The Raptor as a Bomber

My apologies Canada_EH I never meant to come off as a jerk. I get really fired up when talking about fighter planes.

I just have a big problem with its so-called capabilities. Yes, the Air Force has said all of these things about it and so has Lockheed Martin/Boeing. But they have done that in the past with planes. The F-4 and F-111 are prime examples. A General, Admiral or even the Secretary of Defense wants to leave a legacy and build in their mind the greatest Fighter bombing Aircraft ever. The problem that happens is when it does have flaws or get beat by another plane the top brass will not hear of it or allow people to speak of it. They will not allow people to think well General so and so built a bad Aircraft. They will have you kicked out of the military. And then the Manufacturer is just as bad...They don't want people talking bad about their plane either and they especially do not want to lose a contract.

As for being multipurpose I just see to many tradeoffs occurring. Yes, this plane maybe good at both fighting and bombing but there is no way it will be great at either. With today’s modern warfare it may be fine because it seems like a close Dogfight anymore is 50 miles apart. I just think we will have a problem when the gap in a Dogfight is closed to 100 yards or so.

Col. John Boyd of the USAF said it best "building a multipurpose jet is like building a multipurpose car. I want it to plow snow, go off roading, pull 5,000lbs all while going around corners at 200mph like they do at Indy."


[edit on 11-8-2005 by Timcouchfanclub]

LOL i like your example of trying to build a multipurpose plane and no hard feelings man I just try and get along with ppl here and have the best threads possible eh. I think otherwise though that 22 is probably one of the most capable planes to be "produced" not just designed in the USA. Its not perfect though by anymeans.

Oh I forgot to add....I would have no problem if the military said we are going to use this for strategic bombing purposes only. Yeah One of them may not cause as much damage as a B-2 but I bet five F-22's could, and at half the cost since One F-22 is 133 million while one B-2 is something like 1.7+ billion.

Originally posted by Timcouchfanclub

Oh I forgot to add....I would have no problem if the military said we are going to use this for strategic bombing purposes only. Yeah One of them may not cause as much damage as a B-2 but I bet five F-22's could, and at half the cost since One F-22 is 133 million while one B-2 is something like 1.7+ billion.

Thats depends on how you look at it (pricewise), the B-2 is actually around 500 million per plane, those 2 billion figures are from the added R&D, which personally I dont think should be added into it. Car companies spend millions and often billions on developing a all new car, but when they dtart selling them they dont add the work thaqt they did to design it into the pricetag.

and I think the Raptor is around 125 mllion or so, but with the number of ones being built keeps fluctuating, making it hard to find a correct price, since it directly relates to how many will be built.

mmmm. Interesting. I did not like the B-2 that much before because I thought it was more expensive. I think it just jumped up a few noches in my book.

On the F-22...Does anyone know if they put it in a close mock dogfight against the F-16 or F-18. By Close I mean basically the radars were not needed.

My question is, what would be bad about a larger, slightly more stealthy Raptor made for bombing?

I mean, I would hold more payload, fly faster and be more stealthy then the F-117, which is clearly used all the time by the USAF. I just don't see any fault in it (in theory at least) as a fighter bomber. It would clearly be an upgrade over anything in the US arsenal today.

I am going to not try and Put down the F-22 as much anymore. It is the multifighter role that I feel is unattainable. Each plane serves a specific purpose. The Air Force and Navy may do the multirole thing and it may work. But it probably was not the design intention to do all those things great. Even General Jumper admitts this stuff saying "The F-22 is a sniper in the Air, In and out with no one knowing." That is the role of this thing. They do not want it to get into a close dogfight. The reasons I feel they do not want this thing in a close dogfight is either because they are afraid to lose one of these and there goes a great deal of money or because like I have been saying.
If you take the smaller F-16 stripped down against a stripped down F-22 the F-16 will prevail. That is within visual range. I see it as physics...Yes the F-22 has a larger engines than the F-16, but It is a bigger Airframe and nearly twice as heavy(Stripped Down). When these to pop into a tight turn of course the F-22 is going to have to use more thrust to complete it because of the increased Drag(Due to size). The more power it uses the less energy it will have to go in and out of manuevers. It was the whole purpose when they built the F-16 was to slam in and out of manuevers with out losing air speed(actually increasing it). The F-16 has been misused so badly by the military, it has no business doing those bombing runs. But with unconventional wars that is all planes can really do.

