I think you have it backwards. The F-35 – by virtue of its more compact size, lower drag and single higher bypass engine – is going to burn LESS fuel lugging itself to a respectable high subsonic speed than the F-22 willl burn to get to the same speed! All this nonsense about the F-35 being a porky aircraft is simply hogwash. The F-35 is the most mass efficient fighter ever – it is the lightest fighter aircraft ever built for its fuel and internal payload volume – surpassing the F-22 in this respect. Just how light is the F-35? Well, its fuel fraction is a whopping 41% at take off. That’s literally Boeing 777 territory! Plus, it can carry bigger and heavier internal payloads than the F-22 while being a smaller plane. Plus, it has the provisions for a lift-fan, roll posts, pivoting nozzle, auxillary intake/exhaust doors and all of the STOVL stuff. That’s how amazingly light it is for what it can swallow. For comparison, the EF Typhoon – a relatively trim 4th generation design – has a mere fuel fraction of 26.7%, no weapon bays and certainly no STOVL accomodations. Now that is comparatively HEAVY!

Also, the highest supercruise speed reached by the F-22 and noted in a verifiable statement is Mach 1.72. Anything else is pure speculation. And, as explained earlier, an F-35 in LO conditions (internal payload and fuel only) will probably outrange an F-22 by ~15%. This is assuming that both aircrafts fly at economical high subsonic speeds. If the F-22 utilizes supercruise then its range will probably fall to roughly half that of the F-35A (~350 nm combat radius; roughly 250 nm subsonic + 100nm of supercruise dash in and out plus reserves to flight at the target zone).

And, there is nothing wrong with penetrating enemy airspace at subsonic speeds. The B-2 does that all day. In fact, if you can avoid supersonic flight you want to avoid it to extend your range or preserve your fuel reserves for unforeseen maneuvers. Besides, even though it is not a requirement and not an advertised goal at this point, I’ll be quite surprised an aerodynamically very clean 12 ton aircraft with 124.5 kN of dry thrust like the F-35 won’t supercruise at Mach 1.2~1.3 while carrying internal weapons.



The idea is that the SUs won’t even know what hit them and will be scratching their heads when bombs go off, their AWACs explode and their TWRs suddenly scream AMRAAM!


I don’t think explosives have gotten significantly more powerful over the last thirty years and this is unlikely to change. In anycase, when your so called “high yield” compounds appears, the F-35 will carry twice as much of it.



You don’t seem to get it do you! If that is the case with the F-35 (and its not) what makes you think the F-22 is any better with its bigger, heavier, draggier airframe and twice as many less efficient engines? If the F-35 is going to spend a lot of fuel getting to cruise the F-22 is going to expend even more. If the F-35 is going to be chasing tankers more than enemies then the F-22 is going to be even worse.


Whether you are a simmer or not has no relevance to this discussion. What is relevant are your facts and your arguments. Unfortunately, your facts were wrong and your arguments does not make sense.

Conclusion:
F-35A/B has a wing loading of ~1.45x the F-22 (F-35 fuel consumtion is higher per unit time)
F-235A/B has a maximum (a/b) T/W ratio equal to the F-22 in dry thrust
F-35 cruise speed is high subsonic (maybe 1.2 mach on light fuel/weapon loads)
F-22 cruise speed is ~2.0 Mach
Time to target is greater with the F-35 than the F-22 (F-22 nearly 0.5x time to target than the F-35)
F-22 has greater sorties per airframe per unit_time than the F-35 as well as longer legs and not as tanker dependant (can be concluded from t/w ratios and wing loadings and crusie speeds)
F-22 can defend itself better on bombing runs and can delpoy munitions from a further distance from targets and ie AAA/SAM sites
Negatives for the F-22: not carrier deployable; cannot carry 120s with weapons bays loaded with a2g munitions (but does have supercruise/aim9s/and 20mm so its still likely more survivable defending itself on bombing runs)

As far as higher yield explosives: under development and the comment that it will simply double the F-35s "yield" that is true, but in an era of pinpoint strikes to minimize "civilian" deaths and in an era of penetrating hardened bunkers, that is irrelevant. If you want to penetrate a hardened target, everyone knows that smaller diameter weapon with a hardened casing traveling at high speed is the way to go (not unlike the SDB which the F-22 will carry 8 of and launch them as faster speeds than the 35 will ever do)

The F-35 a 12 ton aircraft??? Yeah, when its sitting on the ramp with no fuel and missing 1/2 its electronics. 12 tons? Thats 24,000 pounds? Are you sure you're not talking about and F-16? (No offense)

I guaranty the F-22 cruises at and above 2.0 mach, or course I doubt that it can fly sortie after sortie at such airspeeds. Its actually a quite remarkable aircraft to see it flying (& not when doing airshow demos). General Jumper's comments did not limit the cruise speed to 1.7 mach in any way shape or form. Of course no one is going to go around spilling all of the beans on that aircraft. Also keep in mind that the F-22 has just entered production and there is of course room for improvements in its engines as well.

