Aviation Week has a pair of articles about the F-22 Raptor. The first describes how the F-22 and its partners benefit from its netcentric operations capabilities, explaining how the plane achieved 144 kills and no losses against older air-to-air fighters.
Perhaps the most important revelation by the 27th Fighter Sqdn. was demonstrating the F-22's ability to use its sensors to identify and target enemy aircraft for conventional fighters by providing information so they could engage the enemy sooner than they could on their own. Because of the advanced situational awareness they afford, F-22s would stick around after using up their weapons to continue providing targets and IDs to the conventional fighters. ..."When I look down at my scope and put my cursor over a [friendly] F-15 or F/A-18, it tells me who they are locked on to," he says. For example, "I could help them out by saying, 'You're double-targeted and there's a group over here untargeted' . . . to make sure we got everybody." F-15 targets will be latent because of the radar sweep.
However, these messages are less and less verbal. "When you watch [tapes of the Alaska] exercise, it's fairly spooky," says Gen. Ronald Keys, chief of Air Combat Command. "There's hardly a word spoken among Raptor pilots." That silence also previews some of the fighter's possible future capabilities.
"Because of the way the aircraft was designed, we have the capability to do more," Keys says. "We can put unmanned combat aircraft systems in there with Raptor. You've got three fairly low-observable UCAS in the battlespace. An air defense system pops up, and I click on a UCAS icon and drag it over [the emitter's location] and click. The UCAS throttles over and jams it, blows it up or whatever."
As many others have written about at length, battles of the future will be won by superior networks, not merely superior weapons platforms. Even still, the second article indicates that the Raptor is also a better fighter than previous generations of fighters, such as the F-15.
However, the question periodically resurfaces about whether the F-22 could hold its own during a within-visual-range fight with a very maneuverable fourth-generation fighter such as the Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30, Eurofighter or Dassault Rafale. The answer will never be obvious to an outsider. The Raptor's high-angle-of-attack capabilities are part of the formula of classified tactics that are closely held. But, roughly, its unique maneuvering and nose-pointing options--plus the high off-boresight capabilities of the AIM-9X missile, which is to be added about 2010--give the aircraft previously unheard-of means of quickly shooting down a foe.Nonetheless, chasing an F-22 in a two-seat F-15D--which carried reporter Michael J. Fabey--provided perspective about their comparative capabilities. A recent flight started with F-15 pilot Capt. Andy (Bishop) Jacob flying alongside an F-22 piloted by Maj. Shawn (Rage) Anger in the air-to-air ranges above Tyndall AFB, Fla.
Opponents of further Raptor procurements argue that going by such basic flight physics as thrust-to-weight ratios, rearward cockpit visibility and simple aircraft size, the F-22 ranks below the F-15 and other earlier fighters.
Aerial engagements like the encounter between Anger and Jacob are supposed to help prove the Raptor's case. Still, one argument offered by F-22 opponents is that the jet's reported victories over F-15s are often scripted and unreliable gauges of Raptor superiority. ...
Anger and Jacob had planned to engage in mock combat. However, a flashing indicator light warned that something could be wrong with the F-22. But the flight was enough to make a believer of Jacob. "Maybe, with some tricks or tactics, I can beat it," he said. "But that would be a one-time set of circumstances. As for a Raptor-beating tactic--there's no such thing."
With a price tag between $100 million and $200 million per aircraft, they'd better be good. Hopefully the Raptor is intimidating enough that none of our enemies will try to find out.
Saw a History (or Discovery) Channel thing on the F-22, I was in awe. They had where the F-22 took on multiple F-15s and the F-15 pilots said they didn't even see the F-22 until it flew by after making the kill.
If you want a nice, long, thorough discussion that mentions pretty much all that can be revealed about the Raptor's unparalleled capabilities, check out this thread on FenceCheck:
http://www.fencecheck.com/forums/index.php/topic,6835.210.html
Dozer used to be an F-22 test pilot, was the F-22 airshow demo pilot for 2005 and 2006, and is now head of F-22 ops in Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. Few people have as many F-22 hours as he does, as diverse a logbook of flying experiences in the Raptor, or as much knowledge of the edge of this jet's envelope. And after years in the F-15, Dozer is in a great position to compare the two fighters. The 22 accelerates, climbs, and turns MUCH faster than the Eagle. (Actually, I have some declassified graphs that show unbelievable differences in turning performance and speed-vs-power(%), if you want to see them).