The way that i see itis that the F-22 will be the sniper and also replace the F-15 as the long range interceptor. The F-16 will remain on to do what it is doing now.. and it will be there in case a conventional war starts up and some close dogfighting arises.(that is unless this JSF proves worthy to replace it).

Either way the F-15,16,22 should not be bombing anybody. leave that up to the bombers. That is why we have them.



I know the max payload of the F-22 or at least what they post but how much can it actually hold? When they show in pics with the doors open underneath it looks like a really small space.

[edit on 12-8-2005 by Timcouchfanclub]

Originally posted by Timcouchfanclub
I am going to not try and Put down the F-22 as much anymore. It is the multifighter role that I feel is unattainable. Each plane serves a specific purpose. The Air Force and Navy may do the multirole thing and it may work. But it probably was not the design intention to do all those things great. Even General Jumper admitts this stuff saying "The F-22 is a sniper in the Air, In and out with no one knowing." That is the role of this thing. They do not want it to get into a close dogfight. The reasons I feel they do not want this thing in a close dogfight is either because they are afraid to lose one of these and there goes a great deal of money or because like I have been saying.
If you take the smaller F-16 stripped down against a stripped down F-22 the F-16 will prevail. That is within visual range. I see it as physics...Yes the F-22 has a larger engines than the F-16, but It is a bigger Airframe and nearly twice as heavy(Stripped Down). When these to pop into a tight turn of course the F-22 is going to have to use more thrust to complete it because of the increased Drag(Due to size). The more power it uses the less energy it will have to go in and out of manuevers. It was the whole purpose when they built the F-16 was to slam in and out of manuevers with out losing air speed(actually increasing it). The F-16 has been misused so badly by the military, it has no business doing those bombing runs. But with unconventional wars that is all planes can really do.

The way that i see itis that the F-22 will be the sniper and also replace the F-15 as the long range interceptor. The F-16 will remain on to do what it is doing now.. and it will be there in case a conventional war starts up and some close dogfighting arises.(that is unless this JSF proves worthy to replace it).

Either way the F-15,16,22 should not be bombing anybody. leave that up to the bombers. That is why we have them.

I know the max payload of the F-22 or at least what they post but how much can it actually hold? When they show in pics with the doors open underneath it looks like a really small space.

[edit on 12-8-2005 by Timcouchfanclub]

Timcouchfanclub

I don't know if you have read the post that I made yesterday in response to yours. If not maybe you should. No one here is talking about making the F-22 into a multi-role aircraft. What we have been discussing is making a seperate aircraft for the attack role. Ideally this plane would use many of the same parts and systems that are used by the F-22. If this is possible it would enable the operating costs of both aircraft to be reduced. Sort of like what they are trying with the F-35.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Ideally this plane would use many of the same parts and systems that are used by the F-22. If this is possible it would enable the operating costs of both aircraft to be reduced. Sort of like what they are trying with the F-35.

By this Jim i assume you mean the fact that the 35 will have 3 versions that use simaler parts? The F/B-22 "looks" a fair bit different to me both structurely and probably with elesctronics too. Probably what would be of the most use to a team redesigning the 22 would be R and D done by the 22 and 35 teams or for that matter that of the b-2 as well.

What really suprises me is that even the concept of 'low-observables external stores' is in the open media this soon.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
What really suprises me is that even the concept of 'low-observables external stores' is in the open media this soon.

You lost me at 'low-observables external stores'. I googled the term but i didn't get any specifics. I have an idea what you mean when you say it but i havent heard of any mention of it in this thread. Anyone care to properly enlighten me?

Originally posted by Canada_EH

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
What really suprises me is that even the concept of 'low-observables external stores' is in the open media this soon.

You lost me at 'low-observables external stores'. I googled the term but i didn't get any specifics. I have an idea what you mean when you say it but i havent heard of any mention of it in this thread. Anyone care to properly enlighten me?

I think he's refering to external things on its wing, like a couple extra tanks, but stealthy ones, which would increase its range without ruining its stealth characteristics.

