Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

phantasm wrote:

southernphantom wrote:

The F-4 could do that after the first 20,000 feet or so with old J79-15 turbojets. I'd hazard a guess that a Raptor could zoom-climb to 120,000 so long as the pilot had a pressure suit. (Does the Raptor have pressure suit support? No clue.)

Hm- so the F-4 could ht it's max speed at 20,000 ft eh? It'd try to get to mach 2.5 then zoom climb? That sounds a bit low, but i guess in the thicker air- the more thrust helps.

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear. My meaning was that the Phantom can make it up to ~100,000 ft. It was actually faster down low (good 'ol turbojets!) and could reportedly outrun an Eagle on the deck. With modern F414s, I'd expect something truly impressive rivaling Streak Eagle.

Yes, I know this thread is technically pointless. I'm just viewing it as an intriguing thought experiment regarding super-high-altitude flight.

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If you attached a large enough balloon to the Raptor, it should be able to escort another balloon.

Well, as Phantom mentioned-things like this are interesting thought experiments. besides, you'll never get an idea for just how things go in certain scenarios if you never even brainstorm on them.

southernphantom wrote:

phantasm wrote:

southernphantom wrote:

The F-4 could do that after the first 20,000 feet or so with old J79-15 turbojets. I'd hazard a guess that a Raptor could zoom-climb to 120,000 so long as the pilot had a pressure suit. (Does the Raptor have pressure suit support? No clue.)

Hm- so the F-4 could ht it's max speed at 20,000 ft eh? It'd try to get to mach 2.5 then zoom climb? That sounds a bit low, but i guess in the thicker air- the more thrust helps.

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear. My meaning was that the Phantom can make it up to ~100,000 ft. It was actually faster down low (good 'ol turbojets!) and could reportedly outrun an Eagle on the deck. With modern F414s, I'd expect something truly impressive rivaling Streak Eagle.

Yes, I know this thread is technically pointless. I'm just viewing it as an intriguing thought experiment regarding super-high-altitude flight.

..Hm..that makes me wonder how it'd compare to the F-104 down low-

I'd normally get in a dig about turbojets being > turbofans, but that's just my bias xD

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I've been thinking about the "fly around at at ceiling, and just shoot up at plane target " idea- It seems to me if you're that significantly higher than something shooting at you, and you're in a jet plane- you're in a good position to evade weapons. Most air-to -air missiles, i'd think would only get one pass on a target 40,000 to 50,000 feet higher than the launching platform(yes, I am well aware factors like initial speed, closing speed,paths taken, etc play a role- just like the stories of all the SAMs fired at SR-71's are interesting- or the few times Foxbat pilots attempted to intercept it and try to use their own performance to get a shot in). Interesting stuff..

Well, with their current range, I suppose AMRAAM-D's and the old AIM-54 wouldn't fair too bad.

/slightly off topic I wonder what height you have to fly at to start becoming "stealthy" because radars aren't going to get a proper return on something at altitude. Following that line of thought- it might be worth it to make stealth platforms fly higher and higher, to further minimize the apparent RCS. Another interesting thought experiment....

HaveVoid wrote:

I am no expert, but one would have to wonder if the wings and airframe would be able to handle something pushing all the way out there on the wings. It's not a simple matter of "Here is some more thrust, let's go!"

Well I mean we could always bolt them right on to the fuselage in order to keep the thrust centerline but in my highly scientific approach I was a little apprehensive about scratching up the paint in such a beautiful bird.

phantasm wrote:

/slightly off topic I wonder what height you have to fly at to start becoming "stealthy" because radars aren't going to get a proper return on something at altitude. Following that line of thought- it might be worth it to make stealth platforms fly higher and higher, to further minimize the apparent RCS. Another interesting thought experiment....

Where did you hear this? They can track objects down the centimetre range in LEO and beyond. Altitude is never good for evading radars. What's a damn shame though, is that we have yet to deploy a space based radar constellation for a true God's eye perspective on things. Something about technology not being mature enough, pfft, sounds like laziness to me.

It has been done a LONG time ago.

Check all about it here.
http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/aircraft/aircraft.html

That was with the good old F-104..
Chuck Yeagers accident ended most of those experiments.
They zoomed close to 120.000 ft with the NF-104

So, YES, it is possible.

PhillyGuy wrote:

phantasm wrote:

/slightly off topic I wonder what height you have to fly at to start becoming "stealthy" because radars aren't going to get a proper return on something at altitude. Following that line of thought- it might be worth it to make stealth platforms fly higher and higher, to further minimize the apparent RCS. Another interesting thought experiment....

Where did you hear this? They can track objects down the centimetre range in LEO and beyond. Altitude is never good for evading radars. What's a damn shame though, is that we have yet to deploy a space based radar constellation for a true God's eye perspective on things. Something about technology not being mature enough, pfft, sounds like laziness to me.

