How well does the F-22 turn at higher altitudes?

[armedupdate]

Title

How well does it do at 60,000 ft? Can it still turn around in seconds? Thrust vectoring should help up there.

[geforcerfx]

I remeber this being asked before. If i am remembering the answer correctly, not really. It can turn quickly up there but at what cost. Higher altitudes = less dense air so for the same lifting surface that did really well at 30,000ft to get good lift it has to be going faster, faster speeds means far worse turn performance. Can it turn hard at 60k ft? Prob but it will have to dump off a lot of altitude to do it.

[armedupdate]

Any good idea what a sustained turn would be like?

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Any good idea what a sustained turn would be like?

Laughable

[madrat]

Unlike most other fighters it has better control of its nose at high altitude, so as long as it has the energy it can exchange that energy for a higher nose alpha to keep its altitude in a turn. (And keep in mind, the minimal control surface change maintains an edge in stealth, too.) A fighter that uses only control surfaces has to exchange some degree of lift for the changes in the control surfaces. Even a few percentage loss of lift can quickly lose altitude.

[icemaverick]

If I’m not mistaken, the main reason for the thrust vectoring nozzles on the F-22 is high altitude maneuverability. While they certainly do help in lower altitude dogfighting as well, the nozzles help it turn in thinner air where the control surfaces won’t be as effective. This is one of the reasons (besides cost) that the F-35 doesn’t have thrust vectoring; it’s going to typically be operating at lower altitudes. The possibility of incorporating thrust vectoring was explored in the F-16. The cost-benefit ratio wasn’t there but LM did think it was worth it to put that capability in the F-22.