F/A-22: To Fly High or Get its Wings Clipped

[rjmaz1]

More and more it looks as if the us airforce doesn't really know what to do with the new toy. It is a formidable piece of technology without a doubt, but it's premise is outdated and everything you could use it for can be done better by combining older, cheaper and more flexible systems (see my example of the AWACS & F-15), or by newly developed and still much cheaper systems like the new unmanned vehicles.

It seems YellowFever is arguing with a brick wall as you are not understanding what he is trying to say.

Regarding the quote above that is 100% incorrect.

Lets make up a fictional scenario.

Say you had 12 F-22 and a pair of tankers this "package" of aircraft provides exceptional range, strike capability, SEAD while simultaneously providing air dominance at the same time, reducing the amount of aircraft considerably. The F-22's sensors provide excellent early warning capability, as no aircraft are defenceless AWAC's aren't needed to provide that extra barrier of detection. Eliminating AWAC's with their associated escorts and tanker support u've now significantly reduced the amount of aircraft required and have a lean and mean combat package.

To replace the 12 F-22's and 2 tankers with current conventional airforce aircraft lets take a look.

8 F-117's would be required to take the high threat targets, these aircraft will require 2 tankers alone due to their short range. The F-22's can take out these targets with its improved stealth speed and range, and greater amount of small diameter bombs.

For Air dominance 4 F-15C eagles will be required as well as 1 tanker to keep them in the air.

For Basic strike and SEAD a combination of 4 F-15E's and F-16's would be needed, again they'd require another tanker, bringing the number of tankers up to 4, double what the F-22's would require.

Now as these aircraft do not have a large detection range they definitely require an AWAC and that also required another tanker

Now that you have all these tankers continously in the air now need a few extra escort aircraft, so another four aircraft.

So now lets compare.

8 F-117
4 F-15C
4 F-15E
4 F-16C
1 E-3 AWAC
5 tankers.

Now you have more than double the number of aircraft and four times the number of air crew required for this basic conflict. You would need ATLEAST 10 times as many people on the ground providing support for these aircraft. The F-22's can fly more sorties per day than any aircraft listed above which is another reason fewer aircraft are required. So the logisitics required to support this small conflict is dramatically cheaper with the F-22 option.

HOW IS THIS MORE FLEXIBLE AND CHEAPER?????

Flexibility means its responsive to change; adaptable. The F-22 solution is the most flexible solution. If its performing a strike mission and an enemy aircraft appears it will shoot it down. If its performing air defence and a target of oppurtunity appears it will drop a bomb on it. Thats what i call flexible.

Now ill just wait for the ignorant comment, "oh that is just a fictional example" or "F-22 doesn't have strike capability yet" as it will very shortly. The example is just there to show how important the F-22 to narrow minded people.

 

[Rich]

These F-22 against "their plane" discussions are interesting and I enjoy them. Most of all with the technical tidbits thrown out by some of the defense people. But forgive me If I point out, in any future conflict the F-22 is engaged in, there probably wont be to many "fair" dogfights its involved in. First off in the opening minutes the enemies command/control/air defenses/air assets and support are going to be heavily targeted by both missiles and strike aircraft. Add the fact friendlies are going to pretty much control the information battle space.

I will use Iran as an example. In the first few days their airfields, aircraft, airfield infrastructure, radars, leadership....ect would receive such a devastating, sustained blow that we just might never see the F-22 shine as it was designed to do. "If" it even ever got into a dog fight. After the "other then air defense dominance fighters" assets did their thing you could probably control the air with F-5s.

This isn't to say I dont support the F-22 program, because I do. I like the idea of over-kill. Buts its also very possible we will never see what the aircraft is capable of due to the capability of the Yank combined arms package. Which is really what happened to the F-15 without a NATO/Warsaw pact war to fight. Tho it did have an opportunity to shine in Israeli service.

 

[Magoo]

So now lets compare.

8 F-117
4 F-15C
4 F-15E
4 F-16C
1 E-3 AWAC
5 tankers.

I'd add at least two more tankers, one or two F-117s, an F-15C, an F-15E, a CJ, and an AWACS (and their crews totalling 35ish plus ground crews) to this equation as backup/spares in case of jets going u/s.

Similarly, I'd add an extra tanker and one or two F-22s to the F-22 option (8 plus groundies); thus making the argument for the F-22 option even more favourable.

Now ill just wait for the ignorant comment, "oh that is just a fictional example" or "F-22 doesn't have strike capability yet" as it will very shortly. The example is just there to show how important the F-22 to narrow minded people.

Just some advice Carl...Pet...ummm...rjmaz...it's probably better to leave people to make their own ignorant comments rather than making them for them. I mean, why dig a hole for someone when they're perfectly capable of digging their own?

Magoo

 

[TrangleC]

*sigh*
Speaking of brick walls, eh?

I pointed out my arguments in the previous post and you didn't write anything to disprove them, unless your counting of tankers is meant to do that.

This is a quote from an Jane's article about the JSF that fits in here because in that matter the JSF and the F-22 are pretty much the same:
"JSF critics and competitors argue that the JSF's stealth comes at a high price: a weapon load that is restricted in weight, numbers and variety of weapons carried, unless the JSF gives up its stealth. The strength of a fighter, they argue, resides in its flexibility. "
(http://www.janes.com/aerospace/military/news/jdw/jdw060713_1_n.shtml)

Did you have a look at the picture of the weapon bay of the F-22 i posted?
What kind of bombs do you expect to fit in there?

"Strike capability" would have to mean external pylons for the F-22 and then it would hardly be any more stealthy than a F-15, wouldn't carry more bombs, but cost way more money to do the same job.

Face it, there must be a reason why the airforce now is only buying a small fraction of the originally planed numbers of F-22 although the defense budget has grown drastically in the last 10 years.
Thus the fact that it is expensive cannot be the sole reason.
So no matter what an ignorant idiot i might be, the solid fact that less (or shall i rather say a astonishingly small amount?) of them will be bought although the airforce has more money than ever, speaks for itself. If it really would be THE superweapon you all want to see in it, that would surely be different.

+ The fact that they are lifting the export ban now because they want to compensate Lockheed Martin for not buying more.
+ The fact that the YF-23 prototype (that was reported to be even superior to the F-22 in it's stealth capabilities) is rotting on some low security airfield of a flight museum under open sky, between old jets from the 60ies and 70ies, doesn't implicate that this might be a superweapon that mustn't ever get into the hands of the worng people.
(http://airpower.callihan.cc/HTML/Spotlight/YF-23.htm Notice the bad condition the "black widow" is in and the puddle of rainwater standing on her back.)

It is just a fact that doesn't come from my brickwall-like ignorance that the F-22 doesn't really fit into the modern character of the US airforce.
It was designed to do a special kind of trick that is to operate in friendly airspace and to approach and shoot down enemy attackers that rely on their own onboard radar at AMRAAM-range.
No other aircraft can do this trick better.
But... the times have changed and an situation in which big numbers of enemy aircraft could penetrate US- or NATO-airspace has become pretty unlikely.
Nowadays, if the US-airforce engages an enemy airforce, it will most likely do that in their airspace, where the enemy fighters and interceptors do not rely only on their onboard radar, but are guided by bigger, more powerful radar systems that can detect the F-22 even if it's radar reflection surface is as small as YellowFewer says.
The problem is that the F-22 has not much room in it's internal weapon bay, so it cannot use bigger air to air missles than AMRAAM, so even in combination with an AWACS, it couldn't do the same thing as a F-15 still could, meaning to fire bigger "over the horizon missles" like FMRAAM. Unless you give it external pylons, but that way you just make a bigger and much more expensive F-15 out of the F-22. It's just not worth it using a F-22 with compromized stealth characteristics to do the job a F-15 could do just as fine.
That is what i'm talking about. The tanker-thing you obviously calculated so thoroughly is an interesting problem, but doesn't change that.

