Forum: F-22A Raptor

The F-22: not what we were hoping for
by James Stevenson and Pierre Sprey

The F-22 fighter aircraft's focus on stealth brings big disadvantages in cost, weight and manoeuvrability, argue Pierre Sprey and James Stevenson

For decades, the US Air Force has pushed the F-22 as its fighter for the 21st century. Advocates tout its technical features: fuel-efficient, high-speed 'super-cruise'; advanced electronics; and reduced profile against enemy sensors, known as 'stealth'.

However, on measures that determine winning or losing in air combat, the F-22 fails to improve the US fighter force. In fact, it degrades our combat capability.

Careful examination of actual air-to-air battles tells us that there are five attributes that make a winning fighter. These attributes shaped the F-15 and the F-16.

They are: (1) pilot training and ability; (2) obtaining the first sighting and surprising the enemy; (3) outnumbering enemy fighters in the air; (4) outmanoeuvring enemy fighters to gain a firing position; and (5) consistently converting split-second firing opportunities into kills.

The F-22 is a mediocrity, at best, on (4) and (5). It is a liability on (1), (2) and (3).

The most important attribute - pilot quality - dwarfs the others. Air combat history from both small and large wars makes that obvious. After the Israel Air Force (IAF) swept Syrian MiGs from the sky in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon with an 82-0 exchange ratio, the IAF Chief of Staff told US congressional staffers that the result would have been the same had the Syrian and Israeli pilots switched aircraft.

Great pilots get that way by constant dogfight training. Between 1975 and 1980, at the Navy Fighter Weapons School ('Topgun'), instructor pilots got 40 to 60 hours of air combat manoeuvring per month. Their students came from squadrons getting only 14 to 20 hours per month. Flying the cheap, simple F-5, the robustly trained instructors consistently whipped the students in their 'more capable' F-4 Phantoms, F-14 Tomcats and F-15 Eagles. Today, partly thanks to the pressure on the air force's training budget from the F-22's excessive purchase and operating costs, an F-22 pilot gets 12 to 14 hours of flight training per month. For winning future air battles, this is a huge step backward.

For half a century, the air force has been attempting to get the jump on enemy fighters through expensive, complex technology.

Billions of dollars were spent trying to perfect long-range radar missiles to achieve 'beyond-visual-range' (BVR) kills. Extraordinary kill rates, as high as 80 to 90 per cent, were promised when projects were being sold. Success rates in actual combat were below 10 per cent. Simple, more agile, shorter-range infra-red missiles and guns were far more successful and effective.

Worse, the 'identification friend or foe' (IFF) systems that must distinguish enemies from friends before launching BVR missiles failed in every war. As recently as Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' in 2003, misidentified allied aircraft were lost to US systems. The air force now tells us the only way to get the jump on enemy fighters supposedly launching BVR missiles is with stealth. But stealth solves neither the problem of less effective, high-cost BVR radar missiles nor the IFF conundrum. Moreover, stealth has failed to make our fighters invisible to radar and it brings crippling disadvantages.

In Operation 'Desert Storm' in 1991, according to the Government Accountability Office, so-called stealthy F-117s were significantly less effective bombers than the air force described publicly - there is anecdotal evidence that ancient Iraqi radars detected them. In the war against Serbia in 1999, non-stealthy F-16s had a lower loss rate per sortie than the F-117s. The F-22 will not be invisible to radar in real combat, where it cannot control detection angles and radar types.

The most obvious disadvantage stealth brings to the F-22 is extraordinary cost; it grossly reduces the numbers we will buy. New Department of Defense data shows the total unit cost of the F-22 has grown from about USD130 million to over USD350 million per aircraft. Result? The original buy of 750 is now down to 185.

Moreover, stealth plus the F-22's complexity result in unprecedented levels of maintenance downtime. That further reduces numbers in the air; 185 F-22s will support about 120 deployed fighters. They will be lucky to generate 60 combat sorties per day: a laughable number in any serious air war. In World War II, the Luftwaffe could field only 70 of its revolutionary jet: the Me-262. It caused alarm among Allied pilots but had negligible effect on the air battle.

Furthermore, the stealth requirement adds significant drag, weight and size. Size is the most crippling. Why? Because real-world combat is visual combat. Because the F-22 is much bigger than most fighters, it will be detected first, reversing the theoretical advantage it derives from stealth. Topgun had a saying: "The biggest target in the sky is always the first to die."

Once seen, the F-22 has trouble outman-oeuvring the enemy. Its weight hurts the key performance measures of turning and accelerating. Put simply, both the F-15A and F-16A out-turn and out-accelerate the F-22.

Finally, stealth harms the F-22's quick-firing ability. To retain stealth, the gun and missiles must be buried behind doors that take too long to open to exploit instantaneous opportunities.

The air force will argue strenuously that we are wrong and the F-22 has excelled in air-to-air exercises against all comers. However, our information is that these are 'canned' engagements in which the F-22 is pitted against opponents in joust-like scenarios set up to exploit the F-22's theoretical advantages and exclude its real-world vulnerabilities.

