Flying high and fast does mean safety, especially vs a giant S-300 missile with unspeakable high wing loading,
in such thin air those tiny wings has no authority on that mass.

The F-22 won’t be flying into the S-300’s lethal envelope, and when supercruising, that envelope is even smaller. If it’s flying a SEAD/DEAD mission, it’ll engage outside of the lethal envelope.

Jessmo , regarding the article From Paris Air & Cosmos on 29/01/2010 , do you know what Cpt Romain said ?

Did the French Pilots had a “lock” on the F-22s ? No-one knows . What we know is that the ALQ-94 can pinpoint the PESA RBE2 , which shows that a good RWR can pinpoint a LPI radar , CQFD 😎

Cheers .

PESA radars won’t have as good of LPI capabilities as AESA ones due the latters far greater beam/frequency agility.

Lower RCS: Yes, but F22 lacks an IRST so it cancels using the summation theorem presented above.

But with LPI radar, the ALR-94, and third party targeting, it can largely negate the disadvantages of not having an IRST.

Better radar: Both quite close, no “step change”.

There’s no comparison to the target tracking, scan speed, jam resistance, simultaneous modes, EA, etc.. between the CAPTOR and the APG-77.

Better agility: They are essentially the same, each bettering the other slightly in different areas of agility. I’d go into specifics, but since you are interested only in F22 being better, and not whether that is actually true or not, there is no point me wasting my time educating you.

Can the Typhoon sustain 28 deg/s, and >60 deg AoA?

Better ESM: Prove it. Both ESM are classified, if you are having access to the claimed information for both, then sure, prove it by proving you have the security clearance for the information for each aircraft, and I’ll believe you. I’ll also report you to the MoD and DoD for violating your clearances by presenting restricted information in public forums.

Not even Eurofighter claims that the ESM systems on the Typhoon are superior to the ALR-94. That’s the most expensive piece of kit on the F-22, and no other fighter has a more extensive system. Even using open sources, the range of the ALR-94 is more than 2x that of the Rafale or Typhoon’s systems, and in more bands/freqs.

Higher speed: As per ESMs

Supercruise- Typhoon M1.4ish F-22 M1.8ish Top speed Typhoon M2 F-22 M2.4+

Better sensor fusion: As per ESMs

Even the Rafale has better sensor fusion than the Typhoon.

Sure, but then the F22’s only real advantage over a Typhoon is the lower RCS, and Typhoons only real advantage over the F22 is a long range IRST, and as you say, its not about individual subsystems, but rather than sum of the parts, so by this summation it would peg them about even.

Lower RCS, better radar, better ESM, better agility, higher speed, better sensor fusion, etc…

Again, not all fusion is the same, nor are the networks that the respective planes have at their disposal the same. It’s not a monolithic term with respect to capabilities. None of those planes have anything approaching the onboard sensors of the F-22(much less the offboard sensors feeding info), nor do they present the info in such a way, that the sensor providing the info is transparent to the pilot(i.e. the info could be from radar, IR, ESM, third party, etc…, but from the pilot’s perspective it’s irrelevant.) It’s presented clearly in an easily understood format(on a single display), and he knows what every other platform in the network knows, with regards to friend or foe. It takes the guesswork and mental calculations out, and allows the pilot to focus on tactics instead of interpretation.

The engines costs are certainly not included.

Well even if that is the case if we divide 31 aircraft by $113m, that works out to an additional $3.645m per engine. That means that instead of $105m, you’re looking at $108.6m per aircraft. This still falls within the $105-109m range, quoted. Now if that figure includes spares, then the price per engine goes down even more.

I agree that the pilot will always play a vital role, but an example of how the paradigm has shifted, is when you have brand new pilots with only hundreds of hours in the F-22, dominating pilots with thousands of hours in legacy aircraft. The synergy of low observability and very high situational awareness, has given them huge tactical advantages.

Come on guys, cut the crap. Any structural problem like this is a major issue at this stage. Software errors might be marginal, but the thing with the bulkhead definitely is not.

I think the responses these posters had put things into better perspective-

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-14762-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html

A lot of folks say that if you don’t find cracks during fatigue testing you have either:

1. Screwed up the test
or
2. Overdesigned the structure.

Look at it this way. On any airplane structure, there are millions of places a crack could develop. It is not possible to analyze millions of locations for crack initiation, so only thousands of locations are analyzed. Then when you do the durability test, a crack my show up at one of the millions of places not analyzed. Is that surprising?

The analysis is used to locate expected critical locations. Durability tests are necessary to find all the critical locations and fix them.

It’s obviously an issue that will need to be corrected, but certainly not evidence that the program should be scrapped. The problems will get fixed, and the program will move on.