I'm compressing the arguments of my posting, just in case the whole thing is too long and boring for you to read as my previous posting seems to have been:
A.) The F-22 is designed to do one thing much better than other aircraft when they started to design it 15 to 20 years ago and it can.
B.) This one thing is not required anymore. The requirements of the modern battlefield have changed since then.
C.) It's restriction to the use of middle range air to air missles in the original full stealth configuration makes in vulnerable against the enemy using long range air to air missles.
D.) It is possible to convert the F-22 for new requirements with external pylons, but then, with a compromised stealth configuration, it would just be a equally good but much more expensive alternative to older aircraft. Even though they might need more tankers.

The fleet you have mentioned in your example would indeed be more flexible than 12 F-22, just because they could carry a way bigger variety of different weapons and they would cost less.

If the F-22 would have a internal weapon bay big enough for 2 to 4 laserguided bombs of average size or for long range air to air missles, then the thing would be different, but it just can't.
By the way... the use of laserguided bombs would require further adjustments like the installation of a multi axial laser like the F-16 and the F-15 carry in rather big pods under the hull, further compromizing the stealth characteristics.
(I know that the F-117 has such a laser in it's nose and another under it, but i never saw any pictures showing such windows in the F-22 hull.

The brickwall has spoken. To prove better informed or just intelectually superior to me, please take more time to disprove what i sayd at least with credible counter-arguments, if not with facts that are not known to me yet.
The tanker-thing was not even such a bad start, but it just doesn't have anything to do with the things i mentioned to make my point.
And leave the insults where they belong, in the kindergarden.
I'd be happy to have a reasonable and decent discussion.

 

[Magoo]

But it's also very possible we will never see what the aircraft is capable of due to the capability of the US combined arms package. Which is really what happened to the F-15 without a NATO/Warsaw pact war to fight. Tho it did have an opportunity to shine in Israeli service.

I hope you're right Rich! Let's hope the US doesn't get into a total war scenario where the F-22s will be required to go out on their own on day one to establish air dominance.

Magoo

 

[Cootamundra]

Just some advice Carl...Pet...ummm...rjmaz...it's probably better to leave people to make their own ignorant comments rather than making them for them. I mean, why dig a hole for someone when they're perfectly capable of digging their own?

Magoo

Or better yet, leave others to have their opinions

I'm so pleased for rjmaz and Occum, they are obvioulsy blessed with all seeing knowledge around this topic, & I just think it is brilliant that we all get to be dazzled by their opinions

However, as they are only 'opinions' and as others are allowed to have differing views then why don't you (rjmaz) leave the rest of us 'ignorant' posters to form whatever ignorant positions we want!?

Each to their own as they say & being that you (rjmaz) are soooooooo smart you won't have to worry about the ignoramus's :gun

 

[Magoo]

"JSF critics and competitors argue that the JSF's stealth comes at a high price: a weapon load that is restricted in weight, numbers and variety of weapons carried, unless the JSF gives up its stealth. The strength of a fighter, they argue, resides in its flexibility."
Did you have a look at the picture of the weapon bay of the F-22 i posted?
What kind of bombs do you expect to fit in there?
"Strike capability" would have to mean external pylons for the F-22 and then it would hardly be any more stealthy than a F-15, wouldn't carry more bombs, but cost way more money to do the same job.

While this is technically true, this rule only really applies on the first few days of a war while air dominance is established, and also only applies if the F-22 or F-35 is carrying non-standoff weapons on the external pylons. My gut feeling is an F-22 armed with a dozen or more GBU-35/38/39s on external racks at FL500+ and Mach 1 would inflict carnage on a top-shelf IADS before they could even get a radar lock on him, let alone a missile lock. He could then punch off the empty racks, and go downtown and finish what's left from much closer range with the internally carried stuff. Given the choice of an F-15E or an F-22 for such a mission, I know which I'd choose, and it ain't the Beagle!

And the scenario I've painted above doesn't even take into account the soon-to-be-seen next generation of externally and internally-carried smaller powered/gliding and loitering munitions. These weapons are going to be able to be popped off from external racks at 60-100nm+, and then cruise in ahead of now-clean F-22s still fully-loaded internally with six-eight GBU-39s or four GBU-35/38s.

Having a comparitively small internal weapons load doesn't mean you can carry less; it just means you have to use it smarter.

Face it, there must be a reason why the airforce now is only buying a small fraction of the originally planed numbers of F-22 although the defense budget has grown drastically in the last 10 years. Thus the fact that it is expensive cannot be the sole reason.

It isn't. Politics is also playing a huge role in this decision - the fact that the legislators (mistakenly or otherwise) believe the US public can only stomach so many $330m airplanes, even though entities like POGO and other oversight organisations can't seem to grasp that the development money has already been spent whether you buy 183 or 380 or 700 of them, and the current actual cost per airframe is more like $160m and falling. Also, if 380 F-22s can replace 750+ F-15s and 60ish F-117s, that'll mean a lot of pilots, crew chiefs, maintenance and other personnel are going to be out of work, another politically unpalatable scenario. So, cost combined with politics, and there's your reasons.

" The fact that they are lifting the export ban now because they want to compensate Lockheed Martin for not buying more.
+ The fact that the YF-23 prototype (that was reported to be even superior to the F-22 in it's stealth capabilities) is rotting on some low security airfield of a flight museum under open sky, between old jets from the 60ies and 70ies, doesn't implicate that this might be a superweapon that mustn't ever get into the hands of the worng people.

Two pretty silly statements here. I mean, do you really think the F-22 has been approved for foreign sales (which it hasn't yet) so LockMart can make more money from it?? I mean, REALLY??? If so, please show us some supporting sources.

Also, yes, it is (was) a shame to see the YF-23 rotting away at Hawthorne (although it was restored last year by NorGrum), (much like the A-12s at San Diego and the USS Intrepid - sacrilege is you ask me, but I digress!). But remember, it's a 'YF'-23, not an 'F'-23, and is therefore far from being a production representative aircraft. It does not have any RAM, and only the aircraft's external shaping gives any hints as to its true potential. Two major areas of advance with the F-22 over its predecessors, apart from its incredibly clean external shaping, is in its production and manufacturing tolerances, and the subtle internal shaping and detailing, none of which is present on the YF-23. Therefore, I doubt the YF-23 falling into the "hands of the worng (wrong?) people" is a serious worry to the USAF.

It was designed to do a special kind of trick that is to operate in friendly airspace and to approach and shoot down enemy attackers that rely on their own onboard radar at AMRAAM-range.
No other aircraft can do this trick better.

And, because it was such a good design to start with, much like the F-15, F-16 and F-14 before it, it has been successfully adapted to take on a wider variety of missions. Period.

Nowadays, if the US-airforce engages an enemy airforce, it will most likely do that in their airspace, where the enemy fighters and interceptors do not rely only on their onboard radar, but are guided by bigger, more powerful radar systems that can detect the F-22 even if it's radar reflection surface is as small as YellowFewer says.

Yeah, but just because it can be detected by a radar, it doesn't mean it can be tracked. And just because it can be tracked by a radar, doesn't mean it can be tracked by a missile. And even if a missile can track it, doesn't mean it can hit it. The F-22's manoeuverability at FL500 and Mach 1.5+ means any radar guided missile is going to be very hard-pressed hitting it.

The problem is that the F-22 has not much room in it's internal weapon bay, so it cannot use bigger air to air missles than AMRAAM, so even in combination with an AWACS, it couldn't do the same thing as a F-15 still could, meaning to fire bigger "over the horizon missles" like FMRAAM.