There is a way to find out who is right. A serious test of F-22 capabilities would pit it against pilots and aircraft the air force does not control using rules of engagement dictated by combat and the ratio of F-22s to enemies that the tiny F-22 inventory should expect in hostile skies.

We both would be delighted to observe any such realistic exercises and to report back to this magazine. Nothing would please us more than to find that we are wrong and US fighter pilots have been given the best fighter in the sky.

185 F-22s will support about 120 deployed fighters. They will be lucky to generate 60 combat sorties per day:

And I know some F-15 pilots who went up against some Raptors and I can tell you that they would disagree with this piece of "journalism".

Since the laws of physics refuse to bend for anyone, the aircraft designers/ engineers are reaching the point of diminishing returns with much of their design work. The progression from Wright Flyer to Fokker Dreideckers to Spitfires to Eagles represents enormous strides. But since the teen fighters came on the scene, we have been bumping our heads against technological ceilings.
Does the Raptor represent the same progression as we saw from Spitfire to F-86 Sabre?
Of course not. Does it offer anything hugely different from its predecessors? NO, it does not. It does however improve the breed, but it does not redefine it.

Kurt Tank, the designer & testpilot of the Focke Wulf Fw-109,one of the best fighters in WW II, stated that he designed his 'ButcherBird' as: robust, reliable, simple, easy to maintain and easy to use. Experience in WW I as a soldier, learned him that this was important for any weapon.
The F-22 is robust, it can even take 30mm hits at important parts, but is it reliable, simple and easy to maintain/ use? The same goes for the F-35.

Manfred von Richtenhofen, the famous fighter ace in WW I, stated that it did not matter which fighter he was flying.
Most important was: good training/ skills + outnumbering the enemy.

The IDF,
Pierre Sprey is quoting Rafael Eitan, with its 87 - 0 win over the Syrian AF.
Despite the IDFs technological superiority over adversary airforces, the IDF placed considerable priority on the human element. According to Rafael Eitan: training is of greater importance and significance than the means of warfare, the weapon systems and the technology.
Stealth is at this site (over)hyped. It is demonstrated since WW II in several conflicts, that in order to win the air war, you must first conquer the electromagnetic spectrum. Before the Kosovo-campaign in 1999, the USAF tried to rely on Stealth only with its F-117 and B-2 Spirit. After the campaign, the doctrine was changed, the USAF decided to rely on Observation Countermeasures (OCM, stealth) AND ECM, with regard to F-117 and B-2 missions.
The US Navy has shown, that OCM can be countered by Network Centric Warfare; Europeans, Russians etc. are already using NCW. ECM played a very important role in the Bekaa Valley 1982 campaign.
People at this site are bashing the semi-stealth/ descrete Rafale, but in fact this aircraft has an impressive ECM/ EW suite just like the Mirage 2000.

The IDF learned between 1967 and 1973, that an effective doctrine and organization is needed, interservice cooperation has become the standard for the IDF, indeed the Israeli AF and navy are incorporated in the ground forces staff at the national level = integrated command structure.
Operation Rolling Thunder (Vietnam), ops Eagle Claw (Iran, 1980), Grenada (1983), Lybia (1986) recall mis-applications of air power by insufficient interservice coordination. In 1986, the USN had 2 carriers with 155 warplanes off the coast with Lybia. But the USAF found it necessary to join the fight with: 24 Aarvarks (9 of them did not complete the mission), 5 EF-111s and 28 tanker aircraft to fly a 5,600 st.miles/ 9.010 km round-trip. Sorry, my dear site possums, but I do not understand why ground based air defence (Patriots etc.) is still a task of the US Army.
Network Centric Warfare or Network Enabled Capability for the Poms, is not only a technological thing, more importantly it has to do with organisation and the mentality of the service (wo)men involved.
Huh??!!, organisation?, mentality?, the introduction of telegraph, telephone and radio at the battle field, speeded up the pace of warfare. NCW will do the same, a non-NCW organisation can do with an authoritative or top-to-bottom structure, but in order to fully exploit NCW, you need a participating or bottom-to-top organisation. Wow, we need a new NCW warrior!

Preponderance.
Ruskies and Yanks had something in common during WW II, they did not defeat that evil Axis by superior strategy, tactics and weapons. No, it was industrial production capacity, read outnumbering your enemy at the battle field. The Krauts produced first class guns, tanks, fighters etc. and some were even revolutionary, but luckily it was not enough.
By the way, the IAF enjoyed numerical preponderance over the Bekaa Valley, they outnumbered the Syrians by 3 : 2 aircraft.

Over

To my modest understanding, F-22 increase in empty weight is not doing it any good in terms of performances.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/211833/t ... hoping+for

I posted some in this WAFF topic recently.

Understand, if it is only marginally superior to Typhoon interms of instantaneous turn rate, which is rather surprising and might indicate the use of TVC for the purpose, i wonder what it will be like vs, well something else...

@locum I'trs FW 190. The 109 was Messershmidt or something equaly unwriteable for a Frenchman. We say B-F 109 and F-W 190.