Anon

Well folks, say hello to the USAF's first OPERATIONAL F-22.

A new era is upon us.

http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/...s_20056110.asp

Bluesman

Absolutely right. Just as other nations had warships when the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought their duel, other nations have fighters as we bring the F-22 on-line.

Both events made the entire category mean something else, and those other warships/fighters becme also-rans overnight, able to fight each other, but not the newcomers.

__________________
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- George Orwell

Anon

"able to fight each other, but not the newcomers"

Hehehe, it's good to be the king.

highsea

Your picture link died...

Is that 4041? IIRC it was delivered to Langley on May 12. They should have two more by now. I think all of the Tyndall Raptors have the received lot 3 IOC updates, I know all the FOT&E AC have them. So there are a whole bunch of Raptors that could go to war tomorrow if needed (like about 40 of them).

Edit to add: the final report was released on the crash at Edwards. The cause was a power interruption of the flight control system during takeoff. The pilot had run the initialization tests, then taxied over to a service area and shut down the engines on the ramp. The AC switched over to the APU, and when he restarted the engines to go, he didn't run the initialization program again- he didn't realize that power was interrupted when the system was switched over. Had he rerun the initialization, the crash wouldn't have happened. Anyway, the corrections have been applied- expensive lesson.

__________________
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Anon

I guess the link died.

I put a manual link to the globalsecurity pic in the first post, so if global security is still hosting it, that should work.

The aircraft is 03-042.

highsea

Okay, that's Raptor 4042, should have been the second one delivered to Langley (or they were delivered together). Maybe 41 got held up in the paint booth, lol.

Nice pic.

EricTheRed

It is going to be the last great manned fighter. The next round of fighters will most likely be computer controlled

Bluesman

Perhaps; we'll see.

bonehead

The raptor should have a long service life unless it is squashed by financial reasons. Fighters are now hamstrung by the limitations of the pilots. Humans just can't take the g's that the fighters can. The benefits of manned fighters are hard to ignore. The future of air warfare will be interesting. We shall see.

Bluesman

I think that the thing that makes that prediction possible is the continuing evolution of data-moving technology. If it continues as it has, then even human brains and eyes - to say nothing of the above point about g limitations - may be too slow and limited in ability to deal with unmanned super-fighters.

I think it is definitely in the future at some point. But how soon?

Anon

"Fighters are now hamstrung by the limitations of the pilots. Humans just can't take the g's that the fighters can."

Raptor pilots wear a new swiss designed liquid filled G suit that enables the pilot to safely perform 11g sustained manuevers, vs the 9gs that all the other top fighters can sustain.

SloMax

"Absolutely right. Just as other nations had warships when the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought their duel, other nations have fighters as we bring the F-22 on-line."

this will fire up the debate for sure...

Germany has now also first operational eurofighters and soon the UK, Spain...

Anon

The EF-2000 is not in the F-22s class. Even the plane's makers admit that.

Nothing is in the F-22s class.

hello

Very nice pic.
Currently there are no UCAVs that have the technolgy to do A2A. All the existing ones are recon/bombers.

Bluesman

Merely a matter of time until aerial robots fight each other, I think.