I think you'll find FMRAAM, if it happens, is designed to be compatible with AMRAAM carriage system,s, i.e. the F-22's internal bay. But even if it isn't, the instances where the ROEs will allow such a weapon to be used means it doesn't really matter.

I'm compressing the arguments of my posting, just in case the whole thing is too long and boring for you to read as my previous posting seems to have been:
A.) The F-22 is designed to do one thing much better than other aircraft when they started to design it 15 to 20 years ago and it can.

...and has been or will be adapted to most other missions since too.

B.) This one thing is not required anymore. The requirements of the modern battlefield have changed since then.

Nup...don't agree here sorry, but even if it isn't, see A).

C.) It's restriction to the use of middle range air to air missles in the original full stealth configuration makes in vulnerable against the enemy using long range air to air missles.

Do you have any idea how far an AIM-120C-7 can fly when launched at FL500 and mach 1.5??? Let's just say it's further than an AIM-54C could be shot.

D.) It is possible to convert the F-22 for new requirements with external pylons, but then, with a compromised stealth configuration, it would just be a equally good but much more expensive alternative to older aircraft. Even though they might need more tankers.

Already answered above...twice.

The fleet you have mentioned in your example would indeed be more flexible than 12 F-22, just because they could carry a way bigger variety of different weapons and they would cost less.

And while an F-22 may cost more than an F-15, the "more flexible" fleet described above would also cost, at a rough ballpark guess, a factor of five to 10 more in human resources alone, not allowing for ramp space, fuel, and maintenance costs of five different aircraft types.

Magoo

 

[TrangleC]

Or better yet, leave others to have their opinions

I'm so pleased for rjmaz and Occum, they are obvioulsy blessed with all seeing knowledge around this topic, & I just think it is brilliant that we all get to be dazzled by their opinions

However, as they are only 'opinions' and as others are allowed to have differing views then why don't you (rjmaz) leave the rest of us 'ignorant' posters to form whatever ignorant positions we want!?

Each to their own as they say & being that you (rjmaz) are soooooooo smart you won't have to worry about the ignoramus's :gun

Glad to see that there are people here who have a soft spot for reasonable discussions.

I'm actually somebody who can be convinced to change his opinions, but insults are surely not the best way to do that.

I really can't stand it when i write a long posting and bother to add links and pictures to strenghten my point and try to explain everything i claim and say with facts and then somebody comes along, starts to insult me and claims that everything i say is wrong and i'm an idiot, without adding anything that would disprove the things i wrote, or offer a different theory how to interpret the facts.

 

[webmaster]

Folks, lets get off each others back and discuss the topic. We all have facts and figures to support our arguments, lets please keep respect for each other on top of the agenda here.

Thanks!

 

[TrangleC]

Ah, that is a much more constructive posting. Very good.

While this is technically true, this rule only really applies on the first few days of a war while air dominance is established, and also only applies if the F-22 or F-35 is carrying non-standoff weapons on the external pylons.

Um... so basically what you are saying here is that the F-22 would be a good air superiority fighter in an airspace that already has been cleaned out of enemy aircraft and ground to air weapons.
Sure it is, but so would be every other model too.

My gut feeling is an F-22 armed with a dozen or more GBU-35/38/39s on external racks at FL500+ and Mach 1 would inflict carnage on a top-shelf IADS before they could even get a radar lock on him, let alone a missile lock. He could then punch off the empty racks, and go downtown and finish what's left from much closer range with the internally carried stuff. Given the choice of an F-15E or an F-22 for such a mission, I know which I'd choose, and it ain't the Beagle!

Well, first of all that rather depends on the quality of the attacked defense systems, doesn't it?
And still that is nothing that the much cheaper systems couldn't do too.

And the scenario I've painted above doesn't even take into account the soon-to-be-seen next generation of externally and internally-carried smaller powered/gliding and loitering munitions. These weapons are going to be able to be popped off from external racks at 60-100nm+, and then cruise in ahead of now-clean F-22s still fully-loaded internally with six-eight GBU-39s or four GBU-35/38s.

Does it drop the pylons together with the gliding bombs?

And yould it have a laser pointer that wouldn't have to be carried in an external pod?

And i still doubt that you could fit 6 to 8 laser guided bombs into the bay. The AMRAAM isn't that big and they just fit 6 of them in there.
Even if i wouldn't have seen pictures of the weapon bay, i still would doubt it, just because you simply can't have so much free space inside of such a fighter. It is no B-1 or B-2. And the F-22 has an extraordinarily big internal fuel capacity as we all know.

Having a comparitively small internal weapons load doesn't mean you can carry less; it just means you have to use it smarter.

When the free loading space of the bay is for example 2m long and 30cm high then you can't fit a 3m long bomb or missle with a diameter of 40cm in there, no matter how clever you are in packing. I guess we don't have to argue about that.

It isn't. Politics is also playing a huge role in this decision - the fact that the legislators (mistakenly or otherwise) believe the US public can only stomach so many $330m airplanes, even though entities like POGO and other oversight organisations can't seem to grasp that the development money has already been spent whether you buy 183 or 380 or 700 of them, and the current actual cost per airframe is more like $160m and falling. Also, if 380 F-22s can replace 750+ F-15s and 60ish F-117s, that'll mean a lot of pilots, crew chiefs, maintenance and other personnel are going to be out of work, another politically unpalatable scenario. So, cost combined with politics, and there's your reasons.

He he, it's new to me that they are so worried about firing people now in the USA. Then surely hell will break lose with unemployed airforce pilots storming the white house when they introduce all the new unmanned stuff they are planing since years.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but i can't really follow this argument.

And about replacing the older systems. That is just what i doubt the F-22 can.
Not just for technical reasons that i have talked about more than enough now, but also because with all this new wars and bases in the middle east and central asia (along the russian border in all those countries ending with "-stan"), they'll just need a certain, quite high amount of aircraft. And even if the F-22 would be technically able to replace 2 F-15 or 3 F-16 or however, it still can't do one thing as good as 2 F-15 and that is being at two places at the same time.

Two pretty silly statements here. I mean, do you really think the F-22 has been approved for foreign sales (which it hasn't yet) so LockMart can make more money from it?? I mean, REALLY??? If so, please show us some supporting sources.

I quoted and linked the Jane's article and that is just what it says. They are usually not the worst source for such informations.

Also, yes, it is (was) a shame to see the YF-23 rotting away at Hawthorne (although it was restored last year by NorGrum), (much like the A-12s at San Diego and the USS Intrepid - sacrilege is you ask me, but I digress!). But remember, it's a 'YF'-23, not an 'F'-23, and is therefore far from being a production representative aircraft. It does not have any RAM, and only the aircraft's shaping gives any hints as to its potential. One major area of advance with the F-22 over its predecessors, apart form its incredibly clean external shaping, is in its production and manufacturing tolerances as well as the subtle internal shaping and detailing, none of which is present on the YF-23. Therefore, I doubt the YF-23 falling into the "hands of the worng (wrong?) people" is a serious worry to the USAF.

You got me there, buddy. I unintentionally wrote the word wrong wrong.

I know you are right about the prototype not being the final product. But if he two prototypes were representative enough to decide which one will be the next main fighter, they can't be just toys.

And, because it was such a good design to start with, much like the F-15, F-16 and F-14 before it, it has been successfully adapted to take on a wider variety of missions. Period.

Period or not, what was the adaptations that were done? The weapon bay is still too small to use a variety of different weapons that would really make it a full multiroll combat aircraft.

I know, i'm repeating that in a tiresome way, but this just is and remains a fact and nothing i did read till now did change it.

Sure, you can make smaller bombs or missles that might fit into it, but at the same time somebody else will build a bigger and more powerful bomb or missle to use with older, much cheaper aircraft.

To keep up with something like that, sooner or later the F-22 will need this external pylons and then it will be not much more than a Su-37, just much more expensive.

