Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Something more:
http://theaviationist.com/2012/07/13/fia12-typhoon-raptor/

Quote:

Indeed, it looks like the F-22 tends to lose too much energy when using thust vectoring (TV): TV can be useful to enable a rapid direction change without losing sight of the adversary but, unless the Raptor can manage to immediately get in the proper position to score a kill, the energy it loses makes the then slow moving stealth combat plane quite vulnerable.

It also mentions things like Typhoon has IRST, F-22 lacks HMD, and Meteor has better range. Well Meteor range is not really relevant for this WVR training...

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Farnborough 2012: “Yesterday we had Raptor salad for lunch” Typhoon pilot said after dogfighting with the F-22 at Red Flag Alaska - It's a sales pitch quoted from unnamed sources (to help promote EF2000 sales at the event). I do believe each side had a share of gunsite pics and I would be disappointed if the Tiffy was not the best dogfighter a Raptor ever comes up against. The Tiffy was made with awesome close in capabilities. Here's a detailed statement from a named source that gives alot of concessions in terms of air combat to the F-22.
Col Pfeiffer summed up: 'Its unique capabilities are overwhelming from our first impressions in terms of modern air combat, but as soon as you get to the merge, which is only a very small spectrum of air combat, in that area, at least, the Typhoon doesn't necessarily have to fear the F-22 in all [Link pending approval] gain energy better than the F-22 when we are slow, for example, and we recognise that. In the dogfight the Eurofighter is at least as capable as the F-22 with advantages in some aspects. We feel pretty comfortable in that situation right now out of the experience we have had here, and we're in a position to survive against almost all jets in close combat'.

Key phrase, "which is only a very small spectrum of air combat"

One curious thing about the Typhoon claims, is the experience that Rafale pilots had vs. the F-22. If we believe the French sources, the Rafale has routinely trounced Typhoons in WVR. We know that in ACM between the Rafale and F-22, that the Rafale was unable to get a kill, while depending on the source the F-22 got at least 2 kills(and possibly more if the USAF claims are accurate). The Typhoon, Rafale, and F-22 pilots all claim to have had the upperhand in some way. Somebody(or everybody) is clearly exaggerating.

sferrin wrote:

Key phrase, "which is only a very small spectrum of air combat"

wrightwing wrote:

Somebody(or everybody) is clearly exaggerating.

"The Typhoons were stripped of their external fuel tanks and slicked off as much as possible before the encounter with the Raptors." -Lt. Col. Marc Grüne, Luftwaffe Ops Group Commander

The one and only un-exaggerated key phrase that matters.

wrightwing wrote:

One curious thing about the Typhoon claims, is the experience that Rafale pilots had vs. the F-22. If we believe the French sources, the Rafale has routinely trounced Typhoons in WVR. We know that in ACM between the Rafale and F-22, that the Rafale was unable to get a kill, while depending on the source the F-22 got at least 2 kills(and possibly more if the USAF claims are accurate). The Typhoon, Rafale, and F-22 pilots all claim to have had the upperhand in some way. Somebody(or everybody) is clearly exaggerating.

The French Rafales achieved loop sided results against British Typhoons during one WVR DACT exercise only, but there were about a half dozen other exercises like that involving said types. The French never claimed to have achieved similar results before or afterwards that particular exercise and there have been reports to the contrary, albeit not with similar results. The Luftwaffe pilots, all named I might add, all admired the F-22's dominant performance at BVR distances, acknowledged that the merge represents a small spectrum of air combat only and admitted that the Typhoon's were slicked of as much as possible for the BFM sorties against the F-22. One regards the Typhoon as evenly matched in such a set up, another concludes that the Typhoon is possibly superior in THAT set up. Btw on a blogger's website photographs of two JG 74 Typhoons were published showing them with F-22 markings and other kill markings, both were deployed to Alaska...

http://theaviationist.com/2012/07/23/f- ... -markings/

Make out of it what you want, but it somewhat adds to the claims made by the Luftwaffe pilots. And they apparently don't state that they haven't been beaten as well.

