Even the Raptor cant accelerate through the Mach in vertical flight I think. Someone here posted a nice F-22 pilot report here. Cant find it right now.
If I remember correctly, the Raptor can accelerate in vertical flight if the starting speed is high enough (high airflow through the engines required), but will not go through the barrier.

Here’s a story:

“K – my first chance to let the jet loose on takeoff. I was at Edwards and they had a perfect mission for this. It was a single ship, no test support (control room) required, and I had my own tanker. All I had to do was takeoff and fly around for 2 hours collecting data from the MLD’s (missile launch detectors). In other words it was a free sortie with a lot of gas available and I had the airspace to myself since it didn’t matter what I did during the sortie, in fact more maneuvering was better to get data.

Having never had a chance to really see what the jet would be like on takeoff, and since I had a tanker to keep me full of gas, I decided to do a max performance takeoff and let it go straight up to see what it would do. Edwards has that 15,000 foot runway, and an unlimited ceiling since it sits in a restricted airspace. So on taxi I asked for a max climb out to 25,000 feet, the controller said, 29,000? I said, sure that’ll work, not that they care or it matters. I really had no idea what I’d end up with and with my Eagle time I figured I’d be lucky to get to 29,000. So I let it go to about 570 or so which was prior to the end of the runway and started a pull, not too much g, maybe 4 or 5, and went to 90 degrees nose high. I wasn’t really paying attention to the airspeed or altitude because I was really enjoying the view and the ride, it was amazing. I started to feel a little buffet and looked inside to see what the deal was, expecting that I was starting to slow down to the point where I was getting the same kind of buffet you feel as the jet slows down and a little alpha starts to build on the wings, that’s how it goes in a Eagle too. Well, there’s also a little buffet in the Raptor when your about to go supersonic, and to my surprise, and I started laughing, the jet was at .99 mach and trying it’s best to punch through to supersonic flight, straight up, passing about 18 or 19 thousand feet or so, it began a slow deceleration as I stared in awe at the HUD mach indication and at .94 mach I realized I was at 25,000 and was going to blast way through my altitude, so I rolled and started a 4 to 5 g pull to level out, which of course didn’t work and I leveled at about 31,500 feet at about 330knots (don’t know why those numbers stick in my head but they do). Now for you pilots out there, you know when you pull g, especially at higher altitudes and heavy weight, it’s a fairly energy depleting event.

So go figure, I’m FULLY loaded with fuel at takeoff, ALL of the weapons bays were loaded, so I am in my combat configuration, in a regular line jet, no tweaks, no special modifications, no weight taken out (as in the Streak Eagle or Mig 25 flights, etc.), nothing, just a line jet any old pilot could step to and fly. So I talked to the engineers and with some quick math they guessed I could have topped out in the low 60 thousand numbers’ish. That wasn’t flying a special profile like other jets have either (Rutowski profile – misspelled?), it was just a pull to the nose straight up. This…jet…is…a…monster!!”

About the smoking, even the F119s in the Raptor do it in some settings and situations.

You can see it in some parts of this video.

Heh, I just saw the C-5M a few minutes ago. Nice looking plane and it doesn’t scream like the old ones.

These kids and their drifting.

Hahahaha…. 😀

I’m astounded to hear the the F-22 cannot carry LGBs …

Why? The USAF seems to think that GPS-guided bombs are precise enough for the types of missions the Raptor will be doing.

The F-35 will most likely take the LGB-delivery role from the F-117.

I just looked at that picture. It looks like my little sister’s first try at MS Paint. 😀

MiG, do you really believe that picture shows an AIM-54? I can’t even make the Tomcat out of that wreckage.

I know I said I wasn’t coming back but I just have to say that MiG’s rants are bordering on insanity. I’m rolling on the floor with some of his unfounded explanations. 😀

MiG, have you managed to explain why the F-22’s so-called “faceting” is bad for aerodynamics because you seem to be the only one believing it.

I got that from a guy on the World Affairs Board who knows way more than I know, and more than 99% of people on this board about the Raptor and other progrmas.

