Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

sferrin wrote:

end wrote:

so, there is no truly top speed unveiled yet?

Is there for ANY aircraft?

for raptor.
I didn't see top speed data under this thread

F-16.net Sponsor

Top Speed:

At what altitude (pressure, density)? At what atmospheric conditions? Top speed as related to a ground plot of distance vs time? Then fine, in what direction and in what tailwinds or headwinds or crosswinds? With what fuel and weapons loading?

Airplanes aint like cars where speed is easily defined and understood by the mass population.

Its very likely that the F-22 has an electronic govener to inhibit excessive speeds in certain atmospheric conditions, and to allow certain speeds in certain atmospheric conditions.

If you're looking for "top speed" then you got to define what "speed" is. A more better (excuse the poor gramar) question would be about asking for the performance chart of the F-22 and comparing it to, say, the SU's and Migs and Eurofighters and F-15s and 16s.

And sorry, no one is going to give you a performance chart on anything military. But I encourage you, to if you are a fan of aviation, get a good book on airplane performance, do the math yourself, and figure that whatever numbers you get are going to be on the low side since it should be assumed that the F-22 has some nifty secrets inside her unassuming airframe. In all likelyhood, the F-22 is highly probable of being the "fastest" single seated fighter plane ever operated by the USAF.

What would be interesting would be to see in detail all the way down the air intakes from the opening to the fan blades. The F-22 has fixed inlets, so I'd be interested in seeing what kinds of aerodynamic tricks are being played with the intakes, as well as the compressors, blades, etc, etc...

Mach 1.8 (at what altitude, atmospheric conditions, loading?), I don't know who originated that, but that's a tad bit low for an airplane (single seat fighter) with a published thrust of 70,000 lbs. Sure its fatter than an F-15, but there's nothing like brute force and awkwardness to overcome weight and fatness. I seem the remember the published (from the USAF) of a 60k feet operational ceiling... You can be certain that published and actual are not one and the same.

I'd wager quite a bit of money, that it's true cruise speed is over M2. But again, you have to define what speed is when you're talking airplanes... This ain't NASCAR.

Its probably capable of flying fast enough (ungoverned) to the point where it'll suffer structural damage, which is damned fast for a fighter.

fox100,
You are making far too big a deal about defining "top speed". It means any altitude, any temperature, any weight, any store loading, any wind condition, what is the max speed in level flight.

My guess is that it is faster than a snail but slower than light. Laughing

Forum Veteran Joined: Jul 01, 2007 - 07:22 PM Posts: 620

It doesn't matter how fast it can go. It only matters how fast it can go faster.

johnwill wrote:

fox100,
You are making far too big a deal about defining "top speed". It means any altitude, any temperature, any weight, any store loading, any wind condition, what is the max speed in level flight.

Ha! Yeah, ok. Lets forget about atmospheric dynamics as they don't matter to airplane performance. Let's forget about true altitude, indicated altitude... Lets forget that what Mach 1.0 is at 5000ft is not what Mach 1.0 is at 55,000ft. Lets forget about 100mph headwinds when you're running right into someone else's airspace as a loss of 100mp doesn't matter when you're trying avoid showing your as$ for too long to some guys SAMs.

If you want an actual discussion of airspeed, then you better open up a book on aerodynamics and learn the fundementals off what the atmosphere does to airplane performance, and how mach speed is affected by altitude, pressure, density, ect ect ect.

I can fly a cherokee at 105 indicated knots into 50 knot headwinds and still get passed by cars on the road going in the same direction as me. All the while the earth bound humans look up and say, "He's going pretty slow," because they don't understand basic aeronautical principles and they don't know I'm going against a river of air in the sky.

I was driving home late one night, and the road goes east/west... Coincidently, this road, if you drew a straight line on a map would lead right on runway 27L/R... So I saw this light in the sky that really bright and its not moving, so I think, must be a helicopter.... No, it was just the headwinds soaking up some pilots thrust and slowing down his ground track to next to nothing... When I passed the guy, I was thinking that it'd probably take the guy 20 minutes to go the 15 miles to the runways.

There can be no discussion on speed when you're talking about airplanes and not have a clearly defined definition for speed and in what atmospheric conditions. Hell, you can't even discuss mach airspeed supercruising w/o defining what you mean by mach airspeed? Do you mean mach airspeed in the standard atmospheric conditions with no wind and at MSL, or do you mean "true" mach airspeed for a given altitude, pressure, temp, density? Do you mean over the North Atantic ocean in September on a sunny day and at 50,00ft and flying due east with the winds? Do you want to compare the speed of the same plane flying due west at 10,000ft over North Dakota in December? Identical airplanes with identical thrust, but totally different indicated airspeeds as well as ground track speeds.

Remember: In life there are no straight lines. There are no solid objects... The world is shades of gray and never black and white.

fox100 wrote:

johnwill wrote:

fox100,
You are making far too big a deal about defining "top speed". It means any altitude, any temperature, any weight, any store loading, any wind condition, what is the max speed in level flight.

