Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

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But it will wipe the floor with the Su in supersonic!

Have you already seen it done Cru, can you tell us please?

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It EASILY outperforms the Su FAMILY in subsonic.

Have you seen the 22 in its top form. How does it outperform it? Can you share some info with the class here.. I thought the 22 is so super duper classified that, NO ONE knows what its capable of actually doing. I'm sure its kick a$$ stuff, but what exactly?

Shev

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Cru wrote:

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But it will wipe the floor with the Su in supersonic!

ACSheva wrote:

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Have you already seen it done Cru, can you tell us please?

Cru's reasoning in an earlier post:

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This thing will pull 6Gs at 1.6mach, at 60,000 feets. Present planes have the maneuvrability of a 747 in these conditions.

Cru wrote:

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It EASILY outperforms the Su FAMILY in subsonic.

ACSheva wrote:

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Have you seen the 22 in its top form. How does it outperform it? Can you share some info with the class here.. I thought the 22 is so super duper classified that, NO ONE knows what its capable of actually doing. Im sure its kick a$$ stuff, but what exactly?

Cru's reasoning in an earlier post:

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Either in instantaneously manevrability (the pitch rate had to be limited to 40 deg/s!), sustained maneuvrability, AoA, roll rate.

I think Cru gave some decent examples. Having to limit a jet to 40 degrees per second of pitch sounds like a strange position to be in - normally you have to try to increase it. Six Gs at 1.6 mach at 60K feet also sounds pretty impressive. Do you have such numbers for the SU family?

Also, you might try a little less attitude and a little more politeness as you attract more bees with honey...

Yes, the FA-22 is heavily classified. No, nobody outside the program probably knows its full capabilities. I'd even be so bold as to say that NOBODY knows everything it's capable of because IT'S NOT THROUGH TESTING YET!!! As I've said before, there are some videos and some stroies out there from believable sources that give us some hints as to its abilities.

Here are a couple of good links:

http://www.edwards.af.mil/articles98/do ... 22Main.htm

http://www.f22-raptor.com/

cru wrote:

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Wow guys, thats uh....uh..thats impressive stuff were coming up with here.

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and further developed by the Americans

such as????

ACSheva,if you really are a aviation fan, you shoud know by now that the first ones to fly an A/C with thrust vectoring were the Americans, not Russians

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What has the 22 already proven itself as a warrior by shooting down other jets? I dont think so.

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Good one dude, so-----what if the 37(s) does get to you,and thus parks on the 22's a$$, with a bunch of archers/alamos. What do you do then?

This is childish. No, the F 22 did not prove itself yet, but F 22 is a funded program. There are 28 already built! The numbers might very well be far less the USAF wanted but we are talking of 277-180 F 22s, opposed to what? A test bed! Because this is what the Su 37 is!

About the maneuvrability of the F22.

It easily outperforms the Su family in subsonic. Either in instantaneously manevrability (the pitch rate had to be limited to 40 deg/s!), sustained maneuvrability, AoA, roll rate.

But it will wipe the floor with the Su in supersonic! Here, there is simply no contest. This thing will pull 6Gs at 1.6mach, at 60,000 feets. Present planes have the maneuvrability of a 747 in these conditions.

There are over 40 F/A-22's built. Theres almost that many in service now.

Yes I agree, the 22 is very classified.
So NO ONE can say anything about its capabilities, such as wiping the floor with the commies Su37's, and EASILY outperforming the 37. They are both very deadly, yet...yet unproven machines.

Good Discussion guys

Shev

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There are over 40 F/A-22's built

I counted only those at Nellis, Tyndall and the few ones at Langley.

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outperforming the 37.

They are both very deadly, yet...yet unproven machines

No, there is an unproven machine (though the Raptor is the most tested plane in aviation history) against a test bed, a technology demonstrator, an experimenetal plane, (chose whatever you want). Because, I repeat it Su 37 doesn't not exist!

