume that the F22 is fighting in airspace that is readily contested, the full works, ground based radar, AWACS, Link 16 or JTIDS or whatever, all of which are fully networked. Is the F22 now so invunerable? I think probably not.

This is one of the areas where I think a lot of people think that the Raptor is unique, all this 'datalink' management to and from various sources etc but it is one of the few areas where it and the Typhoon are evenly matched so while it provides an advantage for the Raptor against other opponents it wouldn't against the RAF or Luftwaffe Typhoons, not that it will ever have to of course, (other nations Typhoons, including the manufacturing partners will actually be less capable and operating within a more limited infrastructure, hence the distinction).

I do have a question I would be grateful for your views on though.

What, if any, advantages would you say the Raptor holds over the latest Euro Canards in WVR combat?

I'm curious on this TVC thing. Someone mentioned earlier that it had been around for a good 15-20 years and yet had never really featured on production aircraft to any great extent. It occurs to me that this is because it isn't actually that useful in combat.

What is the point in bleeding off a huge amount of speed and energy using your TVC to point your nose at an enemy when a non TVC plane with HMCS and high off boresight missiles will probably still get a shot off at you? Surely you just end up slow and vunerable whilst your non TVC opponent is higher speed, higher energy and better placed to avoid your missile shot? Keep in mind that the Typhoon for example, was designed for maximum agility, and despite what some may think, is shown to be EXTREMELY manouverable, even in supersonic flight (one of the design specifications), and is capable of sustained high G manoueveres (not saying other planes aren't).

I'm not claiming one is better than the other, just interested as I haven't heard much that says the F22 is anything particularly ground breaking in this region.

Great question, and clearly the USAF doesn't agree with those who say that that the day of the dogfight is dead or so much time and money wouldn't have been invested in bringing such ability to the ATF programme.

I have read reports that state that the Raptor and Typhoon (I can't comment on Rafale & Gripen as I haven't studied them closely enough as yet) are closely matched on the agility front, even without TVR in the Typhoon, thanks to its 'relaxed static stability' canrd layout and advanced control system. TVC engines for the Typhoon have been built and bench tested several years ago but the question of whether they would actually enhance its performance sufficiently remains open and no firm decision has been made whether to fit them or not. Of course the Raptor, with it s 'old style' tailplane layout benefits hugely from the tech and so there is no question that use of TVC is worthwhile in this aircraft.

Of course TVC has been around for 45 years, ever since the first flight of the Hawker P1127, and the RAF and USMC Harrier Mk 1 was the first combat aircraft to use it in service (then called Viffing - vectoring in forward flight, a technique used by the Royal Navy in the Falklands war against Mirages). The reason it has not become universal on fighters is that the technology is actually very difficult to incorporate onto a supersonic fighter engine and adds significantly to the cost.

It is true that in aerial combat 'energy is life' and that is also why the 'cobra' has no value operationally.

Considering that both pilots would have helmet mounted sights, missiles with off boresight capability, PIRATE on the Typhoon (and surely something similar on Raptor) then the thought of a twisting turning fight between the two is quite bewildering.

In conclusion the message to both pilots would seem to be," if a BVR shot doesn't get your opponent, get ready to sweat!"

An excercise between the RAF and USAF when both fighters have reached front line operation would be fascintaing to study, and probably as controversial on here as the cope India one has been.

[edit on 6-3-2005 by waynos]

www.heraldextra.com...

President Bush's budget request for the Pentagon calls for reducing future purchases of the $130 million-per-plane jets from the current planned level of 268 to 179, terminating the contract early in 2008.

If the F-22 is so far 'a head of everything else' why are they only getting 179?

Wouldn't it be wiser, to get a large amount of these until a better plane is developed?

It costs a lot of money right now; the Air Force is very upset about the small amount, but politicians don't know much and every service is vying for $$$ right now.

Originally posted by Odium
If the F-22 is so far 'a head of everything else' why are they only getting 179?

Wouldn't it be wiser, to get a large amount of these until a better plane is developed?

It's all about politics and a finite military budget. The cold war is over, so now you have a lot of people saying we don't need 700+ Raptors like the AF wanted. The number has shrunk, and I would imagine that the USAF will only get about 150 total.

Then there is the fact we are at war right now, so a lot of money that would have otherwise been spent on Raptors is instead spent elsewhere.

In short, the Raptor was not well liked by a lot of people when it was first designed, just as the B-2, F-15 etc were not, and then it's great enemy - the USSR - self destructs. Add in the war on terrorism and the effortlessness of USAF dominance with current weapons platforms, and the F/A-22 doesn't seem like a "must have" to a lot of people.

gooseuk
I agree.
As much as I do love the Raptor, there are other platforms that could take away most of its role.
One of my favorites is the ABL (Airborne Laser). Grant it, its a freakin huge plane, it can do a LOT. It is being designed for the role of taking out ballistake missiles early on in there flight (before they reach very fast speeds), but once you think about it.....It can do much much more. It will ba able take out a missile around 150 miles away! and nothing is faster then the speed of light. While of course solid state lasers are the future, thats still awhile off, so this will be a chemical laser, with enough propellant on board for around 10 shots. This could be used for taking out the following: LEO satellites, missiles, aircraft (fighter, bomber, and anything in between), and nearly everything on the ground! Like scuds or fuel tanks at a military base, or there vehicles. Its uses are astounding! thats why, although its over budget and behind schedule, it wont be cancelled.