Thread: Raptors debut at Red Flag, wield "unfair" advantage

Originally Posted by avon1944

The Typhoon is definitely a 5th generation aircraft.

I really have serious doubts in the Eurofighter being a 5th Gen Craft. Just to drive home...the statistics of the planes are :

Eurofighter Typhoon :* Crew: 1 or 2
* Length: 15.96 m (52 ft 5 in)
* Wingspan: 10.95 m (35 ft 11 in)
* Height: 5.28 m (17 ft 4 in)
* Wing area: 50 m² (540 ft²)
* Empty weight: 11 000 kg (24,250 lb)
* Loaded weight: 15 550 kg (34,280 lb)
* Max takeoff weight: 23 500 kg (51,809 lb)
* Powerplant: 2× Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofans, 60 kN dry; 90 kN with afterburner (13,500 lbf; 20,250 lbf) each
* Maximum speed: Mach 2.0+, 2390 km/h at high altitude; Mach 1.2, 1470 km/h at sea level; (1,480 mph; 915 mph) supercruise Mach 1.3+ at altitude with typical air-to-air armament
* Range: 1390 km (864 mi)
* Service ceiling: 19 812 m (65,000 ft [34])
* Rate of climb: >315 m/s [35] (62,007 ft/min)
* Wing loading: 311 kg/m² (63.7 lb/ft²)
* Thrust/weight: 1.18
* Gun: 1x 27 mm Mauser BK-27 cannon
* Air-to-Air missiles: AIM-9 Sidewinder, AIM-132 ASRAAM, AIM-120 AMRAAM, IRIS-T and in the future MBDA Meteor
* Air-to-Ground missiles: AGM-84 Harpoon, AGM-88 HARM, ALARMs, Storm Shadow (AKA "Scalp EG"), Brimstone, Taurus, Penguin and in the future AGM Armiger
* Bombs: Paveway 2, Paveway 3, Enhanced Paveway, JDAM
* Laser designator, e.g. LITENING pod

And for the F-22 Raptor : * Crew: 1
* Length: 62 ft 1 in (18.90 m)
* Wingspan: 44 ft 6 in (13.56 m)
* Height: 16 ft 8 in (5.08 m)
* Wing area: 840 ft² (78.04 m²)
* Airfoil: NACA 64A?05.92 root, NACA 64A?04.29 tip
* Empty weight: 31,700 lb (14,379 kg)
* Loaded weight: 55,352 lb (25,107 kg)
* Max takeoff weight: 80,000 lb (36,288 kg)
* Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 Pitch vectoring turbofans, 35,000 lb (155.7 kN) each * Maximum speed: ≈Mach 2.42 (1,600 mph, 2,575 km/h) at high altitude
* Cruise speed: Mach 1.72[40] (1,140 mph, 1,825 km/h) at high altitude
* Ferry range: 2,000 mi (1,738 nm, 3,219 km)
* Service ceiling: 65,000 ft (19,812 m)
* Rate of climb: classified (not publicly available)
* Wing loading: 66 lb/ft² (322 kg/m²)
* Thrust/weight: 1.26
* Maximum g-load: −3/+9 g
* Guns: 1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A2 Vulcan gatling gun in starboard wing root, 480 rounds
* Air to air loadout:
o 6× AIM-120 AMRAAM
o 2× AIM-9 Sidewinder
* Air to ground loadout:
o 2× AIM-120 AMRAAM and
o 2× AIM-9 Sidewinder and one of the following:
+ 2× 1,000 lb JDAM or
+ 2× Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMDs) or
+ 8× 250 lb GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs
Radar: 125-150 miles (200-240 km) against 1 m² targets (estimated range)

The fact is, the F-22 Raptor is a Stealth Air Superiority Fighter while the Eurofighter Typhoon is a 4.5 Gen Multi role Fighter.

However, the Eurofighter typhoon, it is the first plane in the world to be able to do acrobatic maneuvers at supersonic speed. It is also capable of reaching Mach 1.5 without afterburners. The only other plane who is capable of doing supercruise is F-22A Raptor.But that still doesn't make the Typhoon a 5th Gen Fighter.

The F22 Raptor
By Ed Offley
eoffley@pcnh.com

It was the most impressive fighter aircraft seen to date.

Designed around a breakthrough technology, it was heavily armed with the latest air-to-air weapons and was capable of flying faster than its enemies and destroying previously invulnerable enemy aircraft.

One British pilot called it “the most formidable fighter” that the world had seen to date. Its pilots said it was a delight to fly.

Yet military historians today say the German Messerschmidt 262 fighter had little effect on the air war over Europe during World War II, and two military aviation experts last week warned that the U.S. Air Force has likely set itself up to repeat the harsh lesson of the Me-262 “Stormbird” in a future conflict against an adversary with a modern air force.

Simply put, said Pierre Sprey and James P. Stevenson, the F-22 Raptor is shaping up to be the Sturmvogel of the 21st century: a dazzling piece of technology that fatally ignores some of the unbending realities of aerial combat.

