You are clearly pulling these statements out of nowhere. The F-22 was designed to balance stealth, speed, and manueverability. TVC is used to improve low-speed performance and high-speed manueverability. It wasn’t meant to remedy anything. You have no basis for anything you just said about the F-22, just assumptions.

The F-22 was designed to still be very agile even with the TVC disabled. It can still hold a sustained 60 degrees alpha without thrust vectoring. TVC just gets it there quicker. The MiG 1.44 and S-37 also did not use the “lifting area” you speak of. I guess they are behind too. Get real, there are different approaches to everything. :rolleyes:

The diamond pofile of the Raptor’s nose acts as a virtual surface as Vortex already explained. The lifting surface of the Su-27 is nothing new, the F-14 had it before.

You gotta be kidding me… :rolleyes:
Again you are simplifying complex things that you obviously have no background in.

No you are wrong the MiG-1.44 has a nose profiled to generate some lift, several books mentioned it, among them one by Yefim Gordon.

The F-22 can no be compared to the Su-27 that has AoA limits 120 degrees without even thrust vectoring and the 360 degrees with thrust vectoring.

The MiG-29 is another example of how thrust vectoring improves AoA handling; the F-22 is not the perfect aircraft there are no such aircraft.

any aircraft as Firebar said has advantages and disadvantages, the F-22 configuration is not perfect, faceting impacted in its aerodynamics, as a whole the aircraft is the best all around aircraft that combines stealth with high performance but it does not mean can not be surpassed by other aircraft in some areas

You might have the idea the aircraft is perfect, it is the best compromised between agility and stealth that is true but it is not an aircraft that a MiG-29OBT can not be more agile if it is fitted with thrust vectoring.

I don’t know but I always found the F16 XL to be (really) ugly.

Nic

Of all the F-16 variants i like the most the F-16B, and of all the F-16 derivatives i like the most is the IAI Lavi, the Ching kuo is quit beautiful though.
The F-16XL was a good looking design but i think it is not the nicest looking F-16 variant.

of all the ventral inlet jets with delta canard arrangement, the IAI Lavi it`s the most beautiful of all of them, the reason is because to me the F-16 is unique, i like its radome, the Eurofighter radome its like the J-10 radome more circular than oval and not an oval semi circle as in the F-16.

The Eurofighter looks beautiful thanks to its boxy inlets that feed two engines instead of one though, that is what i do not like in the J-10, the inlet looks quit big with respect the radome.

The MiG-1.44 looks little bit like a huge Lavi but i do not like it`s big radome, i think the F-16 has the right size with respect the relative sizes of the radome and inlet, that is the reason i like the IAI lavi.

The X-31 has a tiny inlet and a radome more in the circular shape than in the semi-circle radome cross section shape the F-16 has.

Wrong Firebar. Vortex already explained this in a post a few months ago. The F-22’s aerodynamics are very advanced, ahead of the Flanker and any other fighter today for that matter. Here is what he said.

That is laughable, except by the wing design that probably has taken supercruise into consideration all those statements are in direct contradiction with reality, one of the best fighters designed aerodynamically in Russia after the MiG-29 and Su-27 were the MiG-1.44 and S-37, both aircraft do not look like the F-22 at any point.

The MiG 1.44 for example is a fighter that uses a flattened nose to generate lift and ventral inlets that have no problems during yaw since they have no forward fuselage obstructing the air flow to the engines.
The J-10, Eurofighter, MiG-29, Su-27, X-31, F-16 use this inlet design

See that the MiG 1.44 follows very similar lines to the MiG-29
The diamond cross section in the Raptor won`t have the same effect.
If you have noticed canards and the triplane configuration have disappeared from the MiG-29OBT and the Su-35BM, the question is why? the reason is simple, thrust vectoring changes the flight path direction of an aircraft independently of any surface plane fitted to the airframe

The thrust vectoring nozzle does the trick, the F-22 fitted thrust vectoring as an aid but due to stealth requirements it was kept a 2D thrust vectoring nozzle design instead of the more sophisticated 3D nozzle design fitted to the MiG-29OBT, Su-35BM and F-16 VISTA/MATV

The MiG-29OBT proves you that there is no need for a Fifth generation airframe if you have a fifth generation nozzle if your sole requirement is supermanoeuvrability. The other fighter designed in Russia was the S-37, this aircraft had vestigial LERXes above the inlet and a flattened nose to generate extra vortexes, it had canards and forward swept wing

the similarity with the F-22 is quit remote.

