Raptors Fatal Flaw

Originally posted by BillHicksRules
Dear all,

I find it laughable that everyone on here seems to be so focused on bay doors when the real issue is that the computers do not work.

Without them the plane is useless.

As it currently stands the GAO is close to recommending a massive draw down in the number of Raptors to be built. The figures quoted so far are "less than half the 381 requested"

When you consider there are currently (according to the USAF's own website) 522 F-15 Eagles and 217 F-15E Strike Eagles in service this means one of two things. Either a big reduction in capabilties of the USAF or the continuation of usage of a large number of Eagles.

Now I do not know how long the current Eagle fleet can carry on in terms of airframe lifetimes but I guess it would be at least 10-15 years given the timeframes of other aircraft.

Although the F-22 is undoubtedly a step up from the F-15 I personally do not see the USAF getting more than 200 of them. They will not be the replacement envisaged at the start of the project.

I think they will be used in the same manner as the B-2 and the F-117. As specialist strike aircraft, perhaps escorting the first waves of an air attack until the radar net of the opponent is disabled. At which point the F-15 will take over the Air Superiority role again.

Cheers

BHR

While the F-22's avionics continue to cause problems, they are not insurmountable, and with Moore's Law still with a little life in it, the avionics should improve over the next 10-20 years. In the US, solving computing and software problems is just a matter of applying enough money and time to the problem. The hard physical part of the problem (engines, aerodynamics, and stealth) have been mastered.

The F-15 is still a fine aircraft, and modifications to its radar and weapons will make it "competitive" with other modern combat aircraft for another 20 years. As the F-22's are phased in, the F-15's will be relegated to the ANG and USAF Reserve units, and will become the "second string" fighter for the US for many years.

Originally posted by Stealth Spy

Originally posted by bios

I would love for you to provide proof (other than some other delusional amerika-hater's post on some obscure web forum) that the Americans tortured Werner Van Braun.

Like i said , i assume and believe that happened. I cant provide sources for that.

BTW : I would like to see you and the others to provide proof (other than from some delusional American website)for saying things like Van Braun volunatrily worked for America without any compulsion.

[edit on 19-5-2005 by Stealth Spy]

I never said that Von Braun was taken anywhere voluntarily - I'm sure he was arrested and probably given an option of being classified as a nazi war criminal and suffering the consequences or having he and his family shipped to the US with a handsome salary to continue his work.

Somehow he went from being a potential war criminal to the hero of NASA and the American space race, giving seminars and public speaking engagements.

In fact Dr. von Braun was the recipient of numerous awards for his outstanding contributions to the American space effort.

He received the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy in 1958, the Distinguished Federal Civilian Service Award from President Eisenhower in 1959, the American Astronautics Award from the American Rocket Society in 1955, the Gold Medal Award from the British Interplanetary Society in 1961, the NASA Medal for Outstanding Leadership in 1964, and the Smithsonian Institution Langley Medal in 1967, to name a few.

He also held honorary doctorate degrees from 19 colleges and universities. Dr. von Braun was a member of numerous professional societies and was the author of dozens of books and articles in the United States.

Those are hardly the honors and activities that you would attribute to someone who was tortured to come to the American side.
Unless by torture you mean that the American's took a copy of "Mein Kampf" and flushed it down the toilet.

i am not trying to say that he was tortured all thruogh, but only initially.

But i believe that further non-compliance would have resulted in torture(other than flushing down the MK)

American Patriot >> copy of the Russian S-300

The later variants of the F-15 too borrowed a lot from the Mig-25 that defected from USSR.

Bios, I don't even know who you are, but your comment about flushing "Mein Kampf" down the commode required me to change my shirt and wipe the coffee off my keyboard!

You have voted bios for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Bios, I don't even know who you are, but your comment about flushing "Mein Kampf" down the commode required me to change my shirt and wipe the coffee off my keyboard!

I bet the keyboard dose'nt work anymore

Originally posted by Stealth Spy

Also, Van Braun went to america after WWII to continue his research into Space Travel, that was his dream, and he knew that America would be the country that would accept his help.

He was captured...and tortured(i assume). Did he have a choice ??
He (like anyone else) would have loved to serve Germany and not America.
His decesion to work for America was not voluntary, but he did'nt have a choice.

I've personally met and worked with friends and relatives of several German scientists who came to America after the war. They were proud professionals who despised how the Nazis twisted and perverted their work, using slave labor and killing countless concentration camp victims in the process. As the war was drawing to a close, most of these scientsist raced west to surrender to US and British forces. They much preferred to go to one of those countries than to remain in a ravaged Germany with no job prospects or to become puppets of a Soviet regime almost as bad as the Nazis had been. On their behalf, I find your comments about torture offensive, and I ask that you refrain from making such insensitive and ill-informed comments regarding people you know nothing about.