Yeah, but just because it can be detected by a radar, it doesn't mean it can be tracked. And just because it can be tracked by a radar, doesn't mean it can be tracked by a missile. And even if a missile can track it, doesn't mean it can hit it. The F-22's manoeuverability at FL500 and Mach 1.5+ means any radar guided missile is going to be very hard-pressed hitting it.

Yes, and all those things also apply to the Su-37, Su-47 or Su-57 that the F-22 might encounter in action.

It's this "the Raptor will shoot down the enemy easily but the enemy might see it and shoot at it, but then still the missle could miss it"-talk here in this thread that is why i felt compelled to join the discussion.

I think you'll find FMRAAM, if it happens, is designed to be compatible with AMRAAM carriage system,s, i.e. the F-22's internal bay. But even if it isn't, the instances where the ROEs will allow such a weapon to be used means it doesn't really matter.

Compatible in that case just means that it uses the same connections, but doesn't mean that it has to have the same size.
Even if an FMRAAM rocket would have the same lenght as an AMRAAM, when looking at the weapon bay, i'm still pretty sure it wouldn't fit in there because of the relatively big air intakes (sorry, don't know the right english name for it, but i'm sure you know what i mean).

...and has been adapted to mosty other things well too.

Like i sayd a little further up in my posting, i don't see any adaptations that would solve that one big problem with the internal storage space that would be required to morph the F-22 from a air superiority fighter to a real multi roll combat aircraft.

...don't agree here, but even if it isn't, see A).

It's just that this whole "sneaking on to a enemy aircraft and firing a AMRAAM at it before it can see the F-22 and fire back"-thing looks good on the paper, but only for people who didn't do much reading about modern air warfare and don't consider the hazzards the F-22 would meet when trying to perform that trick if was specially designed for.

Sure, not every potential enemy has something like AWACS, but there are pretty many very good and long seeing ground based radar systems from Russia and even from Europe, the USA, Israel or South Africa around on the international weapons market.
I have read there are systems that are able to detect a golden tooth in the mouth of a paraglider over big distances. Don't know how much of that is true, but i think we can be pretty sure that there are radar systems capable to detect even the small radar reflection surface of a F-22.

What i want to say is that the more powerful among the potential enemies will be able to defend their airspace against the F-22 and those who can't are rather easy prey even for the older systems.

Do you have any idea how far an AIM-120C-7 can fly when launched at FL500 and mach 1.5??? Let's just say it's further than an AIM-54C could.

All i know is that the AMRAAM has a range of a little more than 200 km.

Actually, i don't really need to know it exactly. The fact that the FMRAAM and METEOR and the russian counterparts are developed in the first place, says enough about whether the range of the AMRAAM is sufficient for all purposes or not.
After all the name comes from Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missle, as far as i know, so even the day the AMRAAM was born, there must have been air to air missles with longer ranges, why else would they have called it Medium range?

Already answered above...twice.

Me too.

And while an F-22 may cost more than an F-15, the more flexible fleet would also cost, at a rough ballpark guess, a factor of five to 10 more in human resources alone, not allowing for ramp space, fuel, and maintenance costs of five different aircraft types.

If you say so, ok.
I'm still riding the old "AMRAAM against long range missle"-horse till it drops dead. That is my main argument.

I never wanted to go into detail that much about the costs and about how many tankers you need and how many personell and all this stuff. All i wanted to point out is that the F-22 isn't the invincible superweapon that many here obviously think.

Maybe it fits better into the airforce doctrine than i think, maybe not. (I still didn't read something really convincing about that.) But that is not my point.
What i wanted to say is that you don't need 8 Su-37 to shoot it down, you just need a good radar and one missle, like for every other aircraft.
I'm pretty sure they don't forget to teach that to the young pilots who will fly the F-22 one day.

 

[YellowFever]

It might be wrong, but even if the radar refelction surface is as small as you say, a sophisticated radar system can still detect it. It just has to be clever enough to know that this flying nickle it sees is not a coin but a stealth fighter.

Much easier said than done. The point is you're not going to see something the size of a nickle at 50 miles. I seriously doubt you'll get a return off of something the size of a nickel at that distance. Also factor in all the radar jamming and the counter-measures that will be going on at the same time. By the time you do get an RCS big enough for you to classify it as a F-22, chances are it'll be too late for you to react to it in any coherent matter.

That's why i quoted this rumors about the Mig 1.44.
The wish to have room for a very powerful radar might explain the design of this thing.

It might or it might not.
I'm sure most nations (friendly or not) is working on some sort of early detection system to detect the F-22 (or any steralth aircraft) farther out than the USAF would want but it doesn't mean they'll succeed.

What do i need to proofe there? It's just logical that an system that is so obviously build to be superior when being on it's own at the range of it's AMRAAM missles, is vulnerable to being detected by much larger radar systems and shot at with missles of way longer range.

On a purely technical level, no you do not need proof. Yes it is logical to assume that an aircraft will be detected by a much larger radar. But that's also the case with EVERY SINGLE AIRCRAFT EVER MADE. The point of stealth is that it'll take this "much larger radar" a little bit longer to detect the Raptor than it would a Typhoon or a Rafaele. How much longer, we'll never know since it depends on numerous variables but (and I think I can state this as fact) the Raptor will give you those added minutes to react. That is all a stealth platform was made to do, plain and simple.

No, i'm talking about systems that already exist or are a short time before being in service. AWACS and it's russian and chinese counterparts, new, powerful ground based radar systems, "over the horizon fire and forget missles" like FMRAAM or METEOR (and it's russian counterparts of course)......

And of course the Raptors will just "walk in" to these AWACS and powerful ground based radar systems. I don't think any strike package (Raptors or not) will just launch and head for hostile airspace without knowing where the radar systems are located. In Desert Storm for instance, the USAF pretty much knew where, and in most cases what kind of radar was located in all of Iraq before a single aircraft entered their airspace. The point is when a Raptor (or any aircraft for that matter) flies anywhere, they will have pretty good information as to what kind fo radar is located where.

But that is exactly what the russians build the Mig-25 and the Mig-31 for. I'm not sure which of them, but one of those didn't even have a radar. It just did carry the long range anti air missles and the controll center, seeing the enemy on the ground based radar told it when to fire it into which direction without the interceptor ever seeing or knowing what it was firing at.
Even the smallest radar reflection surface can be detected if you are close enough or if your radar is powerful enough, so all you have to do is to bring a autonomous missle close enough to the target so it can detect it itself. There already are many such systems.

See my answer above about the whole point of Stealth.

Why else should the socalled "over the horizon" missles like the FMRAAM or METEOR with ranges way longer that the radar range of the aircraft that will carry them be build?
With missles like that you really just have to know the direction in which the enemy probably is and the missle does the rest.
This is just a basic military principle that not always the system that carries the weapon has to be the one who sees the enemy. It is the same with ground based SAM. Not every launching-system has it's own radar.
And the russians have such over the horizon missles too. Actually designing good missles seems to be a russian speciality.
And they are selling their stuff to virtually eveybody as we know.

The only thing wrong with your premises is that they (the people doing the firing) will know what they are shooting at. The USN is phasing out the phoenix even though it's range is godawful long for the simple reason that they did not find it practical (and of course it's frames are getting pretty ragged over the ages) to use. OK, so you see a target at about 80 miles out. You don't know what it is or whose driving it. Hell, let's have that SUK fire a few missles at it and see what they do? Not a likely scenario.

Doesn't this pretty much look like it is designed for the AMRAAM? At least you won't fit much bigger stuff (FMRAAM for example) in there.

