"As with the Su-37 having TVC, so will the F-22. Difference? The F-22's TVC is controlled by a supercomputer, and the F-22's high thrust to weight ratio (1.5-20), and the reduce of drag propel's the aircraft with great agility. The F-22 just doesn't rely solely on it's TVC to give it outstanding agility. Also keep in mind that the F-22's going to have better TVC controls than the Su-37....why? The F-22's TVC is controlled by a supercomputer, compared to that of the Su-37 with it's AL-37FU turbofans which is controlled by it's hydraulics system, and the MKIs AL-31FP are controlled by it's fuel system.
Further more, the F-22 has more then 1 main CPU (CIP) capable of more then 10.5 BILLION ops per second while the Su-3x's, that are 'just' coming off the assembly line, are being called technologically advanced and only having 486 class CPUs capable of only around 50 Thousand ops per second (50MIP's--for chrimmy's sake, the Nintendo GameBoy Advanced rivals a Sukhoi's at computing power). Thats almost more then a 20 years difference in computing technology IMHO. Also, the US NAVY's F/A-18C's, are shipped with 100+Mhz PowerPC CPU's (CIP's).... and last but not least, the F-22 has Phase Array Radar while the Su-3x's have, you guessed it, standard analog radar. This results in the F-22 being the only TRUE sensor-fused system, all of the avionic's and aircraft operations are run through the same 3 computers, and compiled into one picture."

At 49,000 feet and 1,400 miles an hour, an F/A-22 Raptor soars above the test range at Edwards Air Force Base in California and executes an inverted roll before diving 22,000 feet and launching an air-to-air missile at 1,200 miles an hour.



"Nobody else can do that," Air Force Maj. Gen. Doug Pearson Jr. said last week at a Pentagon update on the Raptor's status, a year and a half before the Defense Department is scheduled to decide whether to start building hundreds of the $200-million-per-copy stealth fighter.

"I've flown about 60 airplanes in my career, mostly fighters, and the F/A-22 is the absolute most-awesome killing machine I have ever, ever flown," said Pearson, commander of Edwards' Flight Test Center. "We have near operational capability today. We have a weapons system that can detect the threat. It can fly at supersonic speeds. It's the most agile fighter ever built. It will maneuver from near-zero air speeds all the way out to Mach 2, and outmaneuver any other fighter that it will face as a threat, and any other free world fighter that will be built for years to come."

But what really sets the F/A-22 apart is its ability to process data on air and ground targets using its own onboard radars and sensors, as well as those on other aircraft. The airplane is, essentially, an extremely advanced carriage loaded with computers running 2 million lines of software code.

This explains why Pearson and two Air Force brigadier generals, Mark A. Welsh III and Richard B.H. "Rick" Lewis, spent the better part of an hour explaining dramatic progress made in the area of "avionics stability," which has plagued the Raptor program and produced cost overruns and scheduling delays.

To the layman, avionics stability means computers that don't crash during flight. As recently as February, test pilots were spending an average of 14 minutes per flight rebooting mission critical computer systems, such as those processing data from onboard radar. Now, reboot time is down to an average of just 36 seconds per flight.

"What we're in the process of doing right now is integrating the last 7 percent of that software," said Welsh, the director of global power programs for the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions. "Now, admittedly, it's critical software. This is the 'let's go kill people' software. It's the mission essential portion of the airplane. It's the sensor fusion, the integration of data from on board sensors and external sources, it's the stuff that's going to allow you to be successful in combat."

Teaching pilots to fly the airplane, Pearson said, really involves teaching them how to use all the data flowing into the cockpit. "It's an extraordinarily easy airplane to fly," Pearson said. "They learn very quickly to fly it, and we are teaching them how � and they are teaching themselves � how to employ it, and that's different. How do you use the information you have in the cockpit to go and kill somebody and stay alive and execute your mission."