F-22 Update

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

whoa...I think your getting abit ahead of yourself. HUMANS WILL BE IN THE LOOP. You might be talking about UAV's, in which case your pretty close, like the Global Hawk, which only take a few clicks of a mouse by a person on the ground to complete a whole recon mission. But UCAVS will have people in the loop, WE decide when and where to drop bombs...not a machine.

You also talked about the X-45, and said that you thought it would be operational in a few years...Wrong.
There are only 2 X-45's, they are experimental only, however they did really good and are now being improved, same goes for the X-47. DARPA is having Boeing build 3 X-45C's and they will be delivered in 2007, which is around the same time the Northrop will deliver its 3 X-47B's, all six of these future UCAVS are experimental only. The Airforce doesn't have any plans on buying them by the handfull. The Air Force will see how they do, and if they like what they see (which they probably will) then they will decide if to buy, and how many to buy, and same goes for the Navy and the X-47B. I highly doubt one will go operational in this decade.

Originally posted by Murcielago
[whoa...I think your getting abit ahead of yourself. HUMANS WILL BE IN THE LOOP. You might be talking about UAV's, in which case your pretty close, like the Global Hawk,

I agree with you on this. Humans will alsways be around to give the go / no go on attacks. Do you want an armed UCAV roming around with say a software glitch firing at random targets it deems to be a threat???


Didn't anybody learn anything from Terminator 2/3

whoa...I think your getting abit ahead of yourself. HUMANS WILL BE IN THE LOOP. You might be talking about UAV's, in which case your pretty close, like the Global Hawk, which only take a few clicks of a mouse by a person on the ground to complete a whole recon mission. But UCAVS will have people in the loop, WE decide when and where to drop bombs...not a machine

I only worked on UCAVs for a short time, but DARPA made their goals clear, the UCAV would have NO INPUT from humans during flight. Maybe you didn't understand. The idea was for humans to give the target info (ie tell the UCAV what to destroy and when), but after that the UCAV would be on its on.

You also talked about the X-45, and said that you thought it would be operational in a few years...Wrong

Not sure where you are getting your info from. Again I only did a small project on UCAVs (at the time the X-45), so I am not an expert. I can tell you DARPA, Navy, and Air Force were pouring A LOT of money into the project. One of the reasons the F/A-22 is being scaled back is to free up more funds for the UCAV project (its actually called J-UCAS now, for Joint Unmanned Comabat Air System). I have sinced moved on to other things, but again DARPA and the services were very clear in that they wanted to move forward with J-UCAS very rapidly.

Keep in mind, info on the web or in magazines/books is usually outdated. From my expierence working with defense contractors, there is usually a HUGE discrepency between what is going on, and what they are telling you.

I highly doubt one will go operational in this decade

We'll have to agree to disagree here. Based on the money and manpower I saw going into the J-UCAS, it will be operatiaonal soon.

Didn't anybody learn anything from Terminator 2/3

Too many movies there, come back to reality.

[edit on 11-3-2005 by KyleChemist]

UCAVs may be used for big bombing missions in the future, but I think they will be limited. Pilots will always be needed. there are just things human pilots can do that unmanned aircraft can't.

UCAVs may be used for big bombing missions in the future, but I think they will be limited. Pilots will always be needed. there are just things human pilots can do that unmanned aircraft can't.

No argument there, UCAVs will NEVER completely replace manned flight. But the will be huge force to be reconed with in the not too distant future.

There is nothing more deadly in the skies than a well trained fighter jock with the fire in his eyes, no matter what plane he is flying.

www.unleadedjokes.com...

Odium,

Nice one mate

Cheers

BHR

This threat has made for some enjoyable reading. Thanks to you all. A few have uncommon insights, either from superior knowledge or just good assessment. Others, well....not quite so close – but your convictions and spirit keep things lively and fun.

It would be wise to pay close attention to Intelgurl and those similar. FredT, have our paths crossed? Does PMA-239D have any meaning?

My information is no longer current, apologies, but it was valid during the F22/23 formative stages. Some points that might serve as "lances in the sand" to dance around:

The ATF, now F22, was designed to defeat the NEXT generation air threat. The nature of that projection was not trivial to develop. Dealing with current generation fighters isn’t really a matter of "if" but "how fast" you can get 'em w/ a Raptor.

F22 is a balanced design. So was the F23, for you advocates. No one attribute can be said to predominate over others. Some of the features in the requirements baseline may never be released. That’s a bummer too, they’re really cool! All of the fighter’s attributes play together to give it a VERY broadband capability. As part of that balanced design process, ops analysis played an enormous part. Some was simple, part-task simulation to focus PVI (cockpit) design up to major multi-plane digital runs to very high fidelity, man-in-the-loop, full mission, developmental and systems eval sims.

The Raptor didn’t just happen and it didn’t just happen to be so capable. It was designed and built to be that way by some of the most impressive minds you could have the pleasure to meet – and a few more practical types that helped keep things in perspective.

A common and politically risky costing method takes total program costs and divides by the number of units purchased. Doesn’t take long to figure out that requirements creep (add-ons), program delays (you still have to pay for high-powered people and facilities while you wait) and cuts in the buy plan make the per-airplane cost climb outa sight! Keep in mind, tho, F22 cost numbers contain some things prior programs didn’t. The training system is a biggie, maintenance support another – in the package deal (or were in the FSD contract anyway). Those things had their own budget lines in prev programs.

Some specifics?

Both F22 and 23 can whip the snot out of Fulcrum/Flanker/Eagle/Hornet/Super Turkey class jets. Not close. Certainly not fair. And that means guns-only if you like.