Just an interesting observation. I have not seen many (if any) F-22's with other aircraft kill markings, yet everyone and their dog takes any chance they can to put an F-22 mark on their plane.

Back when men were men, when a good football player scored he gave the ball to the ref and ran back to his team like it was nothing new or special, but when a bad player scored he made a spectacle out of the celabration because it doesn't normally happen and it is a big deal for him and he wants the world to know about it.

Kind of telling don't you think?

Also, is there a set or rules or standards that state required verification methods for placing a training "kill" on an aircraft? If so what do they required?

It's like when in grade school the fastest kid ("Timmy") in our grade was jogging around the track and one of the slowest kids ("Jimmy") in school ran by him with all his strength and beat Timmy for a 100m stretch. Jimmy claimed victory. He didn't mention that Timmy was going half speed, or that Timmy didn't even know they were racing. Jimmy just said, "I beat Timmy in a 100m dash."

Basically, I would like to know if there is some kind of legitimate verification process for the "kills" or is it all bravado, ego and one or two pictures with little to no context?

Sufa Viper

I'd be curious to know what fuel/weapon state that the F-22s were in vs. the slick Typhoons. I know for airshow purposes, they fly in simulated combat configuration, with dummy weapons, and high fuel state. If the Typhoons were at 50% and the F-22s were at 80%, that'll make a difference. I'd be surprised if there were any appreciable acceleration advantages for the Typhoon, given the T/W ratios. I'd also be curious to know about the airspeeds and altitudes involved. Ostensibly, the Rafale should have better low speed characteristics than the Typhoon, being designed as a carrier aircraft, and the F-22 managed to outmaneuver them every time, till there was a kill, or they reached a time/fuel limit.

Radar reflectors on the F-22 spoil it's low altitude maneuvering. Did it use fixed mounted reflectors in additin to the retractables? And they carry underwing tanks up in Alaska. Many things could put it all in context.

What does "slicked" even mean? It sounds like they had somebody smear grease and goop all over them. All I know of would be to not hang external objects from them, but then they'd be unarmed, and there are already ways to say that without using "slick (off)" as a verb. Anything else I can think of, like trying to make the edges of panels more smooth/blended or covering up unused hardpoints, I would have presumed were already standard procedure.

sufaviper wrote:

Just an interesting observation. I have not seen many (if any) F-22's with other aircraft kill markings

Where would you put them all?? Laughing

wrightwing wrote:

I know for airshow purposes, they fly in simulated combat configuration, with dummy weapons and high fuel state

For the record:

http://www.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/AFI11-246V1.pdf (p. 182, section 7.2)

Also, Zeke posted this a while back on the [now-defunct] AirShowBuzz forum:

"The only reason we don't do a 'fully-loaded' demo is because of the extra work it creates to load and unload inert weapons while we're on the road. However, the aircraft is absolutely capable of performing the demo with a full combat load. I don't have to make any changes to the profile and you wouldn't see a difference."

delvo wrote:

What does "slicked" even mean? It sounds like they had somebody smear grease and goop all over them. All I know of would be to not hang external objects from them, but then they'd be unarmed, and there are already ways to say that without using "slick (off)" as a verb. Anything else I can think of, like trying to make the edges of panels more smooth/blended or covering up unused hardpoints, I would have presumed were already standard procedure.

It's not particularly realistic training to compare an unarmed Typhoon against an F-22(which may have EFTs for all we know). I'd rather see one with 6-8 training AAMs.

delvo wrote:

What does "slicked" even mean? It sounds like they had somebody smear grease and goop all over them. All I know of would be to not hang external objects from them, but then they'd be unarmed, and there are already ways to say that without using "slick (off)" as a verb. Anything else I can think of, like trying to make the edges of panels more smooth/blended or covering up unused hardpoints, I would have presumed were already standard procedure.