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
what alot of people seem to misunderstand, is the fact that if the Raptor's stealth fails for whatever reason, and it's in a dogfight with a Flanker(which by the way Raptor's are to not fall into dogfights, First sight, first kill basis), the flanker would most definetly win the dogfight.

I don't know if I would be so absolute in making this kind of claim. I've watched mock dogfights between the F-22 and F-16, one of the most maneuverable fighters in the world. The F-22--with its high thrust-to-weight ratio, low wing loading, thrust vectoring, exceptional roll rate, and high angle-of-attack aerodynamics--runs rings around the F-16. The F-4, F-15 and F-14 have always had difficulty turning inside a small, maneuverable opponent. F-22 pilots, on the other hand, have been amazed at how they can keep targets in their cross-hairs no matter how hard the opponent maneuvers.

It is true that the F-22 is designed primarily for BVR first-shot, first-kill combat, but it is by no means lacking capability in a close fight. The plane's effectiveness in this regard will only improve once AIM-9X and its helmet-mounted cueing system allowing over 100 degrees of off-axis capability are fully integrated.

Also bear in mind that the Su-37 has only been built in prototype form and is not likely to ever enter production. Russia plans on upgrading its Su-27 fleet for the foreseeable future and major foreign customers have focused on acquiring the Su-30. It looks unlikely that either the Su-35 or Su-37 will enter service with any country based on how things stand today.

Originally posted by Stealth Spy
More anerican copying
American Patriot >> copy of the Russian S-300

Erm, as par, your have failed to comprehend what was said in the link you have given, Stealth Spy. The US did not copy the S-300 from the Russian's to build the Patriot. To the contrary, it was the other way around.
From the link you gave to the Intelgurl article:

"These (Soviet) intelligence victories continued until recent times with the KGB stealing the U.S. Patriot anti-missile technology on which the Soviets based their modern version, the S-300, which it now exports to any buyer for hard currency."

Pick up the phone.....hello?!






seekerof


[edit on 20-5-2005 by Seekerof]

A dogfight in modern A2A is kind of like a knife is to a special ops soldier, it's a very important backup for when the firearms (BVR) fails. You can't fight with a knife alone, not when your enemy can kill you from over 1,000m away, or 50 miles before you even see them.

And as far as copying is concerned, every country "copies" in some form. The British created the steam engine...the rest of the world followed suit. America built the car...the rest of the world follows suit. Now America devolped the first succesful stealth aircraft, now low observability and stealth is IN, does that mean that every country that does or tries to incorporate stealth into their designs is copying America, certainly not.

But I can see no obvious attempts by the US to blatanlty copy anything Russian. But I can see that the Tu-160 bomber is suspiciously similar to the B-2. That said, I think each country brings something unique, but copying DOES occur on all fronts, but the Patriot system isn't a good example.

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
About the Cobra... A lot of aircraft can perform the Cobra, even the F-15 can. The Cobra is strictly an Air Show manuever, not for combat, however there is talk about using the Cobra in combat, but I just don't know how that will get a pilot out of a jam. It is only said that the Su-27 was the FIRST aircraft to perform the cobra maneuver.

That is grossly untrue. The Sukhoi is the first and only fighter that can perform the cobra. there is no conclusive evidence to show that the F-22 can perform it.

And the F-15 can barely go up to 25 degrees AoA, and will never reach the 120+ degrees needed for the cobra.

And read my signature too. It's useful in combat too.

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The F-22 is an UNSTABLE AIRFRAME

Check your sources. The raptor is an stable airframe.

Oh, and just for the record, none of the Flanker versions can do the Cobra fully loaded, it will snap the wings right off. As a matter of fact the Flanker can only perform these super-maneuvers with only a very small fuel load and no external carriage becuase of structural limitations.

Again..do some research buddy...the sukhoi can do a cobra and a tailslide with a full ordinance fit. The same was demonstrated at the franbourgh air show after mikhail simonov was faced with the same criticism

just a little note..america built the first mass produced car, it was germany who invented the car

oh, and i think he means by unstable, how most aircrafts wings are now unstable nowerdays because when theyre unstable, they actaully fly better, so i believe he was reffering to the wings

Originally posted by Stealth Spy

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The F-22 is an UNSTABLE AIRFRAME

Check your sources. The raptor is an stable airframe.

Oh, and just for the record, none of the Flanker versions can do the Cobra fully loaded, it will snap the wings right off. As a matter of fact the Flanker can only perform these super-maneuvers with only a very small fuel load and no external carriage becuase of structural limitations.

