Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

You folks are killing me, An F/A 22 on flight display, yeah right, just cause you want to see it fly and look cool. It is one of the most secret aircraft built in many, many years. You can't expect the USAF to show it off for fun, the cost is high in dollars and time to do a demo. I know I have been part of the programs in the past for Vipers. Every year the profile has to be approved, there are tons of practice flights, sometimes every day leading up to the season. There are very few Raptors zooming around and their flying hours are better spent doing what their job. The full potential for the jet will not be realized with out practice and development of tactics, etc. Will you see them on static display? Sure you will but that involves just flying in and parking a super clean jet with some maintainers and a pilot or two. Security is big enough problem but can be handled. I had flyers of the Eagles from Eglin tell me last week that the Raptor has phenomenal performance.

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Some of you guys are obsessed with air show displays, aren't you. The lack of "balls-to-the-wall" flying displays mean nothing and they definitely don't mean an aircraft isn't living up to it's hype. If the Air Force doesn't want to put one in the air don't take it personal. The time will come when the Raptor is cleared to show off it's "stuff" and when that time comes then you airshow hounds can have more food for your opinions. Yes the Air Force has an obligation to the public/taxpayers, but they will not put out a product that does not meet their criteria regardless of how long it has taken to flight test.

A little perspective is in order I think: Did the USAF start up with production Block 1 Viper airshow routines at the same time new Viper squadrons were standing up? I kinda don't think so. Sure...GD did some demos with the company jets but I think (and I could be wrong) it was quite some time after IOC that the USAF-approved Viper airshow performances began. And I have a feeling the same will happen with the Raptor. Just have a little patience. It's always good PR to show the public what their taxes are paying for. Wink

I figure it's plain and simple. When the eagle came out It took the russians around 20 years or so to catch up with it's technology. The raptor should keep them playing catchup for the forseeable future.

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took russians around 20 years or so to catch up with it's technology.

I agree 100%, but also consider that now the tech gap is almost gone, and Im sure they can design some crazy stuff. I personnaly dont think that the 22 will be ahead by 20 years of the Russian machines. Times are just different now. Still the 22 is a good plane.

Shev

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

You missed my point. I was not talking about the flying qualities of the F 117. What I wanted to point is that the plane was kept secret for years. Why? because it was never ment for sale!

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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.

Now, that's a good one! Do a little search about this subject and we will talk. Except for the huge Laughing

Austrian order (12 planes) there is no export order for EF. Compared with this (and the 50 grippen sold or leased) the US aerospace is doing pretty well: there are more than 300 F 16 ordered (UAE, Poland, Greece,Chile, Oman, Israel) and 40 (with another 40 possible) F 15 K for S Korea. And no, Norway did not pulled out from the F 35 team, they just wanted to put pressure on US to receive more subcontractor work. To make matters worse, Greece renounced to buy EF!

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F-22's maiden flight is more than a decade ago.

The F 22 maiden flight was in '97

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F-22 had its problems, wasn't the fleet grounded for 6 years?

In order to be grounded a fleet must be operational! This will happen in Dec this year.

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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.

A combat aircraft is built for war. In the last years, there were 4 crashes involving Su xx at air shows or air exhibition. If these 4 were Raptors, the loss would match the defense budget of a lot of countries!

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Look how the Su-2x displays boosted its reputation

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It boosted the reputation of K 36 ejection seat Laughing

. This piece of hardware is really good!

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About the 380 to 1 kill rate:

Though I am a Raptor fan, I would not go so far. It remebers me an article about F 15. McDonell was marketing the F 15 to the top USAF generals, and the chief designer declared that the F 15 would have a kill ratio of 1000:1 agaianst Soviet planes (he meant that the chances of a Soviet aircraft to score against F 15 would be 1000: 1). An USAF general said: great, than will need only two -- one for PACAF and one fro USAFE Very Happy

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When the Mig-25 came on the scene it caused such a panic in the US, that the F-15 and F-16 were ultimately born. It wasn't till 76' that the west got to get a good look at a foxbat. And suprise, both the falcon and the eagle were superior anmails. The funny thing is that the Mig-25 scare started at an airshow, and all we see in these new souped up flankers is what they'll do in front of a crowd. I agree that the russians have come a long way since the days of the Mig-23's. But thier budget is alot smaller than the west's, that alone has to limit what thier aircraft manufacturers can create. Look at an Su-33, it takes off from ships under it's on power, because the russians could never come up with a decent catapult system. That seems pretty primitave to me.

@Cru
Don't think there was interest in the 90s to buy F-117 by other countries. This plane has its niche. The fact that it was produced in small numbers gives an indication that it is quite limited to some tasks at night.

