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Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 4, 2007

By Dave Hirschman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 03/04/07

The speed and agility that make the Marietta-built F-22 Raptor a formidable dogfighter also provide an entertaining side benefit that the Air Force intends to start showing off: dazzling aerobatic moves.

In an effort to build public support for the controversial weapons program, the Air Force plans a series of low-level air show performances around the country this spring and summer. They will include a radical series of aerobatic maneuvers that have only recently been defined and named.

The "Mongo flip," "J-turn" and "Pedal turn" are a few of the terms F-22 pilots use to describe the bizarre-looking gyrations of a plane roughly the same size and weight as other frontline fighters —- but wildly more nimble. "The Cobra" and extreme slow-speed passes also are planned.

"The Air Force realizes it's very important that the Raptor demonstrations look different than any other flight profile we've ever done," said Maj. Paul "Max" Moga, 34, an F-22 instructor who will fly all of the Raptor's public demonstrations for the next two years.

"As I continuously develop the aerobatic maneuvers, I hope to add them one at a time, By the end of the year, I'll have a full aerobatic profile that will be much different from the [F-15] Eagle or [F-16] Viper."

Both those frontline fighters perform traditional air show routines that highlight their speed and precision. But their maneuvers have been little changed in the half-century the Air Force has been displaying jet fighters.

Raptors are the first U.S. combat planes with "vectored thrust" and other features that dramatically enhance their maneuverability and allow them to fly an entirely new repertoire of maneuvers. Russia's nonstealthy Sukhoi fighters were the first to perform the Cobra move in public, and its Su-37s are billed as Raptor rival.

Public aerial demonstrations are a time-tested, grass-roots method for the military to build popular support, show off technological prowess and attract recruits. This year, the Air Force plans an elaborate series of events to mark its 60th anniversary, including a full week of events in Atlanta in October.

No Atlanta area shows featuring the Raptor have been set, but it could be part of the October events.

The $72 billion Raptor program has been a lightning rod throughout more than 20 years of development. Opponents claim Lockheed Martin's $136 million jets are a relic of the Cold War and no longer relevant for the kinds of gritty, ground conflicts the United States faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force regards the planes as essential, however, and wants many more of the Marietta-built aircraft than the 183 allotted so far.

The F-22 is replacing the F-15 as the nation's top fighter, and more than 80 have been delivered. Lockheed's F-22 team won the prestigious Collier Trophy this year for the most notable achievement in aerospace.

The stealthy, highflying planes have proved virtually untouchable in war games, and a dozen Raptors were sent to Japan in February on their first overseas deployment.

Moga said many of the Raptor's aerobatic maneuvers were discovered and refined during flight tests and simulated aerial combat.

"Most of the maneuvers were developed for dogfighting," he said. "They just happen to look pretty neat and show off the plane's unique capabilities."

Larry Lawson, Lockheed's F-22 program director, said the planes racked up unprecedented 80-to-1 kill ratios last year in "Northern Edge," a massive, freewheeling war game in Alaska that used top U.S. fighters as opponents. Raptors posted similar results in the Air Force's annual "Red Flag" contest in Nevada.

"The F-22 isn't evolutionary —- it's revolutionary," Lawson said. "The F-22 combines stealth with superior performance, and it fuses and shares information so that everyone else is better and more effective. It wins in any scenario."

Lawson said the Raptor has been tested more thoroughly than any other military aircraft, and that the Air Force is rethinking its tactics to take full advantage of its abilities.

"Three years ago, people were asking us to prove the airplane could meet its performance claims," he said. "Now, those questions have been answered. We're trying to figure out how best to employ those capabilities."

Marietta workers built 27 Raptors in 2006, and the current level of production is scheduled to continue through 2011. More than 1,800 jobs at Lockheed's Marietta facility are tied to the Raptor program.

Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst at the Teal Group, said the Air Force and Lockheed benefit from air shows —- but that the gains are impossible to quantify.

"A broad audience lets people see that the F-22 is an impressive achievement," he said. "It changes the debate. Politicians find it harder to portray the plane as public enemy No. 1. There could and should be serious discussions about how many to buy and at what cost. But getting the word out to large numbers of people is something of a defensive move because it makes it harder for politicians to grandstand against it."

