Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

No of course not; I wouldn't dedicate just a Raptor to winning wars. It has a total strategic advantage in the air to air role. I am considering a scenario where despite the opposing force's aged technology, there is still a quantity of aircraft that could present a challenge to our pilots. Russia has been known to punch out vast amounts of aircraft, but not in the best quality. Today at the moment, no air force out there has the current capability of overwhelming us other than China. Their planes are just modernized designs of 50's Cold War aircraft, such as the J-8 Finback (which looks more like an SU-15TM copy to me).

In my opinion, despite probably the HUGE expense it would be to do this, doing a massive replacement of all our legacy aircraft with F-22s, F-35s, and any more 5th generation aircraft designs currently in the works would not only give us the most advanced air assets, but would put us well clear of any competition or threats for the next 20-30 years. By no means am I a military strategist of course as I say these things. I sure do feel like I missed my calling though. LOL

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mongo wrote:

Their planes are just modernized designs of 50's Cold War aircraft, such as the J-8 Finback (which looks more like an SU-15TM copy to me).

Modernised 50's era designs you say...

@Mongo,
and that's the point apart from China no other country can really pose a numerical threat to US forces, Russia might be not to small either, but there strength nowadays is just a shadow of what it was back during the Cold War.
The F-22 would be used for the real high end threats if they exists at all and the rest would be filled up with capable enough aircraft, which are cheaper and often more versatile. The US has realised that times have changed and the budget becomes smaller for what you can buy with it. You have to adjust to that reality otherwise you'll sooner or later end up like the SU.

exec wrote:

Golden Eagle is good, doesn’t have significant advantage over new air superiority fighters like the Typhoon or the Last Flanker.

It may not have aerodynamic/raw performance advantages, but with the electronics upgrades, they'll more than hold their own.

Quote:

Sure, you need to know what will be needed now and in foreseeable future. And in the time when Raptor entered production it was clear that in the next ~20 years we’re not going to see any equally capable adversary. PAK-FA and maybe Chinese J-XX will reach FOC ~15 years from now. In that time first Raptors will be quite old and US-AF/Navy will be developing/introducing new, 6gen fighter. Do you need a lot of Raptors now, when there’s no need to have such force?

BTW: Now you need something else to save the US (from bankruptcy) and buying more expensive toys which are not necessarily needed isn’t going to help.

It's not defense spending that's going to bankrupt us though. It's social programs/entitlements/energy & tax policy, that'll do that. Buying more Raptors, would've cut into funds available for those debacles.

@ww,
the question is how much avionics upgrades will be realised, particularly for the Golden Eagle fleet. There were some useful upgrades such as JHMCS, FDL and now APG-63(V)3 and some other stuff is planned including new IFF and radios, but what is done about the cockpit, overall avionics integration, EW systems etc. Its RCS remains to be largely untreated as well whereas the Su-35 includes a number of signature reduction measures, as they can be found on newer fighters and as they are proposed for the F-15SE. That's why I see the Golden Eagle a little bit more critical, individual systems/components are brought up to speed, but these are in most cases the really needed updates. The US can infact afford this due its overall force structure and the availability of the F-22 and soon the F-35. Without those new fighters there would be more upgrades or even newer variants.

shep1978 wrote:

mongo wrote:

Their planes are just modernized designs of 50's Cold War aircraft, such as the J-8 Finback (which looks more like an SU-15TM copy to me).

Modernised 50's era designs you say...

Forgot to mention the copies of the Israeli Lavi and the Russian's Flankers

2/3rds of however many active F-15's we use now and adjust the squadrons and wings to accommodate that number.

@Mongo,
forgot is good. China has directly purchased some 78 Su-27SK/UBK from Russia and has a license agreement for another 200 aircraft. They locally built ~100 examples designated J-11A and they now pursue an indigenous variant dubbed J-11B and a twin seat variant dubbed J-11BS. The number which will be built is unknown, but it's increasing. The Chinese additionally bought 76 Su-30MKK and 24 Su-30MK2 and are currently testing the reverse engineered J-15 a copy of the Su-33 carrier based variant. On top of that they appear to have a quite large number of J-10As and are currently testing the improved J-10B. This ends up as a quite large number of probably around 500+ aircraft. Not to shabby and this is supplanted by a still large number of J-7 and J-8 derivatives. Nonetheless the Chinese still lack an advanced force structure and networking and there are valid concerns whether they will be able to produce any meaningful 5th generation fighter equivalent under the J-XX programme.

munny wrote:

My answer: 187

Reason: Because more are not required "right now"

I definately don't agree with that line of thinking. A warfighter plans ahead. Pre-9/11 we didn't require more stringint rules for items carried aboard aircraft...but we SHOULD have.

Personally I would have like to seen roughly 600 F-22s produced to replace the whole F-15A-D inventory.

For upgrades I would envision side AESA arrays (which the current design still has the capability for IIRC), a helmet mounted sight for the AIM-9X (I think this is planned for a proposed "Block 40"), and some sort of IRST sensor (an advanced IRST was planned earlier in the ATF program). Also the capability for new weaponry (future air-to-air missiles for example) is a must. Upgrades to the already outstanding F119s would also be a "nice to have" sort of thing.

I imagine all of this plus some greater commonality with the F-35's software would be sufficient for a "F-22C" designation, if we presume F-22B has been skipped for the once-planned two-seater.

While I like the idea of having a strike aircraft like the "FB-22", I believe Lockheed has too much on their plate already and the commonality savings may not be that great.

The USAF has just about 400 something F-15A-D in service these days. I think 600 Raptors would be a little bit to much.

Scorpion82 wrote:

@ww,
the question is how much avionics upgrades will be realised, particularly for the Golden Eagle fleet. There were some useful upgrades such as JHMCS, FDL and now APG-63(V)3 and some other stuff is planned including new IFF and radios, but what is done about the cockpit, overall avionics integration, EW systems etc. Its RCS remains to be largely untreated as well whereas the Su-35 includes a number of signature reduction measures, as they can be found on newer fighters and as they are proposed for the F-15SE. That's why I see the Golden Eagle a little bit more critical, individual systems/components are brought up to speed, but these are in most cases the really needed updates. The US can infact afford this due its overall force structure and the availability of the F-22 and soon the F-35. Without those new fighters there would be more upgrades or even newer variants.

The Golden Eagles are also supposed to be getting IRST and jammer pods, to provide jamming for F-22s/F-35s, and presumably, there'll be cockpit upgrades to go along with the new sensors, among other improvements. They'll still be pretty formidable with AIM-120D/AIM-9X/JHMCS, regardless.

Scorpion82 wrote:

The USAF has just about 400 something F-15A-D in service these days. I think 600 Raptors would be a little bit to much.

Agreed- I think the 381 figure, was a solid figure. Full strength squadrons in each of the 10 AEWs, plus training, and attrition birds.

@ww,
what kind of jamming pod is planned? NGJ? Or an existing system or another new, yet to be developed one?
I agree that the F-15 remains to be capable, though I think it's somewhat overrated by some people.

Scorpion82 wrote:

@ww,
what kind of jamming pod is planned? NGJ? Or an existing system or another new, yet to be developed one?
I agree that the F-15 remains to be capable, though I think it's somewhat overrated by some people.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... mmers.html

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/jsp_incl ... d%20Jammer

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/de ... 84bff0ffc6

Quote:

“There’s also a new computer, a larger cockpit display and enhanced bandwidth datalinks that can send more data to other aircraft faster.”

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

How many F-22s should have been built?