...I didn't figure your average....say, SAM radar, would pick up stuff at 120,000, or 150,000, or 200,000 ..or lets use the space limit of 300,000 -350,000 feet high. Especially depending on how the Radars are orintated....

And you're right, it is laziness. Otherwise we'd be churnign out airships that can fly 100,000 feet with ease, that can provide AWACs functions....blah blah(dont get me started on 'laziness' in that manner involving our capabilities, you'll never hear the end of it Razz

)

phantasm wrote:

...I didn't figure your average....say, SAM radar, would pick up stuff at 120,000, or 150,000, or 200,000 ..or lets use the space limit of 300,000 -350,000 feet high. Especially depending on how the Radars are orintated....

Well, 200,000ft is roughly 37.8 miles high, even at a horizontal distance of 100 miles, the radar beam would only have to travel about 107 miles to the target. Hardly anything exceptional. Now, targeting something traveling at speed at that hight and distance would be another matter entirely. It's why we can track ballistic warheads to our heart's delight, but shooting all of them down is quite a different thing.

Deleted

Did we some how secretly build more Raptors in the past few months? If not, why are we so eager to toy around with one like we have any sort of attrition reserve? This is an attitude shared by many presidents and hundreds of idiots in congress; blowing through money they didn't have. Don't let your F-22 write checks Congress can't cash. If you are going to speculate and dream, at least have the F-22 detect trillions of dollars worth of gold unicorn hair in the upper atmosphere or be able to dock with the international space station on it's way to Mars. Wink

Red bull gives you wings... right? So stop screwing around with this hot air baloon stuff and train Felix to actually fly the F-22. He can zoom climb to 120,000 ft or whatever and simply punch out. No counter air escort required and voila... new world record. Very Happy

awsome wrote:

Red bull gives you wings... right? So stop screwing around with this hot air baloon stuff and train Felix to actually fly the F-22. He can zoom climb to 120,000 ft or whatever and simply punch out. No counter air escort required and voila... new world record. Very Happy

a waste of a precious asset (i.e. the F-22 of course) .. just strap him onto a SM-3. Smile

PhillyGuy wrote:

phantasm wrote:

...I didn't figure your average....say, SAM radar, would pick up stuff at 120,000, or 150,000, or 200,000 ..or lets use the space limit of 300,000 -350,000 feet high. Especially depending on how the Radars are orintated....

Well, 200,000ft is roughly 37.8 miles high, even at a horizontal distance of 100 miles, the radar beam would only have to travel about 107 miles to the target. Hardly anything exceptional. Now, targeting something traveling at speed at that hight and distance would be another matter entirely. It's why we can track ballistic warheads to our heart's delight, but shooting all of them down is quite a different thing.

Hm..So your average radar will see something easily at those heights... :/

Interesting.

When they scramble to intercept, they're not going to be able to approach or get close at all or even identify , then...hah.

@ the others. Unicorns, lol. Yea, but can it shoot them down? It still doesn't have a EODAS/IRST that it can use at it's max ceiling to identify the ISS by turning upside down and flying at whatever height Razz

Hm...if a alien invasion was to happen, the aliens could just fly at the hundreds of thousands of feet AGL and spam weapons with impunity. And unless we jury rigged AMRAAMS with height like that or AIM-54's to fit onto a Raptor and be able to go that high up-- we'd be SOL.

Reminds me of the issue where we were concerned with Alfa class subs being able to dive 300+0 ft deep , out of the range of our torpedoes - and our resulting effort to make deep diving torpedoes(Pretty sure ADCAPS have a decent chance at hitting targets at that depth- and it'd not be a long shot from say a Seawolf.....)

Anyway, back to the alien issue- jury rigged AIM-54's no good? How about AIM-9's on the Space Shuttles brought out of retirement? Laughing

Or AMRAAMS?(That'd be a good question to ponder- can a AMRAAM or Phoenix operate/manuever in near-space, or space. The Guidance would work fine...)

Quote:

a waste of a precious asset (i.e. the F-22 of course) .. just strap him onto a SM-3.

Hm...yea, SM-3's don't sweat at 120,000.

I guess if extra terrestrials arrive to attack, we'd be stuck spamming SM-3's. (unless they decide to stick a bit above the 500,000 ft point- we'd have to modify our current SM-3's like we did for the USA-193 interception shot and hope)Not sure how well they'd do against "fighter-esque "aircraft at that height.....

/I still say AIM-54/AIM 120 space shuttles could take down anything. They'd certainly have quite the standoff capability Razz

What a waste of a forum topic.

The idea of escorting Felix in his drop is absurb(there is no security threat involved)
If there was a fighter jet escorting Felix, there would be a great chance of a horrible bird(actually, man)strike on the aircraft which could either seriously damage or destroy it.

You have to take this thread for what it is... the complete absurdity of this topic is what is keeping it at the top of the thread page. I do like how your only concern is for the welfare of the aircraft... no concern for poor Felix. Shocked

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Could the Raptor escort Felix B/Altitude and Ceilings