I wonder why they don't show the capabilities of the F-22 at an airshow.
I guess the reason for that is: they dont get the software fixed and it is too dangerous now.

I remember prototypes of EF-2000 (with tornado engines), Rafales, or Gripen showing stunning displays. F-22 doesn't.

Such displays would turn criticism into enthusiasm.
They did it with the EF-2000: First display was a MiG-29, after that a EF-2000 started, anybody could see the difference in tight maneuvreing and acelleration.

Unless the show something impressive, i dont state the F-22 superiour in subsonic regimes. It has plenty of thrust, but no one knows the weights exactly. Some say it is optimized for BVR, I say such an expensive AC must do anything very well.

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I remember prototypes of EF-2000 (with tornado engines), Rafales, or Gripen showing stunning displays. F-22 doesn't.

Different situations. The W. Europeans are trying desperatley to export the EF and the Raffale, without succes.The only European A/C exported (a few dozens) is the little Grippen. The F 22 will never be exported (at least in the USAF configuration), so no need for marketing.

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but no one knows the weights exactly.

Actually anyone will know if he checks the AF site. The official figure is 18 tons, (equal with Su 30)

Last edited by CheckSix on Jan 26, 2005 - 02:52 PM; edited 1 time in total

Cru,
EF displays were for justification, they have planety of orders for the next decade. Everybody could see how superiour it is in maneuvreing.

EF partners are: UK, GER, ITA, SPAIN. Austria is the first export customer, Norway has resigned its JSF agreement to join an EF partnership...
Gripen is sold to SA, HUN, CZ, may be more.

F-22: they hope the sell it to Australia, Israel and Japan, so don't say it is for US only. Even it was, after more than a decade of F-22 flying it is time to show of. Up to now the superiority exists on paper only...

I've got the feeling that its "old-school" aerodynamics don't make it, only the TW makes it competitive. Hopefully they show its capabilities, some times...

CheckSix,

F 117 wasn't even seen before Panama invasion, less dispayed. This means that it wans't revolutionarry or usefull?

Not all all , it performed over 5000 sorties in GWII, Kossovo, GWIII and only one was shot down.

F 22:I said that if ever exported, it will be never in USAF confoiguration

I saw F-117 in flight display.... Smile

Ok, it is a bomber, but the tornado is one too. Ok, F-117 was for cold war, Kosovo showed its limitations. Wasn't an other one heaviely damaged an crashed later on? Ok, it is OT.

F-22's maiden flight is more than a decade ago. The fact they dont show at least F-16 style aerobatics makes me wondering. Isn't this plane capable of that or is the FBW-system too complicated to show it yet?

F.e. EF, they say flight envelope is used to 80%, and this 80% is quite impressive. and visible through the eyes of a spectator.

F-22 had its problems, wasn't the fleet grounded for 6 years? Isn_t it grounded after the lates crash? I dont like drawing some short concluions, but some eye candy would hurt to justifice the whole program.

Show us what the Raptor is made of, or ist it anything already?

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F-117 was for cold war, Kosovo showed its limitations.

The way I've heard it, the loss of that aircraft was due to posliticians trying to stick their noses into the wrong place - tactics. As I understand it, F-117s were making repeated daylight runs through the same ingress and egress routes. That, along with the fact that the jet's stealth goes to %$#@ when the pilot opens the bomb bay, was enough to give the enemy a chance to get a GUNS kill.
Think about the different missions of the Nighthawk and the Tornado. With stealth, the F-117 doesn't have to yank and bank, so it wasn't built for that.

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F-22's maiden flight is more than a decade ago. The fact they dont show at least F-16 style aerobatics makes me wondering. Isn't this plane capable of that or is the FBW-system too complicated to show it yet?

Actually, the YF-22's first flight was more than a decade ago. That was the prototype built for the competition against the YF-23. If you look at the YF-22 and the FA-22, you'll see major differences all over the two jets. Lockheed learned from the YF and made changes accordingly. The FA-22 is nearly a whole new plane.