I don't see financial common sense being applied to continued developement of the F-35 programme considering there is already a better plane in production which do all that the 35 does (minus 4K lbs internal bombs), but if produced in quantity given the sortie generation rate of the 22 and its self defense abilities whilst doing mud moving stuff, it is still the better choice.

No offense intended, but YOUR garrantee is worth absolutely nothing.



It doesn't really matter if YOU don't see it. What matters is that the USAF does. The USN does. The USMC does. The RAF does. The RN does. The RAAF does. And a dozen countries who are eagerly awaiting this revolutionary jet does. Like the Boeing 787 which has outsold any widebody before it even flew, the F-35 is building up to become the world's best selling fighter even before the first service delivery began. And the reason? It costs about $35 million to build an F-35A, it costs about $83~112 million to build an F-22A. And the F-35 will perform ALL the missions the F-22A can perform , plus missions the F-22A cannot perform. Sure, it won't be quite as overwhelmingly superior as an Air Domination Fighter, but it is sufficiently superior to ALL potential A2A opponents that it is good enough nonetheless. How good? According to Lockmart, 4 times better than 4th generation platforms in A2A and 8 times better in A2G. For most nations, and for the USA as a supplementary A2A platform, the F-35 does not need to be 10 times more effective at shooting down an SU than a competing 4.5 generation type like the Rafale or the Typhoon. If it is just 4 times as good it'll be bewildering. If it is twice as good it is fantastic. Even if it is just as good (and it will be better than that) it'll be good enough considering the range, payload and operational capabilities that is unique to it.

I guaranty the F-22 cruises at and above 2.0 mach, or course I doubt that it can fly sortie after sortie at such airspeeds. Its actually a quite remarkable aircraft to see it flying (& not when doing airshow demos). General Jumper's comments did not limit the cruise speed to 1.7 mach in any way shape or form. Of course no one is going to go around spilling all of the beans on that aircraft. Also keep in mind that the F-22 has just entered production and there is of course room for improvements in its engines as well.

Which area of the Raptor program do you work at?...Check

No offense intended, but YOUR garrantee is worth absolutely nothing.



It doesn't really matter if YOU don't see it. What matters is that the USAF does. The USN does. The USMC does. The RAF does. The RN does. The RAAF does. And a dozen countries who are eagerly awaiting this revolutionary jet does. Like the Boeing 787 which has outsold any widebody before it even flew, the F-35 is building up to become the world's best selling fighter even before the first service delivery began. And the reason? It costs about $35 million to build an F-35A, it costs about $83~112 million to build an F-22A. And the F-35 will perform ALL the missions the F-22A can perform , plus missions the F-22A cannot perform. Sure, it won't be quite as overwhelmingly superior as an Air Domination Fighter, but it is sufficiently superior to ALL potential A2A opponents that it is good enough nonetheless. How good? According to Lockmart, 4 times better than 4th generation platforms in A2A and 8 times better in A2G. For most nations, and for the USA as a supplementary A2A platform, the F-35 does not need to be 10 times more effective at shooting down an SU than a competing 4.5 generation type like the Rafale or the Typhoon. If it is just 4 times as good it'll be bewildering. If it is twice as good it is fantastic. Even if it is just as good (and it will be better than that) it'll be good enough considering the range, payload and operational capabilities that is unique to it.

Time will tell. At the very least this plane is going to be better in the a2a missions than the Falcons. I just don't see it as a viable penetrator into heavily defended airspace as a bomber - its load is too light in LO config and it's underpowered when carrying wing munitions of any size greater than the SDB. CAS missions, yes sure. Maybe there are some awesome black boxes inside that will help in regards to penetrating in LO mode, but a single engine fighter as a long range bomber? The last time that was tried was the F-105.

I wish the plane well since my tax dollars are funding this programme.

Tiedyed, if you think about it, we squabbled over a similar topic when the F-16 was being developed. F-15, like F-22, was the faster and more effective air-to-air platform with a limited ground-attack capability ("not a pound for air-to-ground"), although its A-G capability was greater than the F-22's is b/c the Eagle carried stores externally. F-16 couldn't measure up to the F-15 in the air-to-air department but had longer legs and was a more well-developed bomb truck. In retrospect, do you regret that F-16 was developed? Would it have been more cost-effective to purchase all F-15s instead?

As people have said on this board and elsewhere, the F-35 and F-22 have unique capabilities and are both necessary. Granted, thanks to supercruise and stealth, the F-22 will be able to access some targets that even the F-35 might hesitate to approach (like those defended by SA-20-class SAMs). But do you really want to forego the F-35's superior payload? It's more efficient to neutralize four targets per pass than to make two runs hitting two targets each.