Like I said before the bomb bays are internal. If these engineers are smart enough to create such a good airplane, I'm sure they'll be smart enough to modify the bays for other missiles. Can they carry the Phoenix for instance? Probably not. But seeing as how the AMRAAM and the latest variant of the Sidewinder is the most advance medium and short range missile the USAF has right now, why does it have to carry any other AAM?
If the US ever comes up with a "magic" long range missile, I'm sure they will be able to somehow fit that puppy in there. (by making the dimension of the missile smaller? By making the diameter of the bomb bays bigger? who knows)

Of course that is the reason, but still you wouldn't give away such a super weapon if it would be as invincible as many people here seem to think.
After all the shah of persia and even Saddam Hussein were trusted allies once too.

Are you comparing the stability of the govt's of Iran to any of the countries mentioned for the sales project?
Saddam was never a trusted ally of the USA. He was just the most convenient person at the time to be a road block to Iran's ambitions.
Besides, even before we got into a tussle with Saddam, I didn't see his military flying any F-series fighters or drive Abhrams or even carry M-16 rifles for that matter.
And I seriously doubt that any radicals will overthrow the governments of Japan, Australia, England or Canada in the near future.

edit: The Jane's article says (quoting): "Granger's amendment comes at a time when foreign sales of the F-22A could prove crucial to Lockheed Martin's business, while future sales to the US government are no longer guaranteed."
So it rather looks as if the prize per piece for the us airforce won't be lowered by this, because most likely they will have bought and payd for all the F-22 they ordered when the first one is sold abroad.

More and more it looks as if the us airforce doesn't really know what to do with the new toy. It is a formidable piece of technology without a doubt, but it's premise is outdated and everything you could use it for can be done better by combining older, cheaper and more flexible systems (see my example of the AWACS & F-15), or by newly developed and still much cheaper systems like the new unmanned vehicles.
It reminds a bit of the Me-262 in WW2. It is a great fighter and superiour to the older and cheaper systems in many ways but it can't cope with the requirements and the hazzards it would meet in action.

What rendered the Me-262 insignificant was the loss of superiority over the own airspace before it even was in action for the first time, the lack of fuel and spare parts and the sheer numbers of enemys.

The problem of the F-22 is that it is a clearly defensive design in an airforce that only needs offensive systems because it follows the doctrine of preemtive strikes and defending the own country by attacking potential enemies first.
Maybe the F-22 is good in controlling an airspace, but only where there are no long range radar and missle systems of the enemy, or after they were disabled first and that most likely will remain the job of the F-15 and F-16 till they are displaced by unmanned attack aircraft and sophisticated cruise missles.

I guess for every article you copy and paste telling us that we don't need this platform, I can copy and paste an article saying we do. But what would be the point?

The point is America (being the wealthiest nation out there) can afford these suckers, even at it's high price. The Eagle, for the longest time has been the premiere A2A fighter out on the market. But now I have serious doubt as to believe this is currently true. The Raptor, IMO, is the best fighter on the planet right now. If we can afford the damn things, why shouldn't we buy it?

 

[rjmaz1]

No problems ill provide a nice rebuttal from a weapons systems point of view.

Did you have a look at the picture of the weapon bay of the F-22 i posted?
What kind of bombs do you expect to fit in there?

"Strike capability" would have to mean external pylons for the F-22 and then it would hardly be any more stealthy than a F-15, wouldn't carry more bombs, but cost way more money to do the same job.

It can fit two 1000lb JDAM with two AMRAAM missiles in the main bomb bay. The F-117 could only carry two 2000lb bombs and it was an excellent strike aircraft. The current JDAM are far more accurate than the LGB's used in desert storm, which make up for their smaller size.

AIt can also fit eight 250lb small diamater bombs, these are extremely accurate and because the glide with pop out wings they have a range of over 70 miles when launched from a supercruising F-22 at high altitude. 250lb is big enough to take out the majority of ground targets. Its range of 70miles is even better than most air to ground missiles too.

Then it still has two sidewinders in the side bays.

So this is clear evidence that it can carry enough weapons for a strike aircraft.

Face it, there must be a reason why the airforce now is only buying a small fraction of the originally planed numbers of F-22 although the defense budget has grown drastically in the last 10 years.
Thus the fact that it is expensive cannot be the sole reason.

The development cost of the JSF has doubled and its eating a large portion of the air forces budget, thats probably the main reason. A second reason is the price of the F-22 it is quite expensive compared to previous aircraft. The USAF has retired so many aircraft to get funds for the F-22, they are extremely desperate. The JSF was even on the cutting block at some stage due to the Air force being that desperate for F-22's.

That alone showns that its more capable than what the average joe thinks.

+ The fact that they are lifting the export ban now because they want to compensate Lockheed Martin for not buying more.

This is an attemp to keep the production line open once the US orders have been delivered, this allows the USAF to purchase more F-22 down the track. The USAF is desperate for more F-22's.

The problem is that the F-22 has not much room in it's internal weapon bay, so it cannot use bigger air to air missles than AMRAAM, so even in combination with an AWACS, it couldn't do the same thing as a F-15 still could, meaning to fire bigger "over the horizon missles" like FMRAAM.

When traveling at its top supercruise speed the F-22 AMRAAM missiles travel 50% further than an AMRAAM fired from a previous generation fighter. You extend the range alot when you launch a weapon above Mach 1.7

This puts the AMRAAM up into the 100nm range class, very impressive. The F-22 will always get the first shot off. With the proposed future version of the AMRAAM its range will be nearly 3 times that of the first model AMRAAM that came out many years ago. That nearly allows it be be classified as a long range missile.

A.) The F-22 is designed to do one thing much better than other aircraft when they started to design it 15 to 20 years ago and it can.
B.) This one thing is not required anymore. The requirements of the modern battlefield have changed since then.
C.) It's restriction to the use of middle range air to air missles in the original full stealth configuration makes in vulnerable against the enemy using long range air to air missles.
D.) It is possible to convert the F-22 for new requirements with external pylons, but then, with a compromised stealth configuration, it would just be a equally good but much more expensive alternative to older aircraft. Even though they might need more tankers.

If seen the argument before, the F-15 was exactly the same. The F-15 was designed as an air to air fighter, now look at the Strike Eagle, its one of the best strike aircraft in the world. The F-22 has every capability that the F-15E has with the added bonus of stealth and TWICE the cruising speed when carrying the same bomb load.

The fleet you have mentioned in your example would indeed be more flexible than 12 F-22, just because they could carry a way bigger variety of different weapons and they would cost less.

No need to carry 6 different ground weapons, when a SDB can destroy the majority of targets due to its accuracy and extreme range. The SDB has a bigger warhead than a HARM anti radar missile and has a longer range, its capable of taking out SAM sites as well as moving targets too. A B1 has successfully hit a moving target with a small diamter bomb, this allows the F-22 to strike enemy ships from nearly 100miles away. Even the largest ground radar will struggle to detect an F-22 at 100miles. Remember if you double the radars power the range does not double. Just like how sound level drops in a non linear fashion, Doubling the power doubles the search AREA not the distance.

If you can detect an F-22 with a certain radar at 20 miles another radar would have to be 100+ times more powerful to detect an F-22 at 100miles. A radar of this size will only fit an AWAC aircraft, never a small fighter. Even if Russia developed a radar 4 times more powerful that means they can only detect the F-22 at around 40miles still not enough to get a kill.

If the F-22 would have a internal weapon bay big enough for 2 to 4 laserguided bombs of average size or for long range air to air missles, then the thing would be different, but it just can't.

If big bombs are required the F-22 can carry two 1000lb JDAM bombs internally and still carry two AMRAAM and two sidewinder missiles, it can escort itself providing air dominance on a strike mission. Like to see an F-117 do that

The F-22 uses GPS guided bombs, Laser guided bombs is old technology. So there are no need for external laser pods as the F-22 already has precision strike.