On one of his first test flights, Dozer almost accidentally broke a bunch of world time-to-climb records, in a FULLY LOADED aircraft:
"OK - my first chance to let the jet loose on takeoff. I was at Edwards and they had a perfect mission for this. It was a single ship, no test support (control room) required, and I had my own tanker. All I had to do was takeoff and fly around for 2 hours collecting data from the MLD's (missile launch detectors). In other words it was a free sortie with a lot of gas available and I had the airspace to myself since it didn't matter what I did during the sortie, in fact more maneuvering was better to get data. Having never had a chance to really see what the jet would be like on takeoff, and since I had a tanker to keep me full of gas, I decided to do a max performance takeoff and let it go straight up to see what it would do. Edwards has that 15,000 foot runway, and an unlimited ceiling since it sits in a restricted airspace. So on taxi I asked for a max climb out to 25,000 feet, the controller said, 29,000? I said, sure that'll work, not that they care or it matters. I really had no idea what I'd end up with and with my Eagle time I figured I'd be lucky to get to 29,000. So I let it go to about 570 or so which was prior to the end of the runway and started a pull, not too much g, maybe 4 or 5, and went to 90 degrees nose high. I wasn't really paying attention to the airspeed or altitude because I was really enjoying the view and the ride, it was amazing. I started to feel a little buffet and looked inside to see what the deal was, expecting that I was starting to slow down to the point where I was getting the same kind of buffet you feel as the jet slows down and a little alpha starts to build on the wings, that's how it goes in a Eagle too. Well, there's also a little buffet in the Raptor when your about to go supersonic, and to my surprise, and I started laughing, the jet was at .99 mach and trying it's best to punch through to supersonic flight, straight up, passing about 18 or 19 thousand feet or so, it began a slow deceleration as I stared in awe at the HUD mach indication and at .94 mach I realized I was at 25,000 and was going to blast way through my altitude, so I rolled and started a 4 to 5 g pull to level out, which of course didn't work and I leveled at about 31,500 feet at about 330knots (don't know why those numbers stick in my head but they do). Now for you pilots out there, you know when you pull g, especially at higher altitudes and heavy weight, it's a fairly energy depleting event. So go figure, I'm FULLY loaded with fuel at takeoff, ALL of the weapons bays were loaded, so I am in my combat configuration, in a regular line jet, no tweaks, no special modifications, no weight taken out (as in the Streak Eagle or Mig 25 flights, etc.), nothing, just a line jet any old pilot could step to and fly. So I talked to the engineers and with some quick math they guessed I could have topped out in the low 60 thousand numbers'ish. That wasn't flying a special profile like other jets have either (Rutowski profile - misspelled?), it was just a pull to the nose straight up. This...jet...is...a...monster!!"
Another choice quote, one of many about how stealth makes the F-22 a much more lethal fighter than anything else out there. No fighter squadron wants to fly dissimilar combat ("vs", or "red air vs blue air") against F-22s because, well...
"One of the biggest challenges today to training in an F-22 is getting someone to be your adversary. No one wants to play vs an airplane they can't see. They get no training of their own, and its tough on morale too. I've done my share of red air growing up in the F-15, and even when you were red air you still got decent training because you saw "blue" air on radar and were able to execute most of the same mechanics (radar work, radio chatter, intercept mechanics, thought processes, etc.), that you do when your blue air. You might have limited shot ranges and execute some red air tactic but it wasn't that different - and on the morale side, it's still pretty fun to be in the middle of that food fight. There was always the reward of getting a chance to get into blue air's chilli and cause chaos and get a kill or two. That just doesn't happen vs the Raptor, you see nothing and then you die, kind of takes the fun out of it and you don't get any return on the investment, so if I was a squadron commander, I'd be hard to convince that I want to train vs. a F-22 squadron."
"You see nothing and then you die". Kinda says it all. Earlier in the thread he had some posts about what it was like to fly a single F-22 against multiple F-15s and F-16s, sometimes against six at a time, amd how he could sneak up on them and kill them before any of them noticed anything, even when they knew what area of the training range he was starting out in. Unfortunately he had to delete those posts because they were too specific, but it's easy to imagine that doing battle is much easier when you're invisible!
airshowfan: That thread is pretty incredible, I'm surprised they let him post as much as he has. My only doubts about the Raptor are whether or not we'll ever get to use it. Other countries won't even fly against the Eagle!
With a kill ratio of almost 100-0 for the F-15, I am sure nobody wanted to get in an air spat with the US and even less so now with the F-22 and F-35 coming online. The technology coupled with some of the best pilots in the world make fighting in the air a certain loss for any foe. Nice read airshowfan, thanks!
Hey Michael, you don't need to call me "airshowfan"! ;]
Hmmm, apparently TypeKey displays your username, not your name, by default... I tried again to change this. Let's see if this comment still says "airshowfan"...
As for actually using the F-22; Maybe it's like nuclear weapons: It has value as a deterrent. Probably one reason why so few were ordered. It's more important to "have the F-22" than to "have tons of F-22s". Especially since the JSF will be in service soon, and there will be tons of those.
(And, interestingly, while the JSF's performance and payload numbers are much below the F-22's, they are superior to the F-16's in a similar way as to how the F-22 is superior to the F-15. The JSF can carry a lot more stuff than the F-16, and accelerate much faster. It can probably turn tighter and longer, too. Most importantly, it can be stealthy (when external stores are not used, which does lower its payload), and that is really what makes these jets unparalleled).
Grrr, didn't work. Still "airshowfan". But I'm Bernardo, in case you can't tell... ;]
Bernardo: Yeah, I know, I think you have to change your "commenter preferences" when you log in to Typekey through their website.