Its a two way street – the yanks could have uprated the performance of the F-16 to get 800 hours instead of its 4000 hours – then it would be a level playing field performance wise with the Mig-29; or perhaps even the original 400 hours spec.

Perhaps. I don’t know. I think though that it’d have been interesting to compare them on their intended operational performance, the way they could have met in a real life engagement. In real life, as flown by OPFOR it might have had engines without detune, but would the USAF have tuned its engines in favour of thrust to only last 800 or 400 hours? 🙂

They were not detuned from the start till to the end. That detuned engines were for a limited period only, because the gains from that did not fulfil.

Ah, didn’t know that. Thanks. 🙂

Hey :). Yes, as I said any data on turn rates/rate of climb/top speed/ceiling etc etc is classified. Especially the F-22 and anything released is generally sanitised. The same holds true for the Tiffy – Rafale – Gripen despite them being more forthcoming on some of the stats. So in short there is NO public data available. The best I had seen in terms of direct comparisons of operational capabilities was the F-22/Tiffy/F-15/Su-30 comparisons I saw toan post based on Speed vs Height at the Eurofighter website. They were based on published sources etc so I thought id just put them in. But NO DOUBT THEY are also santised and perhaps erroneous.

As to the 2nd point. I will stress it once again – the F-22 will easily and I mean easily be able to fly at 0 alpha in any operational conditions with an A-A config. Fighters are designed with one big thing in mind LIFT. Their high speeds mean they produce lift (L is basically proportional to V^2)- their huge wing means they produce lift – their fuselage designs aid in producing lift. Lift is essential for everything the fighter does and when a modern 11-20 ton jet turns at a very rapid rate it is the massive lift that maintains its circular motion – where a jet is at 9gs +. They are as such, very comfortable with flying in straight and level flight at almost any alpha 🙂 from – to 0 to +. So yes, the F-22 wont need any angle of incidence to fly in its operation configs… It will need it at the heights of its ceiling or say at its close to stall speeds; but thats it. Thats pretty much the same with any of the NG jets – the F-22 does however use the TVC to trim the jet up high and at high speeds – this is a less draggy/more efficient means to do so than without TVC- helping its supersonic persistence.

Ah, OK. Thank you! 🙂

Really? 😀 Just your guessing to stay polite.

Now is the time my reading comprehension fails me. I don’t understand what you mean.

Did you claim the same with your finer semantic point. :diablo:

I didn’t claim anything, I made a joke and pointed out an alternative way to read the statement. Claims are rarely made with a question mark at the end of the sentence.

How about something useful for the benefit of that topic?

Yes, please. Lead by example.

I think both the manufacturers of EF-2000 and Rafale should accelerate their pace of integrating more advanced LO techonology to their fighters in order to face the threat like Su-35BM in the near future (post-2012).

Unless they uncover some alien technology, I don’t think they should bother. There’s only so much you can do with legacy airframes. All Generation 4(+) fighters have radars powerful enough to detect each other outside of weapons employment parameters and I don’t think there’s much to be done about it in terms of RCS reduction, especially with any kind of ordnance on the jet.

I would put more money into missile development and integration. Additional RCS and radar power improvements for 4th gen jets won’t be of much interest really until the weapons catch up to radar-related performance.

They are of course classified but Toan posted a few speed vs height comparisons of the tiffy, F-22, F-15 and an Su-xx. The F-22 came out on top in every circumstance and they were from published sources I assume. The tiffy came 2nd.

I’m much more interested in STR and ITR than flight envelopes though, especially down low. Are there any published numbers available anywhere? You were talking about turn rates before.

Weight won’t increase the AoA – the F-22 has two positive lift generating surfaces in the wings and horizontal stabs and its CoG is balanced between them with the help of its advanced FCS system. The F-22 is not like James May’s little cessna :). In straight and level flight with the huge amount of lift generated by those wings and the massive amount of speed generated by the F-119 combo it really has an excess amount of lift in any condition – the pilot wont need to increase AoA to sustain flight except at the edge of its opertional ceiling and that is also dependent on the classified thrust ratings of the F-119 at those altitudes. Which would be the case for any jet. Thus it really wont be suffering a drag penalty as such. If it were a Remos G-3 🙂 with a small Rotax engine and a tiny wing yes weight then does become more of a factor :). Drag from externals however is a big thing, the F-15C can’t break Mach 2 – and ive seen numbers as low as Mach 1.7 – with just a missile config, thats a Mach 0.5 + performance drop from its max speed; with just Amraams/Winders.

So, as long as the F-22 is keeping it’s flight level it is constantly flying at an AoA of 0°, unless at the edge of its operational ceiling? Not even 2° or 3° alpha?

Let me also mention the F-22 wont be getting any more draggy than it is in operational conditions.

Shouldn’t additional weight increase angle of attack at a given flight regime and therefore increase drag? 🙂

Don’t know how it works out in numbers, but at least a slight penalty should be there, shouldn’t it?

Did the RuAF ever say that Su-35 is going to be a F-22 beater? If it is an F-22 beater then they really wouldn’t need the PAK-FA.

From what I gathered:

PAK-FA >><< F-22

Not Su-35BM. From what I gathered Su-35BM is a gap filler…

Which is why I mentioned the “proponents on this forum here” considering the Su-35BM. From what I could get, some fans of Russian hardware made it sound like the Su-35BM was a fair match for the F-22.

It wasn’t my intention to claim that Sukhoi/RuAF were trying to position it there (like a questionable strategypage.com article calling it the F-22ski). I think Sukhoi/RuAF are more aware of their hardware’s advantages and shortcomings than their fans on internet forums, who tend to be blind to the shortcomings.

Since last week I’ve been wondering, whether the planned order cuts could actually play into the EF consortium being able to upgrade the planned T3 spec, although doing so in a roundabout way.

Assuming that the contractual penalties to order cuts are harsh and virtually prohibitive, the governments might look to actually sell the airframes on. But to do so and appropriately position them in the market place, they might have to pile on some goodies like CAESAR, quicker weapons integration, passive MAWS and HMCS/HMD.

This way, Great Britain and Italy could reduce their respective losses while driving on T3 development. GB selling to Saudi Arabia and Italy to Greece perhaps? Or offload some planes to Switzerland?