@all
Lots of RU-aviation experts here Rolling Eyes

and a very common one-to-one thinking. Confused

My point is you have to see the doctrine and the numbers as well. And then I am not sure about the overwhelming superiority. Look at vietnam, against the poor vietnamese, US lost more planes in aircombat than they've shot down. Sophistication doesn't inevitably mean combat value.
The matter with su-33 and the catapult: obviously it works works, even on the small carrier.

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Look at vietnam, against the poor vietnamese, US lost more planes in aircombat than they've shot down.

Good joke

The main type used by USAF/USNin 'Nam was the F 4 in its various versions. The over-all kill ratio was 4:1 in favor of the F 4.[/b]

@CRU
This was not my imagination, i cited Edward H. Sims: fighter tactics and strategy.
F-4, F-105... vs. MiG-17, MiG-21

your 4:1 number: I thought it was 12:1 Question

In the early stage it was almost equal, towards the end of the war jumped to 12:1, but just for US Navy.

Are we considering all the American planes shot dawn in that war (including SAM and AAA kills) or just air-to-air?

Aircombat of cause, overall.

We won't get the real numbers. I did some research to overclaims from WW2, mostly you got a 3 times overclaim... same in Korea, not sure about Vietnam, I only know they never had more than 100 Aircraft in action at the same time, not only fighters.

@ check six. In order for the su-33 to take off from the boat, it has to sacrafice it's weapons load. I've seen hornets take off carrying 2 sidewinders, 1 flir pod, i aim 120, on sta 6, 3 gbu-12's. And of course 2 droptanks. The fact that An su-33 can't use any kinda assistance in getting airborne means two things. First, it can't take it's full compliment of weapons airborne with it, and second, there can't be as many aircraft on the deck waiting for thier takeoff times, because of the long run that's needed to get the things airborne. On the flightdeck space is precious, if u need half the deck for jets to take off, and the other half for landing, where are you going to stage all of your aircraft while they wait to take off?? In the hanger? That'd mean you'd have to have aircraft armed up waiting in the hanger, just because it'd take to long to get them to the roof, plus arm them in the middle of flight ops. Second, the only reason that the kill ratio was so slim over vietnam, was because of US thinking, not US equipment. Also, read a book called "scream of eagles" It's a book written by some of the guys that started the Topgun school. The navy shot from 3:1, back up to 12:1 because of the creation of that school. Vietnamese pilots were actually ejecting, once the realized they were going op against navy phantoms and not the airforce ones.

sideshow,
12:1 is propaganda/overclaim, be sure! somewhere I got an vietnamese loss table, maybe I'll find it.

Russian rudimentary carrier force is not comparable to the US NAVY. The carriers are too different in size and profile.
Basically they have two tasks, airdefence and ship attacking. Su-33 may carry the mighty Cha-41 "sunburn" the most dangerous missle in the world (a us official) and smaller Cha-31. How much hornets needed to execute an anti-ship-attack with the same impact than lets say 2 Su-33, don't forget the escorts?
Ok, this is rather theorethical. Lets stop it here. Russian naval aviation is clearly not at the same level.

Back to F-22:
It is often strssed, that missle range increases using supercruise. Just an annotation: MiG-21 usually flew Mach 1,4 approaching enemy formations in Vietnam. Eastern fighter had to go supersonic on certain point after positioning.
So F-22 may be changing Air to ground battle, but fighter combat? It is an advantage to fly supersonically for a longer period, no doubt about that.

All depends on the stealthieness of the aircraft. If the russian claims are true, that it is possible to locate "stealth" aircraft with updates to conventional radars, the F-22 has to rely on its speed and maneuvrebility, hopefully it has advantages there.

cru wrote:

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F-22's maiden flight is more than a decade ago.

The F 22 maiden flight was in '97

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F-22 had its problems, wasn't the fleet grounded for 6 years?

In order to be grounded a fleet must be operational! This will happen in Dec this year.

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About the 380 to 1 kill rate:

Though I am a Raptor fan, I would not go so far. It remebers me an article about F 15. McDonell was marketing the F 15 to the top USAF generals, and the chief designer declared that the F 15 would have a kill ratio of 1000:1 agaianst Soviet planes (he meant that the chances of a Soviet aircraft to score against F 15 would be 1000: 1). An USAF general said: great, than will need only two -- one for PACAF and one fro USAFE Very Happy

.

Apparently, you don't know much about the Raptor. The maiden flight was back in 91. A fleet does not need ot be operational to be grounded. Why did we ground them when 4008 retracted its nose gear on the ground in 2003? How about when 9011 almost fell out of the sky in 2003? They have been grounded. And the 380:1 kill ratio, that wasn't a projected number, thats the actual score from OT.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

General Jumper on Raptor vs. Russian technology