Raptors have "vectored thrust" that tilts their exhaust nozzles and allows the planes to make extremely sharp turns; massive control surfaces that clutch at the air so the planes can fly at remarkably slow speeds; and a pair of afterburning engines that put out a combined 70,000 pounds of thrust, enabling Raptors to climb vertically as soon as their wheels leave the ground.

Raptors have flown over major sports events and made their first air show appearances last year. But this will be the first time they perform aerobatic routines for the public.

Unusual maneuvers include "the Cobra," in which the plane in level flight abruptly pitches its nose up, far beyond vertical, slows to about 80 miles an hour, then lowers its nose and accelerates in level flight. Moga also plans to slow the Raptor to speeds commonly surpassed by I-285 drivers for "high alpha" passes with the nose raised more than 40 degrees above the horizon.

No other fighter can fly so slowly, or at such extreme angles.

"It's a very easy jet to fly," said Moga, who flew F-15s for seven years before moving to the Raptor two years ago. "It's extremely stable, and it has more power than it needs for air show flying. That makes the pilot's job a lot easier."

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F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

Cool but sad.

Sad because this is the only way USAF can sell F-22 to the public?

It's fancy airshow moves have little to do with how it kills and kills well.

More annoying is reading things in public consumption from popular aviation things where top USAF people are quoted as not knowing if F-22 could be useful in Iraq... all kinds of stuff about how it could contribute to ISR there. Or not...
Thats all very nice. And then completely ignoring the fact that 2 F-22s with 2 each GBU-32 ( currently all it is certified for in A2G at the moment ) could be a real life saver in Iraq. "How?", you say... Easy answer. What is the most important thing for a JTAC on the ground when he and the troops he is attached to are getting shot to pieces in an ambush? Answer: Response time. An F-22 deployment for Iraq duty could save lives on 911_like requests where the JTAC needs help and he needs it .... NOW. There would be nothing faster in our inventory zipping out of the JSTARS stack at warp speed. The F-22 could be there and at least place something on target ...granted GBU-32 might be a bit strong for some uses but it beats a sharp stick in the eye when you are getting shot up in an ambush. RESPONSE TIME. Legacys on the way behind the F-22 could carry on the work when they arrive. Where it takes as a bare minimum $400,000-500,000 to process each KIA grunt and get the remains back home, death benefits etc etc... saving lives is what the USAF is all about.

It just really disappoints me in USAF Senior Leadership ( who most of them really do know there job very very well ).... in their inability to sell F-22 to the public in Iraq like use or other GWOT scenarios.

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 1088 Status: Offline

elp wrote:

Cool but sad.

Sad because this is the only way USAF can sell F-22 to the public?

It's fancy airshow moves have little to do with how it kills and kills well.

More annoying is reading things in public consumption from popular aviation things where top USAF people are quoted as not knowing if F-22 could be useful in Iraq... all kinds of stuff about how it could contribute to ISR there. Or not...
Thats all very nice. And then completely ignoring the fact that 2 F-22s with 2 each GBU-32 ( currently all it is certified for in A2G at the moment ) could be a real life saver in Iraq. "How?", you say... Easy answer. What is the most important thing for a JTAC on the ground when he and the troops he is attached to are getting shot to pieces in an ambush? Answer: Response time. An F-22 deployment for Iraq duty could save lives on 911_like requests where the JTAC needs help and he needs it .... NOW. There would be nothing faster in our inventory zipping out of the JSTARS stack at warp speed. The F-22 could be there and at least place something on target ...granted GBU-32 might be a bit strong for some uses but it beats a sharp stick in the eye when you are getting shot up in an ambush. RESPONSE TIME. Legacys on the way behind the F-22 could carry on the work when they arrive. Where it takes as a bare minimum $400,000-500,000 to process each KIA grunt and get the remains back home, death benefits etc etc... saving lives is what the USAF is all about.

It just really disappoints me in USAF Senior Leadership ( who most of them really do know there job very very well ).... in their inability to sell F-22 to the public in Iraq like use or other GWOT scenarios.

you have to keep in mind too though that it's going to burn up airframe hours having them tooling around doing something that a lightly loaded F-15 could do 80% as well (yeah I just pulled the number out of the air but you see what I mean). There's only going to be 183 of them and that's assuming the Dems don't get in in '08 and outright cancel the thing. Those 183 are going to have to last a LONG time. So do you save a couple more lives now or a lot more later?