Originally posted by Canada_EH

By this Jim i assume you mean the fact that the 35 will have 3 versions that use simaler parts? The F/B-22 "looks" a fair bit different to me both structurely and probably with elesctronics too. Probably what would be of the most use to a team redesigning the 22 would be R and D done by the 22 and 35 teams or for that matter that of the b-2 as well.

From what I understand the three versions of the F-35 will share the canopy, radar, ejection system, subsystems, avionics and the core engine which is based on the F119 by Pratt & Whitney. This doesn't sound like much but when you factor in the cost of spare parts, support facilities and maintenance training it adds up fast.

If you could keep the engines, fuel and hydraulic systems, 50% of the avionics, life support, ejection seats and landing gear common between the F-22 and the FB-22/FA-22 the developement cost savings alone would
phenominal. Add in the ability to purchase the common spare parts for both aircraft and the training of the people to maintain these systems, you would be able to buy more of both type aircraft.

I design industrial machinery for a living. My company makes several variations of each type of a core group of machines. We have just started redesigning our entire product line. We are finding out that the more common components that we are able to use across our product line the lower the costs of these components. The same holds true for aircraft parts.

Originally posted by Timcouchfanclub
I am going to not try and Put down the F-22 as much anymore. It is the multifighter role that I feel is unattainable. Each plane serves a specific purpose. The Air Force and Navy may do the multirole thing and it may work.

You have heard of the F/A-18 hornet right? F/A as in Fighter/Attack. It has been done before, and not just by the US. Russia and Europe has done it as well. The Typhoon for instance is designed as a multi-role aircraft. The problem in your argument is that you assume the qualities that make a good fighter inharently make for a bad attack or bomber aircraft. This is not the case at all.

But it probably was not the design intention to do all those things great. Even General Jumper admitts this stuff saying "The F-22 is a sniper in the Air, In and out with no one knowing."

You are correct saying that the Raptor was not originally designed to be a bomber. Later on in the ATF program, they moved from a "not a pound for air to ground" idea to a multi role type of aircraft. The reason? Well, for one, it made it an easy sell to congress (well, at least a little more easy) but also, the Raptor lent it's self to the task. This is an aircraft that is more stealthy then any other aircraft in the sky, with the exception of the B-2. It is also an aircraft which can cruise at about one and a half times the speed of sound. Name me a better attack aircraft ever produced. There isn't one.

That is the role of this thing. They do not want it to get into a close dogfight. The reasons I feel they do not want this thing in a close dogfight is either because they are afraid to lose one of these and there goes a great deal of money or because like I have been saying.

The reason they don't want it getting in a dog fight is because they can dominate the enemy from so far away. In war, you don't want a fair fight. The Raptor is the ultimate "cheap shot" aircraft because, frankly, no enemy aircraft will have a chance to fight back. Thats the way you want it.

This idea you have that it isn't a good dogfighter is laughable. In fact, the Raptor is THE most capable dogfighter in the world, bar none. There is NO aircraft ever produced that can come CLOSE to what the Raptor can do..

If you take the smaller F-16 stripped down against a stripped down F-22 the F-16 will prevail.

Assuming equal pilot skill, the F-16 would have ZERO chance.

That is within visual range. I see it as physics...Yes the F-22 has a larger engines than the F-16, but It is a bigger Airframe and nearly twice as heavy(Stripped Down). When these to pop into a tight turn of course the F-22 is going to have to use more thrust to complete it because of the increased Drag(Due to size). The more power it uses the less energy it will have to go in and out of manuevers. It was the whole purpose when they built the F-16 was to slam in and out of manuevers with out losing air speed(actually increasing it).

Uggghhhh..... OK, you do know what TVC is right? The Raptor can out turn the F-16, period. It's not even close. Add to that the fact that the Raptor has better exeleration out of turns, and your argument is completely baseless.

The F-16 has been misused so badly by the military, it has no business doing those bombing runs. But with unconventional wars that is all planes can really do.

Uhhh, the F-16 is undefeated in A2A combat, with about 100 kills. You were saying?

Either way the F-15,16,22 should not be bombing anybody. leave that up to the bombers. That is why we have them.

