USAF gets 24 F/A-22's

Acually its not the Nintendo generation any more, its the playstation and/or Xbox generation, Nintendo sadly has been thrust down as a kiddie-game maker.

But UCAVs may be programmed with some human control over bombing runs or a version of the Asimov Rules of Robotics.

I have more faith in a human in the plane spotting something to question the mission, than a bloke sitting 500km away in an airconditioned office looking through a vid screen.....Its called situational awareness.The real world around him. Not just the stuff cued and monitored by electronics. Its limited in the modern combat aircraft I admit, but IMHO its non existent in a UAV.

As to the Rules of Robotics....I have even less faith in the scruples of human programers. To paraphrase the adage "garbage goes in, garbage comes out" I would suggest "nasty goes in, nasty comes out"

hmmmm....Well, I for one, do have faith in the Unmanned future.

As for the people who dont want robotics doing all the flying, I would worry about that to much, In the future there will still be aircraft that you can fly. The only people going unmanned is Commercial jets, but that still aways off, and of course the other one is the military. I think its a good thing, because prices on jets keep going up up up. So with it unmanned they can finally come back down to a reasonable cost.

There are a ton of UAV and UCAV programs out there, so its obvious that the USAF is trying hard over the next 2 decades to make most of there aircraft Unmanned. Its good for the cost, and they dont have to send pilots into harms way, and they can build craft with a rediculous amount of G-Froces applied to it.

craigandrew
I have more faith in a human in the plane spotting something to question the mission, than a bloke sitting 500km away in an airconditioned office looking through a vid screen.....Its called situational awareness.The real world around him. Not just the stuff cued and monitored by electronics.

Situational awarness is a big deal, but everything in the cockpit you can replicate on the ground. If you put enough sensors and cameras on the aircraft that you can make yourself more aware on the ground then in the sky.

The F-22 has a lot of potential. What we need to do now, is finish paliminary testing and deploy it to the front lines. The 24 F/A-22's we're getting is a good start.

I must admit that I was skeptical of the Air Force's choice of the F-22 over the YF-23 in the beginning. However, as I have learned more about the plane, I really beginning to think the F-22 will do a really good job replacing the F-15! The F-22 Raptor has shown some amazing capabilities, which will give us an edge in the future. The coolest thing about the F-22 is that it will be the first true Stealth Fighter design for the Air to Air mission. We will have air supremacy for the forseeable future.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Lockheed always leads the fighter revolution and then passes the torch to someone else (EX: the first Jet fighter(F-80) was theirs, so was the first supersonic interceptor(F-104) and the first operational steath (F-117)!)

Originally posted by ghost

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Lockheed always leads the fighter revolution and then passes the torch to someone else (EX: the first Jet fighter(F-80) was theirs, so was the first supersonic interceptor(F-104) and the first operational steath (F-117)!)

Well, I cant argue about the F-104 or the F-117, but can I call you on the F-80? What about the Gloucester Meteor or the Me-262? What about all the other German Jet aircraft of WW2? I hardly think the F-80 was the first jet fighter (unless you are talking purely about within the US, then fair enough, but please put disclaimers on when you do something like that )

Heinkel 178? (jet demonstrator) Gloster Whittle (it had a number designation I can never remember) Me 262 Schwabe, Arado Ar??? Blitz, the german one shot rocket fighters, the Nazis also test flew a little number known as the Volksturn fighter, Gloster Meteor F.1/F.2 and the deHavilland Vampire F.1 Somewhere in there was the Bell P-59 Aircomet?? which was breifly the USAACs first jet fighter, before being relegated to trainer duties.
I may have missed some German models, and I think even the Russians may have fielded some rush jobs fitted with captured BMW jets.....oh yea..no you cant count the Czech built Me 262s.

Stupid Brits.....giving thier engine technology away to the US AND Soviets!

Currently there are 2 sqadrons of Raptors formed up. The second squadron is not numbered up yet, but will be very shortly . That's 48 AC already operationally capable. IIRC, the total funding as of right now if for 290 planes, plus or minus a couple. (Not all $$$ allocated, of course).