On surface, the Raptor debate ended six months ago. After years of controversy, the Air Force and Defense Department reached a final agreement on the Raptor program, with DoD and Congress approving full production of the stealth fighter while capping the program at 183 aircraft, a 50-percent reduction of the 381 planes that the service had long said it needed at a minimum.

(For Tyndall Air Force Base, where the Raptor pilot training program is located, this has meant a reduction in training squadrons from two to one, with 29 of the sleek fighters to be used in preparing pilots for combat units.)

But to Sprey, a founding member of the so-called “fighter mafia” group that during the 1960s and 1970s ramrodded the F-15, F-16 and A-10 programs into being despite fierce internal opposition, and military author Stevenson, who has written extensively on the Navy’s F/A-18 and A-12 fighters, the Air Force has created a major crisis in its future combat capability by sticking to the Raptor program.

The two analysts presented their stark findings to a symposium at the nonprofit Center for Defense Information on Friday in Washington, D.C. The two analysts provided their findings to The News Herald, and Sprey elaborated on the issues in a telephone interview.

Sprey said his briefing focused on the time-tested factors that define an effective fighter plane: (1) See the enemy first; (2) outnumber the enemy; (3) outmaneuver the enemy to fire, and (4) kill the enemy quickly.

“The Raptor is a horrible failure on almost every one of those criteria,” Sprey said.

The stellar attribute of the F-22 — its invisibility on enemy radar due to a computer-aided stealth design — is a “myth,” Sprey said. That is because in order to locate the enemy beyond visual range, the Raptor (like every other fighter) must turn on its own radar, immediately betraying its location.

Nor is the aircraft design effective simply because its advocates insist so, Sprey said. The 1980s-era F-117 stealth fighter was supposed to be invisible too, but post-Gulf War studies showed that the aircraft had been spotted by Iraq’s ground-based radars, he said.

And in the 77-day aerial campaign against Serbia in 1999, the adversary’s “1950s-era radar” managed to locate and shoot down two F-117s, Stevenson pointed out in his presentation. The situation is actually worse today, he said, because many nations have acquired advanced missiles that can home in on radar emissions.

“Who do you want in a dark alley?” Stevenson asked. “The cop with the flashlight, or the crook with a gun that fires light-homing bullets?”

Because the Raptor ultimately ballooned into a weapon that costs $361 million per copy, even Congress could not stomach the total program cost exceeding $65 billion, Sprey said. As a result, the Air Force is now committed to fielding a fighter program that lacks sufficient numbers to prevail in a major conflict, however effective the individual aircraft may be.

“Hitler had 70 Me-262s in combat,” Sprey said. “They were crushed by the force of 2,000 inferior P-51s that the United States had in the air.”

Early reports from mock deployments of the Raptor also show a major shortfall in the fighter’s sustainability in combat, Sprey said.

“The F-16 costs one-tenth of the F-22 and flies three times as often due to the issues of stealth, complexity and maintenance affecting the Raptor,” Sprey said. Sustainability and the number of aircraft available to fight on any given day, he added, are “vastly more important” than the quality of the F-22. “You have to have numerical superiority to win.”

On the last two points, maneuverability and capability for a “quick kill,” the two analysts assert that the Raptor is inferior to the F-16 and several allied fighter designs in the crucible of “energy-maneuverability.”

“Some (experts) assert that in the next air war,” all of the radars will be off and the air war will merge to air combat maneuvering,” Stevenson observed.

The Raptor’s performance in that mode will be “disastrous,” Sprey added.

“The only thing that will bail the U.S. Air Force out of this mess is the fact that they still have a lot of F-16s in service,” Sprey said, “The day they send the F-16s to the ‘boneyard’ is the day the service becomes a non-Air Force.”

Many of us may have known this from the very outset that the F-117 was detectable by low band search radars; as is the B-2, as is the F-22, as is the F-35. Looking at the data obtained during susceptibility and emissions testing of the Nighthawk confirms it. Stealth technology and design decreases detectability but doesn't make one invisible. Every measure that is taken is met with a countermeasure so the battle is an ongoing chess match. Effective tactics and the use of SEAD platforms can help keep the enemy guessing. The loss of the F-117 in the Balkans, showed what happens when people get complacent, lazy and arrogant when planning ops.

LOL the Fighter Mafia srikes again!
That article has been beaten to death many times on this board. Yes low band radars can detect stealth aircraft but only roughly and you can't target based on that data.The F 117 shootdown was due to poor mission planning on our part including not having enough ground troops etc and innovative tactics on the serbian side.

Did the Indian AF get a shot at the F-22.

I am under the impression that any good air force with a good plane that has an IRST can bring down a F-22. The thing is supercruise...at that speed, it is bound to have one heck of a heat signature...i bet a MICA-IR could do the trick...

Originally Posted by sundeepmegas

Did the Indian AF get a shot at the F-22.

I am under the impression that any good air force with a good plane that has an IRST can bring down a F-22. The thing is supercruise...at that speed, it is bound to have one heck of a heat signature...i bet a MICA-IR could do the trick...

What?

Read UP,