In no particular order:

YF-23
Avro Arrow
F-86
YF-12
MiG-21
Sukhoi Flanker series
Rafale
F-101 Voodoo
F-104
Folland Gnat, if only for the size, forget about the Viper, this WAS literally the plane you wore.

Has to be said though that the capability of any aircraft is precisely zero without well trained pilots regardless of the qualities of the airframe. And indeed supporting elements like AWACS give considerable augmentation to the performance of any air combat system. Training and seat time is extremely important. The often argued Cope India exercise showed the value of seat time on the Indian side.

not only that but they arent designed for supercruise but rather economy..MPJAY could explain better.

The SDB just attacked a target from 55 miles(with a 34 inch target impact) out at 30,000 feet lauch from an f-15E..a supercruising raptor can probably do better on that range..Stealth JASSM’s on external stores would mean a range of close to 370KM…and JSOW’s mean something around 40nm…a JDAM with diamondback kit can be launched from as far as 65Km’s..so these are considerable SO ranges for the raptor to exploit..

the most likely strike mission for the raptor would be a High stealth FDOW attack on enemy’s fixed radard sites,air defences,runways,hangers etc etc and other high value targets..where it would deliver the punch along with other assets such as the b-2 and f-117 in addition to provide air-superiority,but that would be secondary as limited no.s of raptor airframe means that u are les flexible when it comes to exploiting the full a2g capability..atleast till the enemies air-forces are taken care off..

Re: the engines, its all down to bypass ratio and momentum change as had been discussed in another recent thread, current estimates of the F119 engine put it at 320lbs/serc airflow…mostly through the core with only 30% or so going around, an F100 or F110 has something like a 0.7:1 bypass ratio (F100-PW-229 and above are much less, less than 0.4:1) You’re essentially looking at a bleed bypass turbojet, so naturally the exhaust is hotter and it can be expanded much more aggressively, one of the limiting factors with pressure thrust is just that…..pressure build up inside the post turbine section disturbing rest of the engine, the air essentially backs up for a fraction of a second and you get a nasty stall. An extreme version of this occured in the early F100 series in the F-15 and F-16, they lit the afterburner and it went through a cyclic series of ignites and pops, the pressure wave travelled up the bypass duct and stalled the fan, all this at several cycles per second. Enough to shake your eyeball out. Since then the bypass duct splitter was extended much further forward, almost to the level of the third stage fan stators.

At the other end I’m sure we all know what convergent/divergent nozzles are for, at the convergence point a normal shock forms and would tend to choke the airflow past a certain mass airflow, so the rest of the nozzle diverges and accelerates the gas flow. But its a function of temperature, to get that higher freestream temp you used to need an afterburner, but with the newer engines they’re able to run hot enough to produce thrust based on airflow parameters and specific heat of the core airflow, the bypass air is essentially just used to cool the afterburner liner. To put it in perspective, the first F100’s ran at 1400 Dec C TIT, the turbine inlet temperature of the F119 is in excess of 1700 Deg C. Far in excess of the melting point of the blades, and since so much of that air goes through the core and it has only 2 turbine stages to go through, it retains much of its energy and heat for exhaust giving more thrust.

Increasing the bypass ratio does a couple things, you get more mass flow, but the engine becomes larger, heavier and doesn’t quite have the punch in dry thrust that the lower bypass engine has at the higher speeds. It does generally have a better augmented thrust ratio as there’s more oxygen in the augmentor section and can burn more fuel. But they do generally have quite a bit better fuel consumption than the low bypass engines. And more efficient in a propulsive sense, there’s a ratio of propulsion efficiency based on exhaust velocity and aircraft velocity, the lower the ratio between them the more efficient it is. Obviously for a combat airframe it wouldn’t do well to have a contrarotating propfan engine getting kickass fuel economy if you’re a fighter, but it worked for the Bear. It’s all about balance. The FB-22 is supposed to have up to 14 hour missions, that’s a big difference and although obviously necessitating multiple mid air refuellings, you still have to have an engine that is both powerful and fuel efficient than the standard F119.

Ever seen the size of the F135/F136? You could practically shove a small sofa in the back and lay down in it. It’s enormous.

Full accident summary report from the USAF on the Nellis Raptor crash.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-901323.php

http://www.airforcetimes.com/content/editorial/pdf/af.exsum_f22crash_060805.pdf

SOC, both planes (f18-17) has the same aerodynamic concept, low speed AoA isnt very relationated with the g limit, but more with the aerodynamics, the “loser” planes always has those nice tales, the f18 weight increase isnt justificative to limit the fantastic 100º AoA

Mpjay, the limited (and overated) supercruiser f18, i by the low bypass turbofan F404

What’s your point over g? I said YF-17, not F/A-18, which was powered by the YJ101, the F404’s immediate predecessor. By its nature it had more dry supersonic usable thrust compared to the 0.6:1 bypass F100 in the F-16, I was stating that for its time, despite one of the apparent critisms of the airframe concerning supersonic drag, that it was capable of something the YF-16 was not.

The idea of high dry T/W ratio was a logical technology that was shelved until more advanced engine technology was developed for the ATF program is relevant wouldn’t you say? AFAIK, it wasn’t even the first, the SAAB Draken flew supersonic using a non afterburning engine in level flight in 1956. And 2 years earlier the prototype English Electric Lightning did the same. Hardly powerful engines, but efficient airframes. Only today has the combination of extremely powerful engines plus efficient internal carriage aero has made supercruise efficient enough to be truely worthwhile.

IIRC the top speed for the F120 powered YF-23 was never given and is still classified. As for the fuel on the F-22 my guess would be that the reason the production model holds less fuel is because it’s been slimed down significantly in relation to the prototype so you’ve got less volume to work with.

Actually they released fairly comprehensive performance figures for both airframes and top supercruise speed was stated to be only Mach 1.6.

Ref Aronstein, Hirschberg and Piccirillo “F-22 Raptor – Origins of the 21st Century Air Dominance Fighter” pages 133 and 151. Piccirillo was ATF program manager from 1983-1987.

Regarding the F-117 design………it’s so bad aerodynamically I’m continually surprised it’s able to meet its range guarantee, its lift to drag ratio is quite a bit worse than even the F-104. Mind you…..its has more lift proportionally……but hella more drag.

Going back through the thread, concerning supercruise, it is evident through official USAF sources that the combat radius of the Raptor is adequate but certainly nothing spectactular, 410nm radius mixed subsonic/supersonic (only 100nm supersonic) or roughly 600nm pure subsonic. The original ATF specifications requested 750 nm radius for instance. Cost reasons have relaxed some requirements, and some capabilities vaunted for the Raptor wont come online for years yet with the full ground attack and intelligence gathering software systems. One USAF interview i read way back suggested the air force might not find a Raptor force below 200 aircraft sustainable, this was when they thought they were still getting 330 of them or so.