Seen the website, fair enough – I’ll take it that it acheives M 1.7 in SLF w/o afterburners.

Not entirely convinced of the technical merits of the site due to the magical single dB slot for RCS.

Hmm, I wouldn’t exactly say hilltoptimes is a reliable source on aviation news, especially considering the way it is written.

“Today I flew the Raptor at speeds exceeding (Mach 1.7) without afterburners,” General Jumper said.

Exceeding…. what? the brackets traditionally indicate a clarification on the part of the reporter, not the words as spoken by Gen. Jumper.

Unless that is standard fare in American English [to be fair, it might be and I’m getting the wrong end of the stick], or bad journalism. I would not use that specific source as evidence the F-22 can do M 1.7 in SLF without afterburners.

Most of the figures I see are M1.58 w/o afterburners.

my point is that neither you nor I can prove that the russians dont subscribe to the concept of supercruise !! Atleast on face value they do subscribe to it as is evident from the PAKFA . That leaves the other dominant 4.5,5th gen force and that is the Europeans who also subscribe to the concept of Supercruise . That makes 3 out of 3 of the top aviation industries and Military structures of the world and leaves only you on the other side of the fence 😉

I think you’ve missed his earlier point though.

The EF2000 achieved ‘supercruise’ purely coincidentally, it was never a design goal. To say they ‘subscribe to the concept’ because they achieved it might be stretching it a little far.

I suppose to know if supercruise is a key ingredient we’d need to examine the missions.

On a BARCAP for instance, its not really an advantage, your looking at loiter times, and that will be subsonic flight. When you detect bandits, you’ll accelerate to Vmax to enlarge the engagement envelope of your AMRAAMs. Same for HVA protection.

If the F-22 is escorting other packages, they will be subsonic, so the F-22 will be constrained by that.

Even on regular CAPs, if they are covering areas, they will be seeking loiter times, and will be in subsonic cruise seeking to minimise fuel consumption.

The only time I see supercruise offering a definite, significant advantage would be operating the F-22 in hunter/killer groups, letting them roam free from others and strike deep over the enemy line. Going after their AWACs and their CAS/strike/SEAD/interdiction aircraft before they get near your line.

Assuming long wave length radar can detect the F-22, B-2, F-117 etc at useful [its not that big an assumption btw, infact, its not really an assumption at all], the best way I see supercruise being used is tying up alot of enemy aircraft chasing something they simply cannot catch quick enough to engage. Then, when they are at bingo fuel, turn and nail them.

As is obvious, it is better to have the option of going faster if you have it, and its another feather in the F-22’s cap, but I think it is some distance down the order when looking at what gives the F-22 the ‘edge’.

geez…and what you think the missiles stop him reaching supersonic??? The flanker can fly mach2.35 with missiles for couple of minutes too. Just for information the missiles will cause him another 0.005 Cd, but when the Su-27 layout has around 0.04 Cd at mach 1.5 when clean config, so no big deal at all. As I said the fllanker may have smaller radius when supercruising, that`s where the increased drag from those missiles is to about to manifest.

Just wondering where you get these numbers from?

Its also worth noting that the drag coefficient for an aircraft with external missiles etc will vary from subsonic to supersonic flow as the interactions between wing/pylon/missiles changes with flow regime.

Nah, I’m getting mixed up somewhere – disregard my previous post.

Can’t believe there aren’t more posts for the Draken!!!

Missiles will shortly be obsolete.

When aircraft carry lasers capable of melting the sensors on a missile, the whole thing will change again.

The future [as regards initial DEW usage] will probably revolve around large aircraft with multiple laser arrays. Something like a modified C-17 or C-130.