Forum: F-22A Raptor

Elite Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 922 Status: Offline

Quote:

I don't get something, why is it that in any forum, the F/A-18 Hornet or Super hornet always get dissed or put down. Is the plane really that bad? Cuz in other forums, the F-14,15,16 and other planes tend to give a better reputation then the hornet. I know this is but i had to say something, cuz i really liek the hornet and it just pisses me off that people say these things

IIRC, the F-18 was a controversial plane to enter the Navy to begin with. Many of the test pilots and other officers and crew members who had to actually work with it were opposed to its entrance into the fleet. It was a lot of top brass who pushed for its institution and a lot of the original problems with the F-18 still havent been addressed. It turned out to work a bit better than most the pessimist thought anyways though...

-Aaron

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VPRGUY wrote:

Bwadwey wrote:

I don't get something, why is it that in any forum, the F/A-18 Hornet or Super hornet always get dissed or put down. Is the plane really that bad? Cuz in other forums, the F-14,15,16 and other planes tend to give a better reputation then the hornet. I know this is Off Topic

but i had to say something, cuz i really liek the hornet and it just pisses me off that people say these things Evil or Very Mad

Cauze the plane that lead to the -18 lost to the -16. Smile

Just poking fun, sorry, I couldn't help it. I think the Hornet is a pretty cool jet, personally

No, no, no, it was less suitable airframe for the Airforce's requirements. Where as when the Navalised Vought/Gen Dynamics F-16 was a dismal failure compaired to the F/A-18 presented by Mcdonnal/Northrop when the Navy reviewed the two aircraft as required by congress even though they like the F-17 better in the original competion.

And had the F-18L been produced as Northrop was pushing for, the F-16 would have found its self with half of the forign export orders it has today.

The F-18E/F can be a tanker, can land with ord, can go further than a/b/c/d, and is under budget and on time. (the F-22 has never been on budget).

The Navy doesn't want a single eng A/C because if that eng goes, how is he gonna get back on deck? (a fighter pilot can only eject 3 times).

ximeno wrote:

The F-18E/F can be a tanker, can land with ord, can go further than a/b/c/d, and is under budget and on time.

Thats interesting, I had read in Combat Aircraft a while back that the E/F didn't do that well against at least the C/D in direct comparison- slower, couln't turn as well, things like that. Plus the E/F, from what I've read, can't break mach in level flight under 10,000 feet. I've also read that, in the comparisons between the E/F and C/D, the super hornet couldn't carry the bomb load of the C/D as far as the C/D could, and neither was close to what the tomcat could carry. Just some info for comparison.

There is also a new "Combat Aircraft" out that has a two page article on the FB-22 proposal- some neat stuff in there Smile

Ok,

but I have to:

Enough with the one-engine/three ejections argument. It is simply not a factor. There are hundreds of Viper drivers out there, along with A-7, F-105, F-8 etc. pilots that have thousands of flight hours and no ejections. In a pure statistical sense, the chances of having to punch from a Eagle, Hornet, Tomcat and Viper are all about the same. Yes, early Viper engines weren't the most reliable, but they fixed the problem quickly and the new engines offer a new level of reliability in all flight regimes. The second engine gets you practically nothing anymore.

2sBlind wrote:

Ok,

but I have to:

Enough with the one-engine/three ejections argument. It is simply not a factor. There are hundreds of Viper drivers out there, along with A-7, F-105, F-8 etc. pilots that have thousands of flight hours and no ejections. In a pure statistical sense, the chances of having to punch from a Eagle, Hornet, Tomcat and Viper are all about the same. Yes, early Viper engines weren't the most reliable, but they fixed the problem quickly and the new engines offer a new level of reliability in all flight regimes. The second engine gets you practically nothing anymore.

Nothing except dry tanks sooner. I totally agree.

Elite Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 922 Status: Offline

I was never fond of the "On time and under budget" argument of the F-18E/F because no matter how you slate it, the F-18E/F is NOT a 5th generation a/c. Its a late 4th. To my knowledge, no NEW and AMAZING technologies had to be researched to create the E/F and research is always going to skew a budget since its impossible to estimate before a project how much research will cost to get the desired result. (Discovery just happens, you cant tell it when to)

I will always stick the F-18E/F where I stick the F-16Blk 60, the F-15E and the Mitsubishi F-2.

