Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

F-111B was considered too heavy for the smaller carriers in service in the 60s but performed better with engine upgrades in later variants, and on bigger carriers. This aircraft didn't become operation, except with the USAF & RAAF.

How about submarine launched F-35bs... like those japanese submarine fighters from ww2.

They are working of sub launched UCAVs from vertical launch tubes, but you would really need to purpose design a carrier sub to launch F-35's, B's or C's.

Once you leveled off, the plane would have a shallow angle of attack and stall, so you effectively be dropping it from a crane onto it's landing gear.

You might be able to get a F-22 on and off a carrier under really good conditions if you absolutely had to, but operating from a carrier for any period of time is not realistic.

If you wanted to have the F-22's land/takeoff from the carrier in your book, they would probably have to be at a very low fuel state, and with all stores jettisoned. Maybe they would come to the carrier, which would have the deck as clear as possible, and burn fuel doing touch and goes to determine the feasibility of landing (more likely, they would have gone somewhere on land, or ditched).

In your book, is there anyway to get a tanker to the F-22's, or were they all destroyed/grounded early on?

yes they would have to purpose build a new sub. It would only be able to hold a couple of planes so would not be of much strategic value... but it would be totally cool.

An F-22 is not able to fly slow enough. Aircraft carrier launches & landings are done at speeds below the minimum it takes to keep an F-22 flying. This causes a couple of different problems, one for landing and one for launching.

@firstimpulse I like your scenario but a quick note for you, its highly unlikely that a combat coded fighter squadron like the 90th would have 2 patch wearing weapons officers who were both former USAFTPS grads. Its very rare for a fighter pilot to go to the weapons school, graduate, go back to the CAF, get selected and graduate TPS, spend 4-6 years in the test world, then return again to the CAF.

Just saying if you want your scenario to be realistic I would take that out.

Not sure of the duration of the book, but rust is going to be a significant issue on an F-22 deployed to a carrier.

Sufa Viper

time for me to chime in.. first of all i'd scrap this obsession with F-22s going on a carrier.. not going to happen - Navy carrier pilots have to do quals in order for them to even begin a deployment let alone having a land based F-22 even remotely land.

Go back to the Vietnam War when both the Navy and the Air Force had F-4s and the Air Force F-4s maintained the same landing gears and arresting mechanisms - Air Force pilots had emergencies over the Gulf of Tonkin and they didnt land on a carrier no matter what the emergency.

During Desert Storm an F-16 pilot ejected in the Persian Gulf near a carrier battlegroup - no carrier landing.

Salt spray - you have it all the time at Kadena Airbase - F-15s and deployed F-22s use the wash rack all the time.

And even if you were able to put the F-22 on a carrier whos going to do the maintenance????

If your writing something like the Wingman series then go for it but if your going to try and be "realistic" its not going to happen. And by the way - any hint of trouble in the pacific which is where we are shifting our forces from 60% to 40% Pacific to Atlantic ratio - your going to have more than one carrier battlegroup out there. You might want to read Tom Clancy's the Dragon and the Bear...

Just my two cents

The F-22 on-a-carrier is an emergency thing- and a massive show of bravado on the part of the pilots in the story. There are (IIRC, going off the top of my head) eight carrier strike groups in the Pacific in the beginning of the story, but the only one that survives past the five minute mark is the JFK, because it was the only one not being tracked and trailed by PRC SSGNs.

The reason I'm so amped about the concept is that is seems so danged daft. Plus, isn't it an interesting problem and discussion?

And I have read The Bear and the Dragon, I loved how large of a role air combat played, especially with the use of the JSOWs. "We don't even need the Army anymore!"