Now Russia is improving those designs and developing the I-21, The F-22 as FIREBAR said has the best stealth and aerodynamic compromise and the best engine fusion up to this moment, but stealth requirements usualy are not converging with aerodynamic requirements and usually these oppose each other just look at the flattened 2D thrust vectoring nozzle

The F-22 has stealth ruling the overall design, because with missiles like the AIM-9X, helmet mounted sights, supercruise and stealth a highly manoeuvrable fighter that lacks any of those characteristics will find in the AIM-9X cued by a HMS, stealth and supercruise a nasty surprise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_T-4

Recce / interceptor. And no, it says mach 3, but it never actually reached mach 3; that was their goal, not their achievement.

And dalibsky, we still bash the Cobra, and all other SLOW maneuvers, if someone would be dumb enough to boast of them as if they’re good for actual COMBAT! I always ALWAYS loved watching the Russian Sukhoi maneuvers at air shows, very entertaining. It’s just, again, those that try to say these are useful in actual combat, is when we get up in arms about it. See the difference? 😉

Now this is really funny the Russians do not know what kind of aircraft they developed, please NORTHAX, the T-4 is a Russian aircraft Wikipedia is a website that has mistakes because many people write there, all the Russian sources say it was a bomber not an interceptor, your source is wrong.

Check the official Sukhoi webpage it says it was a bomber with secondary recce capability
http://www.sukhoi.org/planes/museum/t4/

the cruise speed it had was mach 2.8

aaThe work on the T-4 project (“article 100”) began in 1961. The military set the task of developing a new air arm capability for “reconnaissance, search-and-destroy missions on small-size, mobile and fixed offshore and onshore targets,” with a flight range of 7,000 km. The USSR held a tender among the aircraft design bureaus, with the design submitted by the Sukhoi design bureau winning against the bids by the design bureaus of Yakovlev and Tupolev. The T-4 gained a competitive edge with its high cruise speed of 3,200 kph, which, according to expert estimates, promised to render it much less vulnerable to air defence threats. The development of the aircraft was authorised in the government’s resolution of 3rd December 1963. The project was headed by Deputy Designer General N.S. Chernyakov.

The T-4’s conceptual design passed preliminary design review in June 1964, with an Air Forces mock-up committee review held in February 1966. Detailed design was undertaken jointly with the MKB Burevestnik engineering design bureau, with the Tushino machine-building plant (TMZ) appointed manufacturer of prototype aeroplanes in November 1964.
The specification requirements provided for high-quality Mach 3 cruise performance. A joint programme with CAHI produced comprehensive fundamental research into the aerodynamic performance of aircraft models, which made it possible to select the required configuration. The design was based on a tailless, flying wing concept with a low margin of pitch stability and small-size canards used for the aircraft pitch trim. It featured a double-delta wing, with a sharp leading edge and middle surface deformation.

It took a massive research effort to develop the powerplant configuration, which was finalised as a version with underbelly air intakes and so called bath configuration of 4 engines. It featured the USSR’s first supersonic mixed-compression variable air intake with auto start for design Mach 3.0. Under a special T-4 project, the Design Bureau of P.A. Kolesov developed a RD36-41 turbojet to support a Mach 3 extended flight capability.

Each of the T-4 systems, given their heavy-duty aircraft operation requirements, had to be extensively researched by the designers to come up with a required number of adequate new solutions. For example, the T-4 featured, for the first time in Soviet practice, a quadruple redundancy fly-by-wire system, an auto-throttle, a hydraulic system with operating pressure of 280 kg/cm 2, a trailblazing fuel system with turbine driven pumps, a liquid-nitrogen-based inert gas system, and othe innovations.

A major challenge was to develop a design and a combination of materials to enable operation at high process temperatures of 220 to 330˚C. The airframe was engineered using mostly titanium and steel, the development of technology to enable their application in the aeroplane design being the focal point of the effort of the Sukhoi designers and technologists working on the T-4 project. They had to develop a great number of pioneering engineering processes such as automatic through-penetration welding, automatic buried-arc welding using sheet add-on, chemical milling of titanium alloys, and others. The new technologies were tried out under a comprehensive programme to develop new types of materials and coatings, and test full-scale structural specimens. The powerplant, aircraft systems and equipment were tried out by the Design Bureau jointly with its subcontractors under a large-scale programme for R&D and testing of various models, stands and flying laboratories (FL). For example, the wing shape development was conducted using a special-purpose Su-9-based 100L FL built and operated jointly with FRI.

The aircraft’s purpose-designed equipment included a NK-4 navigation system and an Okean avionics suite integrating a Vykhr fire control system, Rapira recon system, Otpor defence system and Stremnina radio communications system. The aircraft’s principal armaments were specified as 3 Kh-45 aeroballistic missiles under development at the MKB Raduga engineering design bureau. The Kh-45 rocket had an estimated range of 550-600km and cruise speed of Mach 5 to 7.

