Let the hijacking begin.

The F/A-22 is not a bad airplane per se in its own right, but for what it was intended to be, and for how much the goddamned things cost, they are terrible. Why is it that a Navy plane designed 41 years ago was armed with missiles that had a range of 120 miles, while this brand new F-22 has only 50 mile AMRAAMs?

And on the note of missiles, why is it that it can only carry eight on a standard load (they won't use the wing pylons, as that kind of defeats the purpose of a stealth fighter)? All of its contemporaries can carry significantly more, despite the lack of stealth, or perhaps in spite of.

Why is the F/A-22 so frickin' slow? I really don't give a crap what they say about stealth and missile rang/reliability, nor about it's capacity to supercruise, when you are Winchester and all out of rocks in a gloves-off dogfight, you aren't worried about how fast your plane can go without afterburners, as your ass is going to put the throttle to the firewall to get the hell out of there as fast you can. Mach 1.8 simply is not fast enough, not when it's contemporaries can do Mach 2.4.

Additionally, stealth, as the F/A-22 applies it, is effective now, but give it 15 years, and advances in radar, infa-red, and other forms of detection will render it next to useless, akin to a child holding his hands over his eyes and saying "you can't see me!"

And I but scratch the surface here.

For the incredible cost of the Raptor, it not only needs to be stealthy, it needs to be superior in every manner to everything else in the sky. And it simply isn't. So we are paying a lot of money per copy for an aircraft that while extremely capable in one sense, is capable in only that sense. Not good.

In fact, the aircraft is so cost-inefficient, that the F-15 will remain the premier front line fighter in the USAF for the foreseeable future, even if it isn't their top-of-the-line fighter.

It all boils down to this: Cool fighter, but too much money for a design that is far too compromised.

Is a good plane? Yes. Is it the plane we need it be? Not quite. Could we have done better? Yes. In fact, Northrop did slightly better with the YF-23.

There it is. The F/A-22 Raptor was a waste. Yeah, I said it.

Bring it, Diddles.

/Discussion hijacked.

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Can I be Diddles?

I'm curious what "contemporaries" you're referring to that can hit 2.4 Mach. You seem to be ranting on and on about the F-22's (And yes, that's the official designation now, they did away with the F/A shenanigans) competitors that are rendering it ineffective. Right now, the United States is the only country with 5th generation fighter aircraft in service with a second aircraft in final production. The closest thing behind the United States is some of China's J-XX series and the MiG 1.44, etc. all of which are little more than glorified technology demonstrators. Anything that could feasibly compete with the aircraft is either in infantile stages, or held together by hopes and dreams.

In regards to the F-22's combat effectiveness, I hope you're familiar with the Northern Edge '06 exercise. I'm assuming you are, as you seem to know what you're talking about. Anyone who's not should read up on it.

The AIM-54 Phoenix you referred to is state-of-the-art 1960's technology, and that 120 mile range is for a head-on, non-evasive target given optimal conditions. I think that's pretty irrelevant, given upcoming weapons systems such as the BVRAAM (Guess what that stands for).

When you're talking about the weapons-carriage issue, I think you answered your own question. Of course the F-22 isn't going to have the storage capabilities of a Strike Eagle. That's like comparing apples to orangutans.

And of course, 15 years from now, the F22 will be obsolete and we'll be waiting with bated breath for it's 6thgen successor to be unveiled.

I like air power discussions.

/hijacking

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Hey everyone, look over there! Its a topless Megan Fox!

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Okay, temporary Diddles:

There are about 45.73 holes in my argument, and that was for a reason. I was just trying to have a little fun and troll Diddles.

As for the rest:

The Sukhoi Su-35/37 and the Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon are both capable of reaching Mach 2.4. The SAAB JAS-39 Gripen and the Dassault Rafale are slower at Mach 1.8, but then, they are not quite in the same class as the others.

Both India and China have fifth generation fighters in service. Both countries fly highly advanced adaptations of the original Su-27 Flanker. While the original SU-27 is considered a fourth generation fighter, the Indian and Chinese variants, along with the Su-35/Su-37 Flankers upon which they are based, are considered to be fifth generation fighters. There fighters are currently in service in relatively significant number, particularly in India, where they are also piloted by extremely advanced and highly capable pilots. They are a rough match for the F-22 Raptor.

