Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

What puzzles me is the engine intakes. They're oddly shaped and don't look like they have a place for the oblique shockwave to form for the initial flow compression and retardation of the supersonic flow. Also the aircraft appears to be too flat to carry any sort of useful payload IMO.

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wrightwing wrote:

sferrin wrote:

Also, absolutely manueverability is becoming less and less critical. Once you're limited by the pilot's physiology more manueverability is unusable. And even "supermanuevability" isn't going to come close to enabling one to escape a HOBS missile.

Exactly. Even an F-16 is easily capable of bringing about G-LOC, in a hurry, and the AAMs that will be available by the time a 6th Gen fighter reaches IOC, will certainly be far more lethal that what is now available.

The manueverability increases of future aircraft will be at high altitude and high speed.
Think F-22 vs. F-16 @ 50,000 ft. Both are 9g aircraft at some altidude, but at 50k the F-22 can do things the F-16 could only do at say 20k. I think 6 gen aircraft will do much the same to the F-22. They will not be 10 or 12 G aircraft. They will just pull 9 G's at higher speeds and altitudes.

TSFG

popcorn wrote:

I guess that by 2030 the forum will have been renamed F-35.net and the debate will be about buying/pouring more money into upgrading and extending the life of the legacy F-35 fleet in lieu of the new 6Gen bird w/c will be in SDD and no doubt encountering the expected difficulties. By then hopefully we'll know more about the PAK-Fa and J-20 and there will be a new generation of Kopps, Spreys and Wheelers to cast gloom and doom. See you around..
LOL

By then there's a reasonable chance we will have fought T-50s and J-20s. I personally hope for a T-50 silhouette or two on the canopy rail of my Raptor, Beagle or F-35, because if all goes according to plan I'll be a USAF O-3 or higher at that point.

sferrin wrote:

LinkF16SimDude wrote:

And it's manned. An odd thing in this day and age.

The odd thing is that anybody would think it wouldn't be.

Agreed. You can't have your tactical fighters be unmanned. No computer will ever be able to develope the ability of flexibility coupled with a "sixth sense". There just won't be enough code. And if you think that they can't be jammed than your smoking crack. Any electronic signal can be intercepted and denied/modified. It would be very difficult, but possible. And would you be willing to bet your air superiority on that? Think of it this way. when a viper has some kind of electronic burp, The pilots 9 times out of 10 are still able to get missles/bombs off the jet becuse they don't rely on the MMC to tell them what to do.
If some computer is finally able to learn and adapt like a human then we'll name it Skynet and hope it doesn't make us it's slave or some crap like that.

What, no shape shifters yet?

I really think they should look into having pilots laying down in the future aircraft if EODAS is proven to be reliable and the accuity is as good/better than naked eyes. With the pilot laying flat, he can withstand a much higher G load (14G +) and the aircraft could be made without a canopy, making it more stealthy and possibly more sleek.

The pilot could lay flat on his back and even though his head is facing upward, he is looking through the forward cameras on the aircraft (or the IRST for long zooming). When he turns his head to the side 90 degrees, the camera view pans 180 degrees so he can see behind (adjustable sensitivity).

Have more advanced aerodynamic and structural features to enable the aircraft to routinely pull the higher G's the pilot is now capable of.

PhillyGuy wrote:

What, no shape shifters yet?

If you mean by morphing aircraft wings, that could actually happen. Nanotechnology sure has come quite a ways and morphing wings to match specific flight regimes could be a game changer for efficiency of performance.

They were talking about "self healing structures". That sounds a bit like shape-shifting to me.

thestealthfighterguy wrote:

The manueverability increases of future aircraft will be at high altitude and high speed.
Think F-22 vs. F-16 @ 50,000 ft. Both are 9g aircraft at some altidude, but at 50k the F-22 can do things the F-16 could only do at say 20k. I think 6 gen aircraft will do much the same to the F-22. They will not be 10 or 12 G aircraft. They will just pull 9 G's at higher speeds and altitudes.

TSFG

Yes.

I don't hear too many guys saying "We have enough maneuverability" or "Our maneuverability is good enough". We want more and its up to the drivers (through training and personal experience) to determine what is enough when pulling on the stick and know the aircraft will give it to you and can take it without having to go through an inspection.

That's just the low end. High levels of maneuverability at the high end produces important tactical advantages not seen in current generation aircraft. Only the F-22 Raptor exploits both at an unmatched level.

Hopefully the 6th Gen Fighter (whatever that turns out to be because after all, nobody knows at this point) will build on what the F-22 already acheives.

munny wrote:

I really think they should look into having pilots laying down in the future aircraft if EODAS is proven to be reliable and the accuity is as good/better than naked eyes. With the pilot laying flat, he can withstand a much higher G load (14G +) and the aircraft could be made without a canopy, making it more stealthy and possibly more sleek.

The pilot could lay flat on his back and even though his head is facing upward, he is looking through the forward cameras on the aircraft (or the IRST for long zooming). When he turns his head to the side 90 degrees, the camera view pans 180 degrees so he can see behind (adjustable sensitivity).

Have more advanced aerodynamic and structural features to enable the aircraft to routinely pull the higher G's the pilot is now capable of.

Going off my history cache side of my brain, may be wrong on the times but I believe research was already done on that; may have been as early as the 40's-50's. Has never been adopted one can conclude the overall effectiveness is questionable. May be fun flying on a hand glider like that for a while, but in a tactical fighter for long periods of time?

As for lying on your back to fly, I don't know about that, especially if you're relying on "F-35-like" sensors to "see" and orient yourself.

Hell, the way the F-35's sensors is going and proven now (among other things), I wouldn't trust my life flying in that problematic jet. It'll take many, MANY years to fix that thing's problems and to trust taking it to war.

Both what I said and the self healing structures are pretty good candidates for what is going to be on this thing. Directed energy weapons like laser and RF weapons, cyber warfare, increased network capability (i.e. ultra-high bandwidth datalinks), distributed array AESA (meaning that the antenna is distributed across the surface) an ESM and EODAS suite that puts F-35 to shame, JDRADM/NGM, revolutionary propulsion systems (I'm hoping for variable cycle engines personally) and stealth coatings that can be tailored to a wide range of EM bands at the flick of a switch (thanks to nano-tech smartskins) are all also projected for the next generation air dominance fighter.

Oh boy, we are getting ever closer to science fiction aren't we? Smile

Yep, we are. Once every new competitive tactical fighter has a scramjet pack and RCS jets to get into low orbit, we'll be there.

I'm thinking the combined cycle SABRE air breathing rocket engine seems like a good idea for LEO insertion.

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre.html

tacf-x wrote:

I'm thinking the combined cycle SABRE air breathing rocket engine seems like a good idea for LEO insertion.

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre.html

That is some truly crazy-awesome tech.

southernphantom wrote:

By then there's a reasonable chance we will have fought T-50s and J-20s. I personally hope for a T-50 silhouette or two on the canopy rail of my Raptor, Beagle or F-35, because if all goes according to plan I'll be a USAF O-3 or higher at that point.

If you become a pilot, hopefully you'll never have to be involved in combat. That's the ultimate goal.

Anybody who shoots down a T-50 or a J-20 will be committing a crime, because neither one is a warplane.

It's exactly the same as shooting down the X-35.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Artist's rendering - Miss February - 6th generation fighter