-Aaron

The F-18E/F program was a complete sham.

"Lets pile all sorts of design comprimises into the program so that we can keep the same shape and fool Congress into funding a new plane that they have said no to twice."

How many lives will that cost in the long term?

Well to me i've realized that there are many sides to the Super hornet. Some people think it was a waste of money while other think it will be a good aircraft so this is just my Two Cents

First of all, in todays war enviroment, we don't need a plane that can exceed over mach 2+. But we need a aircraft that can do air-to ground and air-to-air. But if you have an aircraft that is that versatile, don't expect it to do great in everything. If you have a plane that you need to go over mach 2, then you would have a wing design like the F-16, but then, you wont be able to carry as much bombs and missiles. But if you want a plane with a lot of fire power, then you would need a wing like the A-10, but then that would create a lot of drag. And we are talking about the Navy here. The plane needs to be compact and the maintenance is more ,cause of the carrier landings and the salty breeze. So they had to compromise and therefore, there's the Hornet and Super hornet. This might be a better way to think about it. For example, a camera phone, it's a great phone but the camera isn't going to be the best because it was put into there for convenience and for more fun gadgets to play with. But hey..............it gets the job done. Just liek the Super hornet and Hornet, they're F/A- not F-, so don't expect it to do great in air-to-air cause it's airframe was mostly designed for air-to-ground capabilities.

Newbie Joined: Sep 17, 2005 Posts: 1 Status: Offline

agilefalcon16 wrote:

Okay, so we've been talking about how the Air Force needs to replace the older 70's-80's design fighters, such as the F-16, F-15, and A-10, for new 5th generation fighters. But what about the Navy's F/A-18? Why are they just upgrading their Hornets instead of replacing them? The F-18, like the F-16, is also an aircraft that has already gone farther than it's design was originally meant to. The Hornet after all was based on the YF-17, which was a LWF design. So why is the Navy buying more of them?

The main reason the Navy has had to upgrade the F/A-18 even further is that they had to cancel the A-X program in the early 1990s. Thus the sailors have to fly non-stealth platforms until JSF in the F-35C form is available.

noth wrote:

Thus the sailors have to fly non-stealth platforms until JSF in the F-35C form is available.

Then why is the F/A-18E/F expected to complement the upcoming F-35C? Because all the -35C is scheduled to replace are the older Hornet variants.

Back on topic. FB-22 range is claimed to be around 1800 + miles. Not bad, but considering high cruise and low drag I would think it is farther. Claims are for 15,000lbs of weps internally including the ability to carry something like GBU-37 ( 5000lb class weapon ). Or 30,000lbs of weps external ( non-stealth ). Sounds good to have hanging around the JSTARS stack on call after the enemy airpower is beat down. Having a small number of these in theather certainly gives a nice team play advantage. Again, I would rather ( at least for USAF ) see us invest in something like this instead of JSF.

2 man crew, claims of having the best stealth ability we have yet to have ( no vertical tails )

-Less manuver, less G, no TV nozzles, but again who cares? Fast super-cruise strike. Again all of our work for USAF could be done without F-35.

-I would rather have something like this in-theater than B-1 ( which has never been a range king anyway ).

elp wrote:

Again, I would rather ( at least for USAF ) see us invest in something like this instead of JSF.

Elp, I agree with you 110%. There is nothing I would prefer to see more than the cancellation of the F-35, and the funds going to the F/B-22, as well as other useful aircraft. But here's my question, why is the USAF still so interested in the F-35? I just don't understand, I've heard that the Air Force's main objective was to purchase more Raptors, so why don't they just back out of the JSF program and fund the F/B-22?

Elite Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 892 Status: Offline

From the sound of it it's not their choice. Some time ago when the announcemnt of chopping the F/A-22 buy to 180 came out the USAF said they'd give up FIVE HUNDRED F-35s if the politicians would give them the full 279 F-22s. The politicians said no.

Any idea what the final FB-22 might end up like... somehow i see the idea of dumping 500 JSF's for some FB-22's a good option... somebody tell congress this might work better than them scrapping around for older jets to stay in shape

Forum: F-22A Raptor

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