Both 22and 23 were dimensioned to fit in then existing hard shelters in Europe. They’re about as close to the same size as they can be.

The most challenging place on the airplanes for the design teams was right above the intakes where propulsion, aero, observables and structures guys had to agree. Zillions of ‘puter runs to iterate an answer that made everyone grumble equally.

One of the biggest surprise to early drivers? Tanker rendezvous! The miserable airfames are so slick and early baselines didn’t have speedbrakes (rf observables reasons, fewer cracks to hide) that routine closure rates were too hard to get rid of. More underruns on the tanker than in the training command!

One thing that hasn’t had enuff mention on this thread, the Raptor is a VERY smart airplane. (now go back and underline that VERY a few times.) Fighting airplanes can get kinda busy and the real advantage of sensor fusion - set aside all that "situational awareness" PR for a sec – is that it presents to the driver useable information rather than buckets of data to be correlated in the brain. The pilot has excellent "thinking space" for tactical decisions.

About one comment on the Raptor’s "radar dish".....sorry, doesn’t have one of those. The radar works all together different than how we know and love – altho it can do it if you ask it nicely. (That was facetious, tho it does have some conventional modes available.)

It’s important to keep in mind while you assess capabilities from open source literature, that VLO (stealth) is not some mystical thing that might or might not work, or can be circumvented easily. It is a fundamental attribute of reduced detectability. Some of the things that give the F22 that attribute have been posted on here earlier. Look carefully enuff and you can figure out some of the others. Hey, I have to do the same sort of thing now days my-own-self to TRY to determine which technologies came in by build-it time and some of the "trades" made during FSD. All part of what makes the discussion fun.

BTW, anybuddy want a .jpg of the Navy A-12 cockpits? Where would that thread be?

WW

Wraith,

What is a "Super Turkey"?

Cheers

BHR

Apologies.....

A Super Turkey is a Super Tomcat. Watch one in the groove behind a boat and the handle "Turkey" becomes clear. Give it bigger motors that don't blow up very often and you get a pretty capable machine. In fact, it has a small supercruise "bubble" just over the transonic drag hump. Needs burner to get there, but can stay on basic engine once it is. [A stripped down, very light (relative term) Phantom MIGHT have been able to hold 1.1 once it got there - up high]

Too bad Grumman stepped in some kind of doo doo w/ higher ups in DoD in the late '80s. The airframe is really impressive. Out turns Eagles once the wings are out

Back to Raptors...or "Ramptors" as I heard an AF guy call it due to too frequent "birthing pains"......

Apologies.....

A Super Turkey is a Super Tomcat. Watch one in the groove behind a boat and the handle "Turkey" becomes clear. Give it bigger motors that don't blow up very often and you get a pretty capable machine. In fact, it has a small supercruise "bubble" just over the transonic drag hump. Needs burner to get there, but can stay on basic engine once it is. [A stripped down, very light (relative term) Phantom MIGHT have been able to hold 1.1 once it got there - up high]

Too bad Grumman stepped in some kind of doo doo w/ higher ups in DoD in the late '80s. The airframe is really impressive. Out turns Eagles once the wings are out

Back to Raptors...or "Ramptors" as I heard an AF guy call it due to too frequent "birthing pains"......

Uh oh...

That wasn't earthshaking enuff to post twice. Not sher how I did that.

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." |

W (only one this time)

Wraith,

I think your post WAS good enough that it deserved to be posted twice.



Cheers

BHR

WW,

Welcome, I haven't seen you post before, but you seem like someone who really knows what they are talking about. I look forward to your insight

A few questions if I may.

Firstly, do you believe that the AF picked the right aircraft? Personally, I am a fan of the BWII, but I can't base that on anything but what I have read on the two aircraft (plus it looks a hell of a lot better to me ). If you can discuss specifics of why, please do, if not - I understand.

Second, were the electronics going to be the same on both aircraft? Most of the things I have read said they were, but I remember also reading once or twice that they were different.

Third, what do you think of the F/B-22 idea being discussed? Good, bad, too expensive?

AMM,

Every time I see the F/B-22 it reminds me of the F-16XL "Cranked Arrow" which was up against the F-15E for the Strike role.

That was a great concept plane and could have been useful as well as the Strike Eagle.

I would be interested to see an F/B-23 concept.

Cheers

BHR

Wow - you know I never made that connection, but you are totally right.

It's funny, because if it had actually achived supercruise ability, what a great plane that would have been!

Cheap, great legs, high payload, supercruising, and great agility.

In fact, I doubt the F/B-22(or 23) would even be up for discussion, although perhaps the stealth aspect would have won out.

The super Turkey , for some reason reminds me of the Super Aardvark (which the FB-2x , by the way would have a very similar mission as the FB-111 did have)

Maybe AUS will upgrade there `varks - they want to replace them with F-35`s , but they are a long time coming.

[edit on 14-4-2005 by Harlequin]

Harlequin,

I still cannot understand the reasoning behind the replacement of the Varks with JSFs.

I know the Varks are old but the JSF does not have the capabilities of the Varks.

I would have thought the Aussies could have purchased the B1s that are sitting in the Boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB.

Cheers

BHR

Originally posted by Harlequin
Maybe AUS will upgrade there `varks

- I thought they had with the purchase of some ex-USAF FB111's and the upgrading of those and their existing fleet to a new 'F-111G' standard?

Does anyone have pics that compare the regular tomcat with the super tomcat? i'd be interested in seeing that...

Everyone posted well, I will keep out of the F-22 debate since I learned that the aircraft is not the main factor in succes.