The F-22 is not aerodynamicaly efficient at all, compared to modern fighters. It simply has a bad aerodynamics which is a consequence of compromise which had to be made in order to get a more stealthy design.
Remember that in aircraft design you can not have everything. To be more stealthy design, the F-22 have got some desigh features which are good for stealth but not so good for controllability at high AoA.
Design requirements for Stealth and for a good Lateral-Directional stability at high AoA are not the same.
It has less than optimum wing aspect ratio, its fuselage volume is too high, it has no LERX, etc, etc. All that, on the other hand, is required for stealth characteristics.
Wrong Firebar. Vortex already explained this in a post a few months ago. The F-22’s aerodynamics are very advanced, ahead of the Flanker and any other fighter today for that matter. Here is what he said.
Point by point i can tell you that you are simply wrong from the aerodynamicists perspective.
* The wing of the F22 is curved along the spanwise direction, reflecting a tailoring toward supersonic speeds by controlling the separated vortex in conjunction with the leading edge flaps. The Su27 is a simple tapered moderately swept wing. The F22’s wing is not only over a generation ahead of the baseline Su27, but a fully one generation ahead of the coupled canard/delta design (ie. the Rafale, Typhoon, and later Su27x. In fact this wing is so advanced (therefore so expensive), it wasn’t repeated in the lower cost F35. Although the X32 had a very advanced supersonic wing also.
* In terms of aerodynamics, the F22 does have a triplane like aerodynamics, except that the forward fuselage strake is aerodynamically more efficient than an explicit canard as found in the Su27 triplane derivatives.
* Instead of the 2D supersonic inlets (which traces back to the Vigilante if not earlier), the F22 has a 2-1/2D inlet where the cross flow situation is taken into acount.
* The fly by wire system of the F22 is the most advanced in the world where it take into acount of integrated flight manuevering using all the surfaces. Basically, instead of decoupled effectors (i.e., let’s use only rudders to generate yaw), all the control surfaces participate in flight manuevers. The only other known aircraft to have near this level of advanced flight control is the Japanese F2 (unfortunately, their avionics was claimed to be crap by some here).
* The aeroelasticity of the F22 takes into account the thrust vectoring requirements, making this the first and ONLY operational fighter plane out there designed with TVC in mind, instead of just add ons. If you claim it’s simply an add-on then you have absolutely no idea what it takes. A simple clue is why the YF22’s PIO accident caused such a pain to the firefighters. Just exactly which requirement that’s such a big deal? Supersonic TVC manuevering as part of routine. Just about every fighter plane can have a TVC upgrade, but most, if not all, won’t survive the way F22 uses it. Why is it so important how the F22 uses it? TVC has two distinct flight manuevering advantages. One at low speed and one at high speed (at intermediate speeds, high subsonics, it’s actually not as good as aero control surfaces). At low speeds it’s quite obvious, wings stall. At high speeds…the servo mechanisms for the aero surfaces became too weak. This also requires a high stiffness body mount for TVC operations. The way the Su27xx mounts it, the entire rear fuselage would buckle.
* Small increases in drag counts at high speeds is a BIG deal. Anybody who ever drives a car at drag limited speeds knows that, don’t even need to go to fighter plane speeds.
* The F22 is a more unstable aircraft than the Su27. Logically, what limits the ability to fly something more unstable is ultimately limited to the update rates of the flight computer. We all know where that’s going.
All the above IS aerodynamics. Just because someboy souped up their Pintos and drive at 150mph on the freeway doesn’t make it a sports car when a Ferrari is idling by at 60mph.
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