The best thing is the F-22 doesn't rely on steath as much as previous aircraft. Its kinetic speed is greater than any fighter ever produced. You claim that the almighty future radar will be able to detect the F-22, thats not a problem either.

Heres a basic scenario:

1) An F-22 is detected at 100miles by an adanced future SAM missile site.

2) The SAM site shoots its missile

3) The F-22 then turns 90degrees while climbing with full afterburner pulling 9 G.

4) Within 30 seconds the F-22 is now traveling at Mach 2 passing 70,000ft heading away from the missile.

5) The missile traveling at Mach 4 will only be closing on the F-22 at Mach 2 so for it to reach the F-22 it will have to have a range of 200miles.

6) The missile runs out of fuel and the F-22 defeats the missle with kinetic energy alone.

7) A minute later a Small diameter bomb destroys the SAM site launched from the F-22s wingman.

Awesome stuff, like to see a subsonic JSF traveling at 40,000ft out run a missile

If stealth is compromised in the future or radars suddenly become 10 times more powerful then the F-22 will be the only aircraft with a chance of surviving. All current aircraft fly too low and too slow that even includes the JSF, they'd be sitting ducks.

Remember these "super powerful radars" If they EVER had the power to detect an F-22 at 100miles this radar would be able to detect conventioanl aircraft like the F-15 at over 1000miles away!! The enemy pilots would have such advanced warning if F-15's were used that they could all go eat lunch and come back 30 minutes later then take off to intercept the F-15's head to head NOT GOOD... If the F-22 are used they will be within missile range as soon as the enemy aircraft leave the ground.

Just to be accurate the SDB is not quite operational yet in the F-22 a few have been dropped but not officially cleared. It will be cleared before the F-22 see's combat.

 

[YellowFever]

(Originally addressed to Magoo)

If you say so, ok.
I'm still riding the old "AMRAAM against long range missle"-horse till it drops dead. That is my main argument.

Maybe it fits better into the airforce doctrine than i think, maybe not. (I still didn't read something really convincing about that.) But that is not my point.
What i wanted to say is that you don't need 8 Su-37 to shoot it down, you just need a good radar and one missle, like for every other aircraft.
I'm pretty sure they don't forget to teach that to the young pilots who will fly the F-22 one day.

1) In the history of Air to Air combat (and since the inceptions on AAM's), how many planes were shot down by long range air to air missiles as opposed to short or medium ranged missiles? Long range AAM's are pretty slick to have but I don't think they're very practical. I think they're only useful in a no holds barred, balls to the wall full scale war. Something I don't see happening in the near future.

2) That's the whole point isn't it? Yes one good radar and one good missile will probably be able to bring down an F-22. My point is that with all the electronic junk that'll be involved in modern warfare (jammers countermeasures..etc), spotting the Raptor will be alot harder than just about any other aircraft out there. That's the whole point of stealth. It'll give the "enemy" less time to react than let's say an F-15 or a SUK.

 

[TrangleC]

Much easier said than done. The point is you're not going to see something the size of a nickle at 50 miles. I seriously doubt you'll get a return off of something the size of a nickel at that distance. Also factor in all the radar jamming and the counter-measures that will be going on at the same time. By the time you do get an RCS big enough for you to classify it as a F-22, chances are it'll be too late for you to react to it in any coherent matter.

50 miles? The latest mobile ground based radar the Israelis did design (the one that is meant to guide the new SPYDER SAM missles) can detect a relatively small rocket warhead over more than 500 miles. And that thing is small enough to be transported by a average military truck. The newest really big radars will surely have a longer range.

It might or it might not.
I'm sure most nations (friendly or not) is working on some sort of early detection system to detect the F-22 (or any steralth aircraft) farther out than the USAF would want but it doesn't mean they'll succeed.

He he, sorry, but that really sounds a bit naive.
Such races between some kind of defense and the counter weapon never were won finally before and i'm pretty sure it will be the same here.
It is the same with tank armour and anti armour weapons. Everytime a new, better armour is invented, it's only months till the first weapon that can pierce it is developed.
It is the same with every other kind of military technology.
You don't have to be a prohet to forsee that it will be the same with stealth technologies.

On a purely technical level, no you do not need proof. Yes it is logical to assume that an aircraft will be detected by a much larger radar. But that's also the case with EVERY SINGLE AIRCRAFT EVER MADE. The point of stealth is that it'll take this "much larger radar" a little bit longer to detect the Raptor than it would a Typhoon or a Rafaele. How much longer, we'll never know since it depends on numerous variables but (and I think I can state this as fact) the Raptor will give you those added minutes to react. That is all a stealth platform was made to do, plain and simple.

The problem of the Raptor isn't just that it can be detected, the problem is that it only can carry relatively short range weapons while the people detecting it in their airspace could use weapons with longer ranges and destroy it without having to come dangerously close to it.
That wouldn't be the case if the Raptor is defending american soil and all the big radars around are friendly. That is just the defensive scenario it was designed for 15-20 years ago.
But nowadays the main fighter aircraft of the US-airforce would have to operate in foreign, most likely hostile airspace where it has to cope with such powerful radars and weapons of superiour range.

And of course the Raptors will just "walk in" to these AWACS and powerful ground based radar systems. I don't think any strike package (Raptors or not) will just launch and head for hostile airspace without knowing where the radar systems are located. In Desert Storm for instance, the USAF pretty much knew where, and in most cases what kind of radar was located in all of Iraq before a single aircraft entered their airspace. The point is when a Raptor (or any aircraft for that matter) flies anywhere, they will have pretty good information as to what kind fo radar is located where.

Yes, but knowing where the radar is doesn't automatically mean you can destroy it and make the airspace safe for the F-22.

See my answer above about the whole point of Stealth.

The only thing wrong with your premises is that they (the people doing the firing) will know what they are shooting at. The USN is phasing out the phoenix even though it's range is godawful long for the simple reason that they did not find it practical (and of course it's frames are getting pretty ragged over the ages) to use. OK, so you see a target at about 80 miles out. You don't know what it is or whose driving it. Hell, let's have that SUK fire a few missles at it and see what they do? Not a likely scenario.

Pretty likely for the air defense forces of a soaclled rough state that knows that the US airforce is about to attack it.
Wouldn't you shoot first and ask later in such a case?

Like I said before the bomb bays are internal. If these engineers are smart enough to create such a good airplane, I'm sure they'll be smart enough to modify the bays for other missiles. Can they carry the Phoenix for instance? Probably not. But seeing as how the AMRAAM and the latest variant of the Sidewinder is the most advance medium and short range missile the USAF has right now, why does it have to carry any other AAM?
If the US ever comes up with a "magic" long range missile, I'm sure they will be able to somehow fit that puppy in there. (by making the dimension of the missile smaller? By making the diameter of the bomb bays bigger? who knows)

Sounds easy, but just making an part of an aircraft bigger or smaller is not that easy. If there would be any room free inside the F-22 to make the weapon bay bigger, we can be pretty sure the engineers already would have used it.
A modern military jet is cramped and packed with stuff because you don't want to waste any space and you want to make it as small and light as possible. What do you think why it takes so long to design it? Also the hughe amount of fuel has to go somewhere into internal tanks when you got an aircraft that can't use external tanks.
Changing so much about the design of such a complicated hightech machine that you could actually make noticeable more room inside would be so much work that you could design a totally new aircraft instead.

Are you comparing the stability of the govt's of Iran to any of the countries mentioned for the sales project?
Saddam was never a trusted ally of the USA. He was just the most convenient person at the time to be a road block to Iran's ambitions.
Besides, even before we got into a tussle with Saddam, I didn't see his military flying any F-series fighters or drive Abhrams or even carry M-16 rifles for that matter.
And I seriously doubt that any radicals will overthrow the governments of Japan, Australia, England or Canada in the near future.