I've said it before and I'll say it again that when it comes to airshows, you won't see the Raptor doing all of its tricks for the crowd for a while for quite a few reasons. One of the main reasons is that these jets are still in operational testing and there aren't enough of them to risk one in low level turnin' and burnin' for the delight of the spectators. Airshow flying is more than just max burner high g turning, it's also down in the weeds. The pilot and aircraft may be perfectly capable of putting on a stunning display, but the brass likely don't feel like putting $250 million at risk for fun.

About that crash at Nellis, I don't think the civilian population will know the cause for a very long time - need to know and everything. Apparently, the Air Force was satisfied with the Raptor's flight safety enough after their investigation to resume flight operations less than a month after the incident.

I don't mean to come across as coarse or anything, but it's way too early to feel human right now so please forgive me if it sounded that way, OK Smile

? Please understand that I want to see the Raptor in a max burner, max g turn down low Cool

as much as everyone, but we likely won't see it for a couple of years. Just give it some time... Wink

Kosovo showed the limitations of Tornado as well. The lack of thrustat high altitude and the high wing loading was considered disadvantegeous, let alone the rumors that some have been downed/damaged.

Remember, they Serbs may fought cleverly but were hampered due its obsolete equipment.

Parrothead, be sure that the F-117 was not lost because of the politicans. There are several stories: The most credible to me is: The pilot had to lower its alt because he could not see the target with its passive IR equipment. The SA-3 battery picked him up - game over. It was reported that radars of the 50s (decimeter waves, I believe) may track stealth ac, but their accuracy and alt finding is only good for survailance.

Back to F-22.
It should not be a risk to display the features of a combat aircraft in a display, because that is what it is built for. Of cause air combat is more than aerobatics, but aerobatics give a good impression of the potential of an aircraft. Look how the Su-2x displays boosted its reputation.

As I said, EF-2000 is not showing its full capabilities, because it is still in development, so is the F-22. My impression is, that F-22 is not ready/capable of combat maneuvering yet.

Just a few quick replies here. The reason the Raptor doesnt show up to airshows is because the experianced pilots are busy with either a- training new pilots, or b- standing up new units. It is doubtful that the 22 will ever be exported due to the basic geometric design of the aircraft being one of the major sources of the LO capability. Anyone see any right angles on it? No, because right angles enlarge the RCS. As far as the Nellis incident, I wouldnt blame it on the aircraft. There is a set preflight checklist for a reason. The Raptor fleet wasnt grounded for 6 years. They began flying ac4001 in 98, been flying ever since. Longest grounding I believe was about a month. And to those that think the Raptor is proven, tested, gotten its merit badge whatever, the criteria for Congress to buy off on the aircraft was that it had to perform at least twice as well as the F15C. That meant the Raptor pilots were flying 4v1 and 8v2 engagements. The engagements usually lasted less than 3 minutes, with us getting a 380:1 kill ratio against the 15s.

Calhoun,

pilots too busy to give a 5min air-display - sorry that is a bad excuse.

About the 380 to 1 kill rate:
I dont trust such scenarios too much. Because mostly they are pretty static. I remember commands of german MiG-29 pilots at red flag: they were not allowed to use their own favorite tactis...and therefore lost as intended.

Of cause F-22 should be at least twice as good as F-15C, otherwise it would not make any sence.

A convincing display would not hurt...

Agreed, it is a sorry excuse, but a valid one. Langley currently has only one experienced pilot, and one flyable airplane. The other is a maintenance trainer. Tyndall has a large enough workload with pilot training. Who knows what Nellis is doing, those guys are knuckleheads. I will say this though, once the 27th at Langley gets a few more airplanes, we have been told to be ready for the airshow circuit. With that in mind, hopefully by the end of the year you guys will see some of the things I've seen them do, ie backflips in mid air while maintaining forward momentum. Oh, and oddly enough, that one kill against the 22 was scored by a 16.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

General Jumper on Raptor vs. Russian technology