Again..do some research buddy...the sukhoi can do a cobra and a tailslide with a full ordinance fit. The same was demonstrated at the franbourgh air show after mikhail simonov was faced with the same criticism

That's interesting.

I guess what I would like to know is what "research" have you done because according to Lockheed, the USAF and Paul Metz the F-22's chief test pilot, the F-22 Raptor IS an "unstable" aircraft by design.

"...the Raptor is an unstable airplane, it requires very little control deflection to start it moving in a new direction. The combination of unstable airframe with a digital, fly-by-wire flight control system gives a cat-like quickness but very predictable and pleasant flying qualities.

The flight control computers coordinate roll maneuvers to eliminate adverse yaw so that rolls are executed with lateral stick inputs with 'feet-on-the-floor'. Fly-by-wire is one of those technologies that is totally transparent to the pilot."
PAUL METZ - F-22 Raptor Chief Test Pilot

Here's an article on Venik's website where the F-22 is classed as an unstable aircraft.
"unstable Fighter Designs"
(do your own translation)

Originally posted by Stealth Spy
American Patriot >> copy of the Russian S-300

The later variants of the F-15 too borrowed a lot from the Mig-25 that defected from USSR.

Wrong. The S-300 is a copy of the Patriot with some different features.


And wrong too. The F-15C is the latest model of the F-15 series(F-15E maybe,but what to borrow?). They were there long before that pilot defected with his MiG-25.


About the Cobra, it can be performed with full fuel and weapons, and only by the Su-27 family, but doing it in combat would prove useless. I would rather launch a R-73 if I was in a Su-27 at WVR ranges against a F-15 then do some fancy moves like the Cobra while trying to shoot the F-15 with the Gsh. Seriously, these moves are really useless. You have about 2 full minutes from 250km away to WVR ranges, who the heck would want to do a Cobra instead of just fire a R-77? The Cobra is good for airshow purposes, but doing it in combat would be dumb. The Flanker slows down to about mach 0.2, making it an easy target for any A2A missles even if it is spinning wildly.

Originally posted by beretboy22
But I can see that the Tu-160 bomber is suspiciously similar to the B-2.

In what way? Especially as you think its so funny. In fact I can hardly think of two more different aircraft in a given role.

I'm curious to know what 'suspicious similarity' you are laughing at?

Originally posted by waynos


In what way? Especially as you think its so funny. In fact I can hardly think of two more different aircraft in a given role.

I think he meant B-1B.

Originally posted by Stealth Spy

Originally posted by Hockeyguy567
The F-22 is an UNSTABLE AIRFRAME

Check your sources. The raptor is an stable airframe.

Just about every fighter designed over the past 30 years is unstable, including the F-16, F-18, F-22, Gripen, Rafale, Eurofighter, and LCA to name a few. It is because of this instability that these aircraft all rely on fly-by-wire control systems to remain flyable. These systems are controlled by computers that constantly make adjustments to the plane's control surfaces in order to keep the plane flying in a stable condition.

The advantage of an unstable airframe is that the plane actually wants to turn its nose in a new direction, so it is far more maneuverable than a stable design that would resist change. This characteristic gives modern fighters the ability to turn and roll rapidly in order to line up on a target, pull away from an attacker, or avoid an incoming missile.

The disadvantage of this design is that it depends on the flight computer to continue functioning properly in order for the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft. If this control system were to fail or be damaged in some way, the pilot will not be able to fly the plane and it will tumble uncontrollably.

A good example of this occurred at an air show several years ago. An F-117, another unstable aircraft with a fly by wire control system, lost an aileron during a maneuver. Without this critical control surface, the computer control system could not function properly. The plane rapidly became uncontrollable and the pilot had no choice but to eject.

Another case happened on one of the YF-22 prototypes. The pilot attempted to make a low-level flyby when he got into ground effect. Ground effect changes the aerodynamic characteristics of a wing as described on this page.

www.aerospaceweb.org...

There was a flaw in the fly-by-wire control system causing it to misunderstand the changes that ground effect causes, and the plane began to rapidly pitch up and down. The pilot could not retain control of the plane and it made a hard, wheels-up landing that tore apart the underside of the aircraft. This flaw was fixed in the production F-22.

Originally posted by longbow

Originally posted by waynos


In what way? Especially as you think its so funny. In fact I can hardly think of two more different aircraft in a given role.

I think he meant B-1B.

The Tu-160 most closely resembles the original B-1A that was cancelled in the 1970s. Both planes were designed for high-altitude flight at speeds around Mach 2. The B-1B was redesigned to penetrate enemy airspace at low altitudes and flies closer to Mach 1.

www.aerospaceweb.org...
www.aerospaceweb.org...