Someone said the Raptor can carry 10 AIM-120's. While technically correct, the real number is 6 AIM-120's plus 4 AIM-9's. Anything more would have to hang off a hardpoint, which would kill the RCS.

The popular price quote these days seems to be $150 Mil/copy, but that is kind of a funny number, as you don't know what all is included.

I would say total production will likely end up at around 600 planes, with a final unit cost of around $70 Mil. per copy.

Export to the UK and AUS is not off the table (unofficially). The problem for the RAAF is the time factor. Their F-111's are set to be phased out about the same time, (or even before) the F-35 comes up. Even so, they are left without a long range strike AC. The F-15 line is funded till 2008. A couple squadrons of F-15 E/F's would fill the gap, but ideally they would push to get a couple squadrons of Raptors. This would give them a true hi-lo mix with the F-35's, and they wouldn't have the problem with spares and support that the F-15 would give them in the future.

Flying Colors for F/A-22

By all accounts, the F/A-22 fighter breezed through four-and-a-half months of exacting tests�its toughest yet. The Raptor demonstrated that it can handily beat today�s best fighters flown by today�s best crews.

The Air Force has classified the results of the F/A-22�s initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E), conducted at Nellis AFB, Nev., from late April through mid-September. However, USAF officials said nothing in the testing suggests the aircraft won�t perform any way other than brilliantly in real-world combat.

Gen. John P. Jumper, Air Force Chief of Staff, told Inside the Air Force in August that the IOT&E phase was progressing �with fewer lumps and bumps than I ever thought it would.� He added, �We�re very, very pleased with what we�ve seen so far.�

Air Force officials said the service probably would this fall provide an unclassified synopsis of the test results, after USAF completes all analysis.

The F/A-22 was required to prevail in five broad, live scenarios, each with a number of variations.

In the first, USAF measured the Raptor�s ability to spot, shoot, and destroy an F-16 in a �first look, first kill� test. In the second, two F/A-22s had to destroy a �high-value airborne asset� such as an E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft defended by four F-15s or F-16s. In the third, two F/A-22s had to protect a B-2 bomber against four F-15s or F-16s. In the fourth, four Raptors had to defend a high-value platform such as an AWACS against eight attacking F-15s or F-16s. In the last, four F/A-22s had to protect four F-117s against eight attacking F-15s or F-16s. Supporting aircraft included the Navy�s EA-6B Prowler airborne jamming aircraft.

Besides winning the engagements, the aircraft had to dodge ground-based air defenses. The Air Force said it flew 188 sorties with six F/A-22s during the evaluation.

The IOT&E tests did not look at the F/A-22�s ground attack capabilities. That mission element will be tested later, as additional munitions are certified for F/A-22 use. However, the first deployed F/A-22s will have the capability to drop the 1,000-pound version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition. The main ground attack weapon for the F/A-22 is to be the 250-pound Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). Each Raptor would have the capability to drop six SDBs.

www.afa.org...

Going back up ther thread a little, sorry engineer they were two good posts of yours, wasn't the first supersonic fighter the F-100?

The first jet fighters were, in order, He 280, Me262, Meteor, P-59A, Vampire, He 162, P-80. Making Lockheed 7th, well 6th actually as Heinkel had two goes. The Arado 234 was a bomber and the Gloster E28/39 Pioneer never carried guns even though it was designed with the potential to carry them.

Also Sukhoi would have had the worlds first supersonic fighter in the Su-17 if Joe Stalin hadn't put the spoke in.

Originally posted by waynos...wasn't the first supersonic fighter the F-100?

The F-100 was the first fighter officially rated as supersonic, but the F-86 was certainly no stranger to supersonic flight.

The forerunner of the operational Sabre was the XF-86, first flown Oct. 1, 1947, by North American test pilot George Welch. A few months later Welch became the first pilot to fly the plane at Mach 1 in routine flight.

In 1952 an F-86D set a new record at 698 mph. The "D" became the first model of a fighter to better its own record, in 1953, with a run of 715 mph.

The first official supersonic speed records were set by the F-100 though, 755mph in October 1953 and 822mph. in 1955.

[edit on 20-10-2004 by engineer]