Bombers are slow, and easy targets for SAMs. An F/B-22, which would be even more stealthy then the F/A-22, have a longer range, higher cruise speed. and larger payload would fullfill many missions that other aircraft simply couldn't. For instance, going into a very heavilly defended area for a high value target. A normal bomber wouldn't stand a chance on it's own, and would need many support aircraft to even attempt it. The B-2 is a 500+ million dollar plane, why risk it? Enter the F/B-Raptor. It only consts 120 million, much less then the Spirit. It also flies TWICE as fast and has a much better chance of dodging an enemy missle.

I know the max payload of the F-22 or at least what they post but how much can it actually hold? When they show in pics with the doors open underneath it looks like a really small space.

[edit on 12-8-2005 by Timcouchfanclub]

The Raptor can hold 10 missles internally. The F/B-22 would be larger and could hold a decent payload of precision guided munitions.

Stealthy external storage are like pods, you have 2 missiles or more incased in a container with a shape to optimize stealth. Not as stealthy as having your missiles inside, but better and more aerodynamic than the way external missiles are carried now.

Greetings,

Can you provide a Source for that 10 missile Claim Mad Scientist, as I myself find that very hard to believe. Missiles are not small items, nor from the images of the bomb bay sections do not in my opinion have any thing near the capicaty of 10 missiles.

- Phil

Originally posted by gooseuk
Greetings,

Can you provide a Source for that 10 missile Claim Mad Scientist, as I myself find that very hard to believe. Missiles are not small items, nor from the images of the bomb bay sections do not in my opinion have any thing near the capicaty of 10 missiles.

- Phil

Located in the ventral bays, the F-22 is armed with six AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM). Weapons armament on the F-22 turned out to be a controversial issue in the past. In preferred conditions, a fighter such as the F-22 with internal weapons bays should have a compact missile with folding fins. This condition would mean the F-22 could not carry standard missiles. An anticipated problem of internal missiles with folding fins is they may not be capable of withstanding stresses when carried externally on current fighters. The latter is not acceptable in this modern age in military hardware. This is because of the ability for almost all Air Force weapons to be used on its current fleet of fighter aircraft. The ability for Air to Air and Air to ground weapons to be carried on multiple aircraft cuts down on costs and maintenance support.

The Aim 120C is a compromise. Reason being, the tails and wings of the missile have been reduced in size with the intent for the missile to fit better into internal bays. Best of all, there are no performance compromises with the reduction. In addition, the USAF has announced the AIM-120C will become the standard version for all of its fighters. The Aim-120C's will be propelled off of the missile rack inside of the weapons bays by pneumatic and/or hydraulic ejectors.

The F-22's side weapons bays (one on each side) will initially hold one Aim 9 Sidewinder missile. The Sidewinder is a heat seeking IR guided missile effective at short range. In the future however, the Aim-9x IR guided missile will be introduced which will have small tail surfaces unlike previous versions. Most likely, the F-22 will be capable of carrying two Aim-9x's per side. The Aim 9 Sidewinder will be extended on a trapeze mounted launcher before the launch. This is to allow the Aim 9's IR seeker to effectively acquire the target or "sniff" it

Link

Greetings,

I thank you for that reply, so basically, the F/A-22 can't carry normal or standard Air to Air Weaponary, they require special versions with folding fins, rather than the standard versions, interesting... Also I read that they carry only 8 not 10 at present, untill the new aim 9 comes into service they can only carry 8 and it mentioned that it MIGHT be able to carry 2 aim9s in each bay so it is not a sure thing.

- Phil

Originally posted by gooseuk
Greetings,

I thank you for that reply, so basically, the F/A-22 can't carry normal or standard Air to Air Weaponary, they require special versions with folding fins, rather than the standard versions, interesting... Also I read that they carry only 8 not 10 at present, untill the new aim 9 comes into service they can only carry 8 and it mentioned that it MIGHT be able to carry 2 aim9s in each bay so it is not a sure thing.

- Phil

The 120c and AIM-9x are both the same exact missles as there counterparts, only with folding fans. As I understand the 120c, it has a slightly shorter range, but of course this is more then made up for by the planes stealth ability.

AIM-9x makes operational debut

EDIT: I am coming up with conflicting reports about how many AIM-9x's the Raptor can carry. Some say 4, some say two. Anyone have a definitive source?


[edit on 12-8-2005 by American Mad Man]

AMM
The Raptor can hold 10 missles internally.

You mean 8.
6 radar in the middle, and 1 IR on each side.