In the T-4 project, nearly all the aircraft’s main blocks, systems and assemblies could claim the merit of invention; a total of 208 inventions were implemented by the Sukhoi designers, and taking into account the inventions used in developing assembly components and units, the number was nearly as high as 600. Not a single aircraft built by that time in the USSR could boast such a great number of proprietary developments!

The building of the first flying prototype of the aircraft (art. “101”) was completed in the autumn of 1971, and in December 1971 the aeroplane was moved to the FRI airfield. The maiden flight of the prototype took place on 22nd August 1972, its crew composed of pilot V.S. Ilyushin and navigator N.A. Alfyorov. The flight tests went on till 19th January 1974, with a total of 10 flights completed over that period and Mach 1.36 achieved at a height of 12,000 m.

In the period 1966-74, TMZ assembled 4 T-4 airframes: one for static (art. “100S”) and three for flight tests (art. “101”, “102” and “103”). The work-in-process inventory included a number of assemblies produced for 3 more machines. In 1974, MAI suspended the work on the T-4 project. Officially, the project was scrapped in accordance with the government’s resolution of 19th December 1975.

T-4 was used as a platform in 1968-70 by Sukhoi bureau to develop a design for an upgraded missile carrier T-4M with a variable sweep wing, and in 1970-72, a further design, the T-4MS (art. “200”), was produced in competition with the design bureaus of Myasishchev and Tupolev for development of a strategic dual role strike aircraft.

The T-4 was intended to be an interceptor / recce platform, as well, actually. They failed at getting it nearly as successful as the SR-71, XB-70 or YF-12 flight demonstrations. If it had the capability of being built and meeting expectations, it’d have replaced the Mig-25/31. For obvious reasons, they cancelled it, because they couldn’t do what the U.S. did 8-10 years before.

Sorry, next? 😉

сверхзвуковой бомбардировщик-ракетоносец
this in Russian means supersonic bomber armed with ASMs weapons, that is the designation for the T-4 see the link
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/bomber/t4.html
Тип: Бомбардировщик-ракетоносец this means classification as bomber armed with Rockets (ASMs)

the real role of the T-4 was of a bomber not a recce aircraft or an interceptor MiG developed the interceptor

Модификация Т-4
Размах крыльев, м 22.0
Длина, м 44.0
Высота, м 11.2
Площадь крыла, м2 295.7
Масса, кг
пустого самолета 55600
нормальная взлетная, кг 114000
максимальная взлетная, кг 135000
Тип двигателя 4 ТРД РД36-41
Тяга, кгс 4 х 16000
Максимальная скорость, км/ч 3200
Крейсерская скорость, км/ч 3000
Дальность полета, км 7000
Разбег, м 950-1050
Пробег, м 800-900
Практический потолок, м 18000
Экипаж, чел 2

Вооружение: 2 стратегические ракеты воздух-поверхность this means weaponry:2 strategic air to ground missiles, so as you see it was not an fighter niether an interceptor

Максимальная скорость, км/ч 3200
Крейсерская скорость, км/ч 3000

this means max speed 3200km/h and cruise speed 3000km/h

Heh. There’s a huge difference between the YF-12 that actually did fly at mach 3.2 in the mid 1960’s; that successfully fired AIM-47’s in tests cruising at mach 3.2 at 74k ft. vs. the Russian (wannabe XB-70) Sukhoi T-4 of the early 1970’s.

First off, the T-4 never even made it past mach 1.5 speeds! Let alone breaking mach 2, and not even close to mach 3; THEN you’d have to get to mach 3.2 WHILE cruising there like the SR-71 and XB-70 easily did around a decade before.

Secondly, the T-4 had constant problems with it’s (primitive) fly-by-wire systems.

No comparison, sorry. Come up with something that had similar actual performance, not just paper-wishes they said they’d achieve, yet never did. 😀

hehehe please the first aircraft with Fly by wire was the T-4, second the T-4 was cancelled before it could reach mach 2.8 but Russia had an aircraft program that called for a mach 3 bomber, The US intelligence services must have known it, all the western intelligence agencies spying in Russia very likely know it, even the Tu-22M was chosen because it offered something more practical at less price and risk, same was the US next bomber the B-1, that proved better than the B-70

You surely mean beyond 5th or 6th gen right!! that is pure speculation , your guess or mine is miniscule as compared to what is going on in secret in the US or russia!!! So we cannot safely predict what the next big thing will be wether ramjet , scramjet , DEW firing gigantor or what not!!!

That proves you that still a MiG-31 replacemnet is not out of the question but surely cheaper and more feasable fighter programs are being finance now such as the F-22 or I-21