Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

A fifth generation jet fighter uses software to deal with all the issues of flying the plane so that the pilot can concentrate on tactics.

The result is that the aircraft is too complex for the pilot to handle, resulting in dead F-22 pilots.

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What like FADECs controlling the engines makes them dangerous?

Or a fly-by wire aircraft is dangerous?

Why don't we get rid of traction-control for autos too, they're making people 'too safe' it could endanger their lives.

But then again anti-lock breaks make people too secure on slippery roads, and could result in more crashes?

Come on Cobb...

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TEG

The actual 5th generation paradoxes:

The US created two aircraft with capabilities so far beyond what any other nation can even plan to develop within their airframe lifespans, that the underlying technologies, and even the true extent of the capabilities which justify their development and per-unit build costs, cannot be discussed outside of the most secure and exclusive venues. Thus paradoxically giving America's enemies the one weapon that can defeat them -- an inability to accurately fight trumped-up concerns over their actual shortfalls, and properly justify their place in the defense budget.

Moreover, the very qualities they can admit are so far beyond anyone else's capabilities that nobody's even seriously trying to get into a losing arms race with them. Therefore, their relative lifetime advantage over everyone else is actually greater than it was intended to be -- a freebie that wasn't anticipated, and which makes them an even better deal than they were intended to be when designed! But with no future rivals of note (a direct consequence of their designs being so good), it makes them look like the intent of their design was an expensive luxury of excess for excess's sake. However, were we to have gone with less capable aircraft for our future, those less capable planes would be tempting targets for an arms race. Meaning America's less capable alternatives would be aiming to fight even more capable products from America's rivals than the F-22 and F-35 will face.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

The fifth gen paradox