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

Wow...if they cancelled the Raptor program I can't imagine them being re-elected! Talk about throwing money out the window!!...Check

I know this topic is touchy, but a battle tested airframe also sells to the public. I know airshows and demos have there place, but what about the picture of a single RAPTOR with mission markings on it? And no I dont agree with falsely painting them on for propaganda purposes. That single photo could sell lots of them. especially if the pilots that fly her can speak on the missions they flew. But who knows, a year from now, it could be a dinosoar with the rate of technological advancements now days. Just my opinion, but there is other ways to sell an airframe to the public other than demo flights.

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

sferrin wrote:

elp wrote:

Cool but sad.

Sad because this is the only way USAF can sell F-22 to the public?

It's fancy airshow moves have little to do with how it kills and kills well.

More annoying is reading things in public consumption from popular aviation things where top USAF people are quoted as not knowing if F-22 could be useful in Iraq... all kinds of stuff about how it could contribute to ISR there. Or not...
Thats all very nice. And then completely ignoring the fact that 2 F-22s with 2 each GBU-32 ( currently all it is certified for in A2G at the moment ) could be a real life saver in Iraq. "How?", you say... Easy answer. What is the most important thing for a JTAC on the ground when he and the troops he is attached to are getting shot to pieces in an ambush? Answer: Response time. An F-22 deployment for Iraq duty could save lives on 911_like requests where the JTAC needs help and he needs it .... NOW. There would be nothing faster in our inventory zipping out of the JSTARS stack at warp speed. The F-22 could be there and at least place something on target ...granted GBU-32 might be a bit strong for some uses but it beats a sharp stick in the eye when you are getting shot up in an ambush. RESPONSE TIME. Legacys on the way behind the F-22 could carry on the work when they arrive. Where it takes as a bare minimum $400,000-500,000 to process each KIA grunt and get the remains back home, death benefits etc etc... saving lives is what the USAF is all about.

It just really disappoints me in USAF Senior Leadership ( who most of them really do know there job very very well ).... in their inability to sell F-22 to the public in Iraq like use or other GWOT scenarios.

you have to keep in mind too though that it's going to burn up airframe hours having them tooling around doing something that a lightly loaded F-15 could do 80% as well (yeah I just pulled the number out of the air but you see what I mean). There's only going to be 183 of them and that's assuming the Dems don't get in in '08 and outright cancel the thing. Those 183 are going to have to last a LONG time. So do you save a couple more lives now or a lot more later?

I kinda disagree. An F-22 would have some useable fuel on board after a dash. A loaded mudhen is going to suck down fuel like mad and not even be able to do what I described in the timeframe mentioned.

Elite 1K Joined: Jan 31, 2004 Posts: 1561 Status: Offline

Well the article did get the unit price correct. I'll give 'em that much. Usually you see a number like "$300 million each" tossed in there, which, if not clearly meant to scare the beejeesus outta Joe Taxpayer, shows a complete lack of comprehension about how DoD pricing works.

TJSmitty wrote:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 4, 2007

By Dave Hirschman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 03/04/07
.
.
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"The Air Force realizes it's very important that the Raptor demonstrations look different than any other flight profile we've ever done," said Maj. Paul "Max" Moga, 34, an F-22 instructor who will fly all of the Raptor's public demonstrations for the next two years.

"As I continuously develop the aerobatic maneuvers, I hope to add them one at a time, By the end of the year, I'll have a full aerobatic profile that will be much different from the [F-15] Eagle or [F-16] Viper."
.
.
.

Love the hubris of this guy. The true story is that the AF had no plans to do aerial demonstrations this year. So last fall LM pilots began putting together a show for a contractor demonstration for this summer. Recently, the AF brass saw the video of the show (from the simulator) and were (rightfully) amazed. Now, surprisingly, the AF is planning to do the show (hence the article). Something tells me that what Max is taking the credit for 'developing' will look a lot what has already been around for a few months.
Oh well, I shouldn't complain - as long as somebody does it.

Salute!

Methinks some are missing the point.

I think most of us on this forum like to see jets and other planes do really neat things. Am I the only one?

I also remember when the "Evil Empire" dissolved and the folks there realized they couldn't keep up with the things being developed out in the desert and in the labs elsewhere. Am I the only one?