Yes, I am familiar with Northern Edge '06. Like I said, I was just trying to troll Andrew a little bit.

Yes, the original Phoenix is in fact quite antiquated, but that tends to only strengthen my argument. Technology has advanced considerably in the past 40 years, and while the contemporary missiles such as the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), AIM-9X Sidewinder, and Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile have vastly smaller and more sophisticated seekers, why could we not apply that same level of attention to a successor to the Phoenix missile system that has all the range of the original, but in a smaller package with vastly more advanced system capabilities?

Agreed, the whole stealth thing necessitates that the Raptor has less payload capacity than an F-15, or even an F/A-18E/F, a maximum of eight AAMs, or two JDAMs and two AAMs, is still pathetic.

Yes, the F-22 will be obsolete in 15 years, and that is the problem. We spent almost two decades and countless billions developing obnoxiously expensive fighters that have a shelf life of fifteen years. The F-15 has been going strong since 1974, and projected to keep going strong for at least another ten years.

I see a huge problem with that picture.

@engineered thinks cannoli is deserving of a star.:

Other way around. The YF-22 was actually marginally more agile than the YF-23, though the YF-23 was marginally superior in terms of stealth, speed, range, and payload.

And yes, you are correct. F-15s will remain in service because the USAF simply can't afford the Raptor in the number it needs to replace the F-15s on a one-for-one basis. That does not imply, however, that the basic design of the F-15 is no longer viable. Additionally, you are correct that the F-22 was not designed to have some elements of the F-15, such as outright speed and payload, and that is the problem that I have with them. With a program cost $65 billion dollars and a fly away cost of $138 million dollars a pop, they ideally need to do not only be able match the the capabilities of their predecessors in all respects, they then need to go and add all the stealth and other fancy ass goodies on top of that. The best parallel I can think of is the capabilities of the F-14 and F-15 as compared to their predecessor, the F-4. That is the kind of total quantum leap I am talking about, and in that, the Raptor fails to deliver.

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Thus, the term "4.5 generation" was born. To describe the exact airplanes you're talking about, the "modified" Su-27s, F-16 Block 60s, etc, etc.

You really only start to get a feel for the effectiveness of the F-22 when you pull back and look at it as a weapons system, not an individual airplane. When you consider it on a microscopic scale, every argument you made is true. Yes, it has a low payload. Yes, it's not as fast as some screamers out there. But this is kind of an application of "more than the sum of its parts," in a twisted sense.

Where the F-22 really, really shines is in the electronics arena. The incredibly high-fidelity sensor suite combined with net-centric warfare systems provide the battlefield commander with an incredibly coherent image of the situation, and allows flights of Raptors to move and act as one cohesive unit on a level previously the realm of science fiction novels. The effectiveness of such systems is mind-boggling, really. When you don't have to illuminate your radar because your buddy 30 miles away has his on and you have a real-time stream from his aircraft, you can get within visual range of enemy aircraft and fire off a shot before Charlie's alerted to your presence. I've heard from pilots that have flown against them it's like flying against a ghost.

Comparing 5thgen fighters to previous aircraft is like using displacement to measure the effectiveness of the rotary engine. Yes, it's a tangible quantity, but when you take in the way it operates it's really not an effective measurement device.

Airpower is changing dramatically.

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Gen 4.5 would imply that it quite literally is the same platform; for instance, the F-16A vs. the F-16C, but in the case of a major structural and aerodynamic re-work that took place in the Su-35/37, that would be classified as a fifth-generation fighter, not unlike the fact that while a Ruf may share many similarities with Porsches, they have been so thoroughly re-worked as to be effectively different cars.

You are correct, though, that airpower is changing dramatically. I guess that I am old school, and don't like the direction that it is headed in. The least they could have done was integrated that electronics suite into a more capable base platform, but c'est la vie.

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My bad.

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This is a ZOMBIE HOOKER whip.

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