I'm just saying that nobody would give away a weapon if it would be so extremely superiour as many people here think.
The Jane's article also mentiones South Korea as a potential customer.
That is pretty much laying the design out there as far as possible. Because i'm pretty sure the north koreans have their ways of getting informations from south koreans. There are many family ties and the north often kidnaps people from the south to interiogate them.
And the north koreans would sell it to the chinese.

Selling a system like a new fighter plane to a country makes it inevitable that very many people learn a lot about it. There are dozens of (partial military, partial civil) engineers and maintenance personell involved in the most intimate details of the system.

I guess for every article you copy and paste telling us that we don't need this platform, I can copy and paste an article saying we do. But what would be the point?

Well, i guess i'm just astonished how much praise this putative superweapon gets here, without people considering the obvious flaws of it and the facts (buying less, selling it abroad aso.) that speak another language.

The point is America (being the wealthiest nation out there) can afford these suckers, even at it's high price. The Eagle, for the longest time has been the premiere A2A fighter out on the market. But now I have serious doubt as to believe this is currently true. The Raptor, IMO, is the best fighter on the planet right now. If we can afford the damn things, why shouldn't we buy it?

Indeed that is the point. Actually you could afford way more of those suckers and originally you wanted to buy at least 4 times as many as you will buy now and that decision was made when the military budged was much smaller than today. So why don't you buy more of them when you surely could afford it?
See where i'm going?
Maybe because the people in the pentagon are not so sure about what to do with the thing as you are.

 

[Magoo]

50 miles? The latest mobile ground based radar the Israelis did design (the one that is meant to guide the new SPYDER SAM missles) can detect a relatively small rocket warhead over more than 500 miles. And that thing is small enough to be transported by a average military truck. The newest really big radars will surely have a longer range

He he, sorry, but that really sounds a bit naive....

OK, I think this argument has taken a simplistic turn for the worse, to the point that many of you (us?) are being naive!

What nobody seems to be taking into account, and upon which I'm sure rjmaz and Occum could probably fill us in more, is that we're all basing our assumptions on a 1v1 scenario, and it's just never going to be like that.

Here's a likely CONOPS scenario in simplified form (and please jump in Occum if I err - which is likely!).

An F-22 pilot is approaching 'indian country'. On his screen at top of picture he sees three SA-10 sites in search mode with their search radii overlapping at critical points. There is a circle on his screen indicating the point at which his aircraft will be seen by that radar. He approaches the middle site at 50,000ft and Mach 1.5, and crosses the line.

At the middle SA-10 site, the operator gets a spurious return on his scope at a range of about 60nm (about right, but the exact distance is classified and I'm certainly not privvy to it anyway!). He tunes the radar to narrow its field of view and gets a stronger (but still very weak) return.

Back in the F-22, the aircraft's EW system immediately and automatically starts 'playing music' to throw off the SA-10's radar.

The SA-10 operator can now see many returns all over his scope, some large, some small, some at altitude, and some on the deck, some heading towards him, and some away from him. He makes further adjusments and frequency hops in a hope to find the original aircraft. Only half of the false targets disappear, and almost as quickly as he changes frequency, they re-appear. He shoots a brace of SA-10s in the faint hope that he'll get lucky.

The F-22 pilot points his nose 30 degrees away from the centre SA-10 site, selects full military power, zooms his aircraft in a 30 degree, 3G climb through 55,000ft. He has already 'pickled' his bombs and has indicated the middle SA-10 site as his intended target about 10 seconds before-hand. The aircraft's weapons system quickly pops open the left centre-line weapons bay and releases two GBU-39 SDBs, and then closes the bay doors again. The bombs fall away and almost immediately, each deploys a folding set of wings. The whole release process takes three seconds. The pilot banks hard and makes a 180 degree turn for five seconds, and then another 180 while diving 10,000 feet before resuming his heading, allowing the bombs to get a 30 second lead on him. Two of the missiles went ballistic right off the rails, while the third closed to within 10,000 feet of the F-22 before being unable to make the second 180 degree turn.

The SA-10's radar and control van/building are destroyed, each by a 125kg bomb travelling at about Mach 1.5.

Thirty seconds later, the F-22 flies through the radar gap left by the dead SA-10 site looking for new game, still with six GBU-39s, two AIM-120C-7s, and two AIM-9Xs on board. The other two sites are simultaneously picked off in a similar fashion by his wingmen.

It's more than just bomb loads!

Magoo

 

[Aussie Digger]

50 miles? The latest mobile ground based radar the Israelis did design (the one that is meant to guide the new SPYDER SAM missles) can detect a relatively small rocket warhead over more than 500 miles. And that thing is small enough to be transported by a average military truck. The newest really big radars will surely have a longer range.



The problem of the Raptor isn't just that it can be detected, the problem is that it only can carry relatively short range weapons while the people detecting it in their airspace could use weapons with longer ranges and destroy it without having to come dangerously close to it.
That wouldn't be the case if the Raptor is defending american soil and all the big radars around are friendly. That is just the defensive scenario it was designed for 15-20 years ago.
But nowadays the main fighter aircraft of the US-airforce would have to operate in foreign, most likely hostile airspace where it has to cope with such powerful radars and weapons of superiour range.


Yes, but knowing where the radar is doesn't automatically mean you can destroy it and make the airspace safe for the F-22.

Pretty likely for the air defense forces of a soaclled rough state that knows that the US airforce is about to attack it.
Wouldn't you shoot first and ask later in such a case?


Sounds easy, but just making an part of an aircraft bigger or smaller is not that easy. If there would be any room free inside the F-22 to make the weapon bay bigger, we can be pretty sure the engineers already would have used it.
A modern military jet is cramped and packed with stuff because you don't want to waste any space and you want to make it as small and light as possible. What do you think why it takes so long to design it? Also the hughe amount of fuel has to go somewhere into internal tanks when you got an aircraft that can't use external tanks.
Changing so much about the design of such a complicated hightech machine that you could actually make noticeable more room inside would be so much work that you could design a totally new aircraft instead.

See where i'm going?

Maybe because the people in the pentagon are not so sure about what to do with the thing as you are.

What radar would this be? I defy anyone to produce reliable data on a surface based radar that can target a small object at greater than 500 miles. If you refer to an "over the horizon radar" such as Australia's "Jindalee" radar system. Why is the detection so important in this debate? Jindalee has reportedly detected F-117's at extended ranges.

So what? The ability to engage them based on this information is non-existent as such radars are not accurate enough to be able to designate a target with a weapon. About the best you'll get is akin to "there's something within that 400 cubic mile area".

Why do you say Raptor ore F-35 for that matter, only carry "short ranged" weapons? What weapons are you referring to? AMRAAM has been shown to possess greater than a 200 mile range under certain conditions. Do you think there's many fighters that can target at this extreme range? No and neither can the missile itself. Active ranging they may be, but the radar's only powerful enough to be useful in the terminal phase of the flight. Even AMRAAM relies on the fighter's radar for the majority of it's flight with this data transferred to the missile via a data-link.

If you refer to air to ground weapons, well small diameter bomb (of which both Raptor and F-35 will carry at least 8 internally PLUS their A2A missiles) has a range of greater than 70 miles. Even JDAM holds a greater range than previous generation LGB's, and F-35 and potentially F-22 will carry standoff weapons (such as JASSM) with greater than 400k ranges or JASSM-ER with a greater than 950k range. Short ranged? Hardly.

Problem is Trangle the so-called facts you have posted are so incorrect as to be laughable. This is no insult against you, simply the arguments you have presented.

Perhaps you should research some of these things first...