I also know that the Navy declassified the Trident missile's basic tech manuals in the mid-eighties. I know this because I used them to work up a flight test program that was/is intended to characterize the failure modes and "aging" modes of the guidance units in those suckers. Kinda simple, but not possible until we had the super-accurate GPS post processing capability that resolved positional data to the millimeter accuracy.

Why did we ( the USA) do this? I wonder if publishing our capability (not exactly how we did it in great detail, but just the capability and hints) made others realize how much they would have to do, how much they would have to spend, how would they do it in quantity, and the beat goes on. This missile ( Trident D-6) could carry several warheads and disperse them very accurately. Think hitting inside of a football stadium from 3-4,000 miles away. Think improvements to exploit GPS as a back-up mode to provide for steering at the end game to get CEP's of maybe 10 meters. Think even a conventional warhead. Just think. And I would not be surprised that the bad guys were thinking, too.

So now we have a neat jet that can do things that no other production jet can do. If we show it off then maybe folks with animosity/bad plans will take note and decide to try something else, or maybe even just give up. Hmmmmmm....

later,

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

Raptor_claw wrote:

Love the hubris of this guy. The true story is that the AF had no plans to do aerial demonstrations this year. So last fall LM pilots began putting together a show for a contractor demonstration for this summer. Recently, the AF brass saw the video of the show (from the simulator) and were (rightfully) amazed. Now, surprisingly, the AF is planning to do the show (hence the article). Something tells me that what Max is taking the credit for 'developing' will look a lot what has already been around for a few months.
Oh well, I shouldn't complain - as long as somebody does it.

As of last year, when the team was announced, they planned shows for this year. The shows this year were supposed to be 'mini' or short shows with the full on demo in 2008. Lets not even mention that LM doesn't own a single F-22 airframe, so either way, the AF knew about whatever was going on....Check

checksixx wrote:

Lets not even mention that LM doesn't own a single F-22 airframe, so either way, the AF knew about whatever was going on....Check

The plan was for LM to lease-back an airframe for the demonstrations. I never said the AF didn't know what was going on - obviously they did. They simply weren't interested in doing a full up show (this year) until the upper AF brass saw how impressive the demonstration (developed by LM pilots) was going to be. Apparently they didn't want LM to 'steal their thunder'.

That's not even my point - as I said I'm happy someone will be flying it. I was just commenting on Max's "I" comments, when a lot of the work has already been done.

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

Raptor_claw wrote:

The plan was for LM to lease-back an airframe for the demonstrations. I never said the AF didn't know what was going on - obviously they did. They simply weren't interested in doing a full up show (this year) until the upper AF brass saw how impressive the demonstration (developed by LM pilots) was going to be. Apparently they didn't want LM to 'steal their thunder'.

That's not even my point - as I said I'm happy someone will be flying it. I was just commenting on Max's "I" comments, when a lot of the work has already been done.

Of course you didn't say that, never said you did. I think Max was just trying to explain it as he is the one actually flying the maneuvers. Lot different flying the profile for real than in the simulator or on paper. Everyone's goal is the same...drive for more airframes...hope it happens...Check

Elite 2K Joined: Oct 20, 2005 Posts: 2103 Status: Offline

Lockheed Martin´s official F-22 Raptor Team website - www.f22-raptor.com - announced the following "Upcoming Events" related to "F-22 Team Air Shows":

March 24, Tyndall AFB
April 27-29, Langley AFB
April 28, Holloman AFB
Sept. 15, Hickam AFB
October 20, Sheppard AFB
Nov. 10-11, Nellis AFB

Are these dates really planned for 2007, and are they open for the public?

Thanks to TJSmitty for posting the interesting news article from "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution". Today, I also found this source by my daily "YAHOO! News" search routines. Associated to this article is the following graphic:

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

JJ...Those dates listed should be the open house dates..aka airshows..and yes the bases are open to the public. If anyone can make it--I know I will--I'd say definately make the Langley show and if I had to guess...the Andrews open house.

Check

Elite 2K Joined: Oct 20, 2005 Posts: 2103 Status: Offline

Good luck for your planned visits, checksixx! I hope you will have fun. Unfortunately, I live in Germany - too far to any such "hotspots". But thanks - www.airliners.net - there´s a lot of very nice previous Raptor airshow imagery. You must check out their "Photo Search Page" for F-22 Raptor, and you will get more than 130 very nice hi-res or mid-res pictures.

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