Here’s the article he quoted.

y MICHAEL FABEY
DefenseNews.com

Touted as the world’s next-generation stealthy jet fighters and attack aircraft, the F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will gather battlefield information as well.

The sensor suites on the two planes will turn them into information sponges, promising useful performance as fast-moving intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms with the datalinks to send real time data to ground troops.

Like the Raptor’s and JSF’s active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, the fighters’ other ISR sensors are incorporated into the plane, the wiring laced throughout their wings and body. This helps keep the aircraft stealthy.

“What the F/A-22 offers that no other fighter aircraft has is a huge amount of processing power linked to an airframe designed for an embedded antenna,” said Loren Thompson, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank.

The Raptor combines the ability to pick up electromagnetic emissions across a broad spectrum — from radio waves to infrared light — with a pair of powerful onboard computers with a vast library of signal patterns. This allows the aircraft to collect, process and identify signals in a way no other fighter aircraft can, Thompson said.

“No sensor system is better in aperture, power supply or field of view than the platform carrying it,” he said. The Raptor “will never have the field of view of a satellite and never be able to eavesdrop with the depth of a Rivet Joint.”

The JSF’s ISR abilities will closely match the Raptor’s, said Jon Waldrop, Lockheed’s international programs director.

Planning for embedded sensors began early in the Raptor’s two-decade gestation. In a 1995 report, “Concurrency and Risk of the F-22 Program,” the Defense Science Board Task Force cited “multiple (15-20) sources of passive surveillance” planned for the Raptor.

“The passive surveillance system includes many stressing performance requirements,” the report said. “Most are beyond anything previously accomplished on any airborne platform, regardless of size.”

Today, Goodson said, the sensor suite is almost as powerful as that of many advanced electronic intelligence (ELINT) gathering aircraft, for signal identification capability and pinpointing subjects with precision.

“The nontraditional ISR idea grew from the fact that the F/A-22 sensor suite is so powerful,” said Ray Goodson, senior manager of the Integrated Warfare Development Center (IWDC) at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ Fort Worth, Tex., facility, in an undated release on the Web site of the company, the prime contractor for both planes.

“The question became: Why don’t we use it to augment some of the ELINT collection required deep within high-threat or ‘denied-access areas,’ seeking out those elusive signals.”

The U.S. military’s signals-gathering aircraft include the U-2, E-8 Joint STARS, E-3 AWACS, RC-135 Rivet Joint and EP-3E Aries. But the most famous was likely the SR-71 Blackbird, the exotic 2,000-mile-an-hour spy plane that was retired in 1997. While the other aircraft generally collect their data at some distance from the combat zone, the SR-71 was sent streaking directly over North Vietnam, sucking up electromagnetic emissions during a three-minute transit of the narrow country.

These Blackbird missions could become a template for the stealthy, supercruising F/A-22. Analysts say small fleets of Raptors or JSFs could be sent deep into enemy territory and, because of their stealthiness, sop up a great deal of intelligence without being noticed.

During, or more likely, after the overflight, selected information could be downloaded to ground troops and commanders.

Why the Secret?

Why hasn’t the Air Force talked about this before? They’ve apparently been happy to keep some of the Raptor’s capabilities quiet. Thompson said senior U.S. Air Force officials had told him that 60 percent of the F/A-22’s key warfighting features are too secret to discuss.

Another hidden capability is the AESA radar’s ability to blind enemy sensors with blasts of electromagnetic energy.

But the Raptor is under fire for its high price tag — about a quarter-billion dollars with development costs, perhaps half that for flyaway costs — and its proposed production run has been slashed from about 750 to around 180 planes. Under the circumstances, the plane’s true ISR capability has become more of a selling point.

The embedded-antenna technology may be further developed for the next generation of unmanned aircraft. Lately, the Air Force has started to look to unmanned aircraft such as the Predator or Global Hawk for such ISR work.

Richard Aboulafia, Teal vice president of analysis, wrote in a February report, “The Last Great Decade,” about the fighter market that the F-35 technology could point the way for future unmanned combat aerial vehicles.