I think its an insult to the P-38 to be honest.

The F-22 may have a better performance

Uhm, I’m getting somewhat confused here.

If its not better in terms of performance, is it better?

Perhaps in terms of aircraft development cost and current cost per aircraft the Eurofighter is cheaper – but does that make it better? [lets not get into flyaway costs please :diablo: 😀 ]

If your using the case of a single simulated shoot-down of an F-22 by a simulated Eurofighter as conclusive proof of the performance I’ll not bother arguing, clearly such evidence is so overwhelming as to cause the USAF to ditch the F-22 and F-35 programs, then go buy Eurofighters instead :diablo:

One swallow does not make a summer – Aristotle

Raptors end first operational deployment

The F-22A is able to cruise at 1,000 mph at 60,000 feet without the use of afterburners. Each of its two powerful turbofan engines crank out over 70,000 pounds of thrust and can vector their thrust in concert to quicken the F-22As ability to pitch up or down, and if vectored in opposite directions, the Raptor’s rate of roll increases. Massive twin vertical stabilizers with huge moving surfaces, coupled with moving tail planes, are designed to give the Raptor an edge if its pilot winds up in a battle.

Just a correction, they [LockMart] investigated it, but it made no discernable difference, most likely due to the close coupling of the engines, so the F-22 cannot vector its nozzles in opposite directions.

Are you telling me after all the posts here you still don’t get it?

1…F-15s don’t have an infinite airframe life.
2…Against a well-flown Su-30 it’s barely even or less for the F-15.
3…Trading one-for-one is no way to win.
4…An F-15 cannot enter airspace defended by double-digit SAMs with a reasonable expectation of surviving.
5…An F-15 would be helpless against an adversary equipped with AWACS and KS-172
6…Russia is working on the next generation fighter, the PAK-FA and according to their latest claims it’ll be flying soon.
7…China continues to increase it’s number of advanced aircraft with no signs of letting up.

Is that enough for now? Do you still just not get it? :rolleyes: I’ll tell you what, why don’t you tell us why you feel decrepit F-15s will still dominate the skies in 2030.

You mean enemy fighters? Why wouldn’t it be able to?

LOL S-400 radars don’t grow on trees. Do you think they’ll be mounting them on the back of HUMVEEs and just tooling around the battlfield with them? Even lasers can be overwhelmed with numbers as each engagement takes a finite amount of time. Just for example you could redesign an ATACMs with small guided submunitions and have them seperate from the carrier vehicle at motor burnout and go the rest of the way on their own. ATACMs can carry a 1200lb payload for over a hundred miles so let’s just say you have a 1000lbs to work with. That’s 50 20lb guided submunitions you could have incoming. No way is your laser going to get them all. Put an ablative coating on the outside and spin the submunition and your problem just got a LOT harder. When laser defences get widespread I suspect unitary warheads will go buh-bye.

– You are still missing it, there won’t be an air war, I’ll just concentrate on ground assets that can deny the airspace from the ground. When the JSF gets its laser do you not think it will become the main player – after all, it gives it an effective phalanx system against enemy AA missiles.

– Because the enemy won’t use fighters, just ground based lasers.

– It doesn’t have to be an S-400, I was just using it as an example. Laser goes at the speed of light – anything passing inside the radar bubble is dead. Currently the ABL takes around 2 seconds for a burnthrough IIRC [dependant on range and other factors like atmospheric conditions]. I think it would be reasonable to assume a future design (20 yrs say) would have at least the same power output.

You have battery of 4 lasers, that gives a target service rate of 2 targets a second average. It would take 25 seconds to dispose of your 50 submunitions. At Mach 1, thats 8.5 km. Any radar worth taking about (again, within the timeframe) fitted to an ultra modern radar would be capable of detecting anything at 8.5 km.

Obviouosly you’re not the one getting it. If I’ve got a laser on an F-35 that you can’t see and you’ve got a laser on the ground that I CAN see who do you think is going to die?

And what about the F-22?

The JSF has the internal space for the laser.

Unless you propose throwing it into the bomb bay someway. Would need a big redesign to get the necessary electrical power piped in.

Then do you suggest scrapping all fighters or other aircraft as lasers will rule the roust.

No, only the more advanced nations will have the capability… but all you need to deal with the lesser nations will be a bomb truck anyway, like the BUFF – not an F-22.

But if you wish to attack someone armed with a laser defence, forget aircraft.

Composites and other dielectrics do show up on radar. Thats why you can detect birds and storm clouds with radar. Even if you built a perfectly transparent airplane structure, there’s plenty of stuff in an airplane that will reflect RF (wiring, plumbing, engines avionics boxes, engines, etc).

Yup, ideally you want to absorb the wave, not let it transmit through the skin.