Do they remove the weapon pylons?

sufaviper wrote:

Just an interesting observation. I have not seen many (if any) F-22's with other aircraft kill markings, yet everyone and their dog takes any chance they can to put an F-22 mark on their plane.

Back when men were men, when a good football player scored he gave the ball to the ref and ran back to his team like it was nothing new or special, but when a bad player scored he made a spectacle out of the celabration because it doesn't normally happen and it is a big deal for him and he wants the world to know about it.

Kind of telling don't you think?

Also, is there a set or rules or standards that state required verification methods for placing a training "kill" on an aircraft? If so what do they required?

It's like when in grade school the fastest kid ("Timmy") in our grade was jogging around the track and one of the slowest kids ("Jimmy") in school ran by him with all his strength and beat Timmy for a 100m stretch. Jimmy claimed victory. He didn't mention that Timmy was going half speed, or that Timmy didn't even know they were racing. Jimmy just said, "I beat Timmy in a 100m dash."

Basically, I would like to know if there is some kind of legitimate verification process for the "kills" or is it all bravado, ego and one or two pictures with little to no context?

Sufa Viper

It's the USAF, LM and the fanboys out there holding up the myth that the F-22 is superior at everything just for the sake of being the Raptor. Interestingly no one of you guys complain if Raptor jocks tell how they smashed the opposition, be it from national exercises only, such as the "1 F-22 defeated three JHCMS/AIM-9X equipped F-16s close in" or other claims. No one questions it, no one complains and it's all quite normal. But when "others" talk about not having been beaten to death then it's all conspiracy, all of them must be lying and exaggerating... And yes the pictures are "out of context", but it adds to what three named officers have commented on and what has been reported independently by four different journalists.

@count_to_10

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Do they remove the weapon pylons?

There aren't any weapon pylons which must be removed in most cases. The drop tanks on the Typhoon have their pylons integrated, only the outboard pylons are always fitted to the aircraft and are part of the aircraft so to speak.

@wrightwing

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I'd be curious to know what fuel/weapon state that the F-22s were in vs. the slick Typhoons. I know for airshow purposes, they fly in simulated combat configuration, with dummy weapons, and high fuel state. If the Typhoons were at 50% and the F-22s were at 80%, that'll make a difference. I'd be surprised if there were any appreciable acceleration advantages for the Typhoon, given the T/W ratios. I'd also be curious to know about the airspeeds and altitudes involved. Ostensibly, the Rafale should have better low speed characteristics than the Typhoon, being designed as a carrier aircraft, and the F-22 managed to outmaneuver them every time, till there was a kill, or they reached a time/fuel limit.

Typhoons fuel fraction is about the same on internal fuel as that of the F-22. It's doubtful that they took off with just 50% fuel as this would have left little reserves for the engagements flown. The Rafale is a different beast, it's more manoeuvrable at low speeds than the Typhoon, but it's not as powerful and can't regain energy just as quickly. I think against a Raptor that's a good advantage as you can't really hope to cope with an TVC equipped aircraft when it goes slow. Avoid being napped and tapped use your energy to escape and come in for a kill when the target has depleted its energy state to such an extend that it won't be able to manoeuvre to much anymore.

Quote:

It's not particularly realistic training to compare an unarmed Typhoon against an F-22(which may have EFTs for all we know). I'd rather see one with 6-8 training AAMs.

It's not particularly realistic training to do a gun fight if you have a load of missiles left either or to keep your tanks, but in an exercise you aren't firing real missiles and you aren't jettisoning your tanks either. And how do you arrive at the conclusion that the F-22s were flying with drop tanks?
[/quote]

The F-22s flew with radar reflecting tanks against the French in Dubai to hide their true level of stealth. I doubt the USAF would want to reveal the Raptor's true level of stealth to the Germans either. Exercises are good and all, but there are a lot of things that neither side will reveal to the other. America would almost certainly want to keep the details of the Raptor's stealth characteristics a secret. Also, you'll note that those articles state that the Typhoon was slicked off as much as possible but no such thing is mentioned about the Raptor.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

F-22A versus EF2000