 

[YellowFever]

50 miles? The latest mobile ground based radar the Israelis did design (the one that is meant to guide the new SPYDER SAM missles) can detect a relatively small rocket warhead over more than 500 miles. And that thing is small enough to be transported by a average military truck. The newest really big radars will surely have a longer range.

You keep mentioning the "newest powerful radars". Can you name some of these? I'm really curious. I'm sure these "newest powerful radars" will inded detect the Raptor in time but are there any out there right now that can detect the Raptor from let's say 100 nm? The point is a Raptor will most likely know when a radar is searching for it before this so called neest radar can get any sort of bounce off the Raptor. And I believe the RCS of a Raptor is smaller than a "relatively small rocket warhead".

He he, sorry, but that really sounds a bit naive.
Such races between some kind of defense and the counter weapon never were won finally before and i'm pretty sure it will be the same here.
It is the same with tank armour and anti armour weapons. Everytime a new, better armour is invented, it's only months till the first weapon that can pierce it is developed.
It is the same with every other kind of military technology.
You don't have to be a prohet to forsee that it will be the same with stealth technologies.

Hmm..maybe I should make myself more clear. You seem to think there are radars out there that'll for sure detect the Raptor far enough away to actually be in a position to guide whatever platform it needs to guide to launch a long range missile at it before the Raptor causes some damage of it's own.
That's just total heresay on your part.
And you yourself sound a bit naive.
It doesn't take "months" to develop a counter weapon.
The F-15 for example flew for close to 15 years before a SU-27 was developer to counter it. Will a system be developed or are some in the testing stages that'll defeat the Stealth in the future?
Uh huh, yep, you betcha.
I'm just saying there is nothing out there right now that can easily defeat it.
Yeah, I bet there are some radars that can detect the Raptor now (at close range) but I'll bet you my last dollar that the Raptor will know that radar is looking for it way before the radar detects it.

The problem of the Raptor isn't just that it can be detected, the problem is that it only can carry relatively short range weapons while the people detecting it in their airspace could use weapons with longer ranges and destroy it without having to come dangerously close to it.
That wouldn't be the case if the Raptor is defending american soil and all the big radars around are friendly. That is just the defensive scenario it was designed for 15-20 years ago.
But nowadays the main fighter aircraft of the US-airforce would have to operate in foreign, most likely hostile airspace where it has to cope with such powerful radars and weapons of superiour range.

Did you even read what rjmaz was trying to explain to you?
It's very VERY likely that if and when the radars detect the Raptor, the Raptor will be well within range to fire it's AMRAAMS. Thats what stealth is all about. To minimize it' RCS so the other side has less time to act. Just becuase they have missiles that'll travel 100 miles, IT WILL NOT MEAN THEY WILL DETECT THE RAPTOR TO FIRE IT 100 MILES AWAY!

Gee..the USAF is so dumb that they built this fighter to fight over american soil. I mean never mind the fact that as long as they had fighter aircraft that they fought it over foreign soil EVERY SINGLE TIME. They're just going to say "Hey, let's make a fighter ideal to fight over american Soil.

Yes, but knowing where the radar is doesn't automatically mean you can destroy it and make the airspace safe for the F-22.

No, but it means they will know where it is and know where not to head straight into. Didn't you see all those wonderful diagrams by those wonderful military people all over the net? Stealth makes radar's coverage area much smaller than it would be for non-stealth platforms.

Sounds easy, but just making an part of an aircraft bigger or smaller is not that easy. If there would be any room free inside the F-22 to make the weapon bay bigger, we can be pretty sure the engineers already would have used it.
A modern military jet is cramped and packed with stuff because you don't want to waste any space and you want to make it as small and light as possible. What do you think why it takes so long to design it? Also the hughe amount of fuel has to go somewhere into internal tanks when you got an aircraft that can't use external tanks.
Changing so much about the design of such a complicated hightech machine that you could actually make noticeable more room inside would be so much work that you could design a totally new aircraft instead.

If that was the case, how come they didn't make the F-15 a strike aircraft from the beginning? It's called modification. and rjmaz explain it better than I ever will why the bomb bays are fine as is, thankyou. It's called progress, my friend. I don't think the Raptor needs to carry external fuel tanks because it waste alot less fuel than the F-155 for example. (SuperCruise)

I'm just saying that nobody would give away a weapon if it would be so extremely superiour as many people here think.
The Jane's article also mentiones South Korea as a potential customer.
That is pretty much laying the design out there as far as possible. Because i'm pretty sure the north koreans have their ways of getting informations from south koreans. There are many family ties and the north often kidnaps people from the south to interiogate them.
And the north koreans would sell it to the chinese.
Selling a system like a new fighter plane to a country makes it inevitable that very many people learn a lot about it. There are dozens of (partial military, partial civil) engineers and maintenance personell involved in the most intimate details of the system.

They're not giving it away, they are selling it.
And I think good 'ole Jane is simply wrong about the South Korean thing. I read an article somewhere that some of the components in the F-15 were greatly reduced for the exact reasons you gave. I don't see how the US would sell these things to SK when they're even going out of their way to "mask" some of the technology even in the older F-15's.

Well, i guess i'm just astonished how much praise this putative superweapon gets here, without people considering the obvious flaws of it and the facts (buying less, selling it abroad aso.) that speak another language.

Yeah, I , too, think the Raptor gets way too much credit, especially since we don't even know it's full capabilities. But you are also making the same mistake the other way when you speak of it's "obvious" flaws. rjmaz more than explain your "obvious" flaws but you don't seem to understand. Is this machine the be all and end all of modern avionics? I don't think so. Is it the best fighter on the market ? Yes it is and I think it will be for a good decade AT LEAST.

Indeed that is the point. Actually you could afford way more of those suckers and originally you wanted to buy at least 4 times as many as you will buy now and that decision was made when the military budged was much smaller than today. So why don't you buy more of them when you surely could afford it?
See where i'm going?
Maybe because the people in the pentagon are not so sure about what to do with the thing as you are.

You're way wrong there, buddy.
The USAF would cut off it's nuts to buy more of these but there are some peacenik gone mad politicians not giving them the funding.
That is WHY they are contemplating selling these machines to other countries: To keep the assembly lines going while they try to "coax" the politicians to see the errors of their ways.

 

[rjmaz1]

GUYS HOLD UP

I was actually looking at the AEGIS combat system and its radar is HUGE with 4,000,000 watts. Thats around 1000 times more powerful than the F-22 radar using similar technology. So there are powerful radars around.

So if an F-22 can detect another F-22 with its own radar at say 20miles then we can roughly work out how far the AEGIS system could detect an F-22. Using a sound calculator with the AEGIS producing 1000 times more intensity it could detect the F-22 at 600 miles assuming no loss.. surely that cant be right

What countries use a radar as powerful as the Aegis?

However i remember hearing how F-117's have flown directly over radar instalations during testing without being detected?

 

[Aussie Digger]

I was actually looking at the AEGIS combat system and its radar is HUGE with 4,000,000 watts. Thats around 1000 times more powerful than the F-22 radar using similar technology.

So if an F-22 can detect itself with its own radar at say 20miles then we can roughly work out how far the AEGIS system could detect an F-22. Using a sound calculator with the AEGIS producing 1000 times more intensity it could detect the F-22 at 600 miles assuming no loss.. surely that cant be right

What countries use a radar as powerful as the Aegis?

Depends how high the F-22 is flying I suppose. The curvature of the Earth remember, greatly affects the available range of a surface based radar, no matter how powerful...

 

[Moroz.ru]

The F-15 for example flew for close to 15 years before a SU-27 was developer to counter it

Btw, first flight of T10 prototype which led to the Su-27 Flanker was on 20 May 1977, piloted by test pilot Vladimir Ilyushin.
T10 picture:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0435372/M/
Behind the T-10 you can see Soviet ICBM's transport helicopter.