Ha! Yeah, ok. Lets forget about atmospheric dynamics as they don't matter to airplane performance. Let's forget about true altitude, indicated altitude... Lets forget that what Mach 1.0 is at 5000ft is not what Mach 1.0 is at 55,000ft. Lets forget about 100mph headwinds when you're running right into someone else's airspace as a loss of 100mp doesn't matter when you're trying avoid showing your as$ for too long to some guys SAMs.

If you want an actual discussion of airspeed, then you better open up a book on aerodynamics and learn the fundementals off what the atmosphere does to airplane performance, and how mach speed is affected by altitude, pressure, density, ect ect ect.

I can fly a cherokee at 105 indicated knots into 50 knot headwinds and still get passed by cars on the road going in the same direction as me. All the while the earth bound humans look up and say, "He's going pretty slow," because they don't understand basic aeronautical principles and they don't know I'm going against a river of air in the sky.

I was driving home late one night, and the road goes east/west... Coincidently, this road, if you drew a straight line on a map would lead right on runway 27L/R... So I saw this light in the sky that really bright and its not moving, so I think, must be a helicopter.... No, it was just the headwinds soaking up some pilots thrust and slowing down his ground track to next to nothing... When I passed the guy, I was thinking that it'd probably take the guy 20 minutes to go the 15 miles to the runways.

There can be no discussion on speed when you're talking about airplanes and not have a clearly defined definition for speed and in what atmospheric conditions. Hell, you can't even discuss mach airspeed supercruising w/o defining what you mean by mach airspeed? Do you mean mach airspeed in the standard atmospheric conditions with no wind and at MSL, or do you mean "true" mach airspeed for a given altitude, pressure, temp, density? Do you mean over the North Atantic ocean in September on a sunny day and at 50,00ft and flying due east with the winds? Do you want to compare the speed of the same plane flying due west at 10,000ft over North Dakota in December? Identical airplanes with identical thrust, but totally different indicated airspeeds as well as ground track speeds.

Remember: In life there are no straight lines. There are no solid objects... The world is shades of gray and never black and white.

Oh, come on. John's point was simply that usually "ideal conditions" for reached top speed are assumed, and this usually results in trying to give the most impressive sounding mach number possible for true airspeed. So, typically a mach number for 36,000 feet on a moderately cold day with average barometric pressue and no wind.

I think you might be splitting hairs for no obvious reason.

fox100, I should be offended at your lecture to me about aerodynamics, considering I have a master's in engineering and forty years experience as an aero engineer, but I'm not. I just consider your obviously superior knowledge and feel lucky to have made it as far as I did without your help. By the way, 27 L/R is not exactly an east / west runway. Ever hear of magnetic variation
?

The F-22 can go past Mach [Link pending approval] easily. I mean [Link pending approval] without afterburners it can easily surpass Mach [Link pending approval]

Put it this way. The AF brass say it can go 1.7 without AB. The pilots say you accelerate with AB, then get it down at about mil to keep your speed. Full AB speed should easily exceed Mach 2. Mach 2.5 seems almost given, there was a test pilot who said it could go 2.4 and past. There's no chance the Raptor is slower than the F-15. Somewhere there's something Dozer said which guarantees it.

Well, this might be an indication of how fast this jet was going Wink

I told the crew chief it looked like his jet had been through a sandstorm. He said, "Naw, it was just flyin' real fast!"

Gotta love a jet that'll strip the paint like that Thumb

!

Tinito_16 wrote:

Put it this way. The AF brass say it can go 1.7 without AB. The pilots say you accelerate with AB, then get it down at about mil to keep your speed. Full AB speed should easily exceed Mach 2. Mach 2.5 seems almost given, there was a test pilot who said it could go 2.4 and past. There's no chance the Raptor is slower than the F-15. Somewhere there's something Dozer said which guarantees it.

Yes and no. Paul Metz said a speed of mach 2.4 could be possible, the problem is that the materials might suffer damage at such speeds. AFAIK the Raptor was never flown with more than mach 2 and for safety reasons it was agreed to limit the top speed to mach 1.8. That doesn't sound impressive, but you have to take into account that the Raptor achieve these speeds with full fuel and internal weapons. All the given top speeds are completely irrelevant as it is the operational speed which matters and here the Raptor is not slower than previous generation fighters, even if their max. top speed was superior.

Scorpion82 wrote:

Tinito_16 wrote:

Put it this way. The AF brass say it can go 1.7 without AB. The pilots say you accelerate with AB, then get it down at about mil to keep your speed. Full AB speed should easily exceed Mach 2. Mach 2.5 seems almost given, there was a test pilot who said it could go 2.4 and past. There's no chance the Raptor is slower than the F-15. Somewhere there's something Dozer said which guarantees it.

Yes and no. Paul Metz said a speed of mach 2.4 could be possible,

That is NOT what he said. His exact words were "the top speed is classified but it will do 1600 mph."

sferrin wrote:

That is NOT what he said. His exact words were "the top speed is classified but it will do 1600 mph."

Ah don't nail me on the exact words. The contends is relevant not the exact words.

Scorpion82 wrote:

sferrin wrote:

That is NOT what he said. His exact words were "the top speed is classified but it will do 1600 mph."

Ah don't nail me on the exact words. The contends is relevant not the exact words.

Of course it is. There's a big difference between saying he implied it was theoretically possible and him saying definitively it can do it.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

F/A-22 top speed