But they might be gone quickly if it turns out to be another Joint Super Failure.

Yes, it is too late now to terminate the F-22 programme. But wise men say that the success is measured by what you had to give up for it..

I would not terminate the JSF programme at any costs. The machine will be export hit, unlike the F-22, only a fool would prefer ridiculous national defense interest to zillions of export dollars that are hidden behind the F-35. Somehow I still got the feeling that you really do believe the weapon exporters care about national defense at all. If you want charity and devotion, a church is much more viable option than Lockheed Martin or Pentagon.

I simply believe that the F-22 has already shown it can do most of the things people exepcted from it and more.

The F-35 however ist a F-111 meeting an AV-8 programm. Somehow most joined programms were quite a failure. And the F-35 has a lot of potential in that field. 😀

To illustrate Arthur’s point I’m pretty sure the only “all-American” contender for the US Army’s LUH is the Bell 210/Huey II (ie refurbished UH-1H/V airframes). I think the two Euro competitors are the AB139 and the EC635 but the whole programme is subject to ratification in a couple of months’ time.

Art’s mention of the S-76 also reminded me that, until the relationship concluded, their fuselages were being constructed at Aero Vodochody in the Cech Rep.

I guess it’s been widely reported by now in today’s media items, but worth reporting that the cost of the VH-69A programme in total will be $6.1 billion, with the full-spec choppers costing around $110 million apiece.

Steve ~ Touchdown-News

Yeah, the UH-1 upgrade offered would be the most strange development of the future. The US Army retires the UH-1 because they are too old and a too heavy burden on the supply chain. then Bell buys them dirt cheap, refurbishes them and sells them again to the Army.

I would be interested in that list.

That was not the point, at least not with my posts. You gotta distinguish between blindfold and constructive critisism, seahawk. I am here speaking only for myself but am sure many Raptor *critisisors* share similar viewpoint.

There is no doubt about the need for developing new aircraft and Raptor certainly is an answer to 21st century requirements, even if I swear I would love to see the F-23 instead, but whatever. What really bugs me is the altitude of many posters who automatically claim the machine as *the ultimate super-douper predator that brings the definition of aerial combat to new unexplored dimensions*, blah-blah. Cheer down, friends, the machine still fights with childern diseases, software flaws and reliability issues and has not proven anything so far, except tremendous cost overruns, as well as several reports that claim the super-douper stealth capability not that much super-douper anymore, mostly because large reflections of canopy, landing gear and weapons bay doors etc. etc.

Whatever… We might never know for sure. The Raptor is one hell of a fighter, no doubt. It probably beats any Hyper-Flanker variant on any occassion, when 1-on-1, again, little doubt here.. I believe there were simulated fights against F-15s and I am sure they turned out pretty nice for the F/A-22. The announced shooting down six Eagles w/o being detected surely might have happened, even if it hardly becomes standard as some individuals would like us to believe. Anyway, the agility surely is admirable, the supercruise at M1.5 is very remarkable. I even pretty much like its shape, believe me or not, I got the 1/48 Italeri kit at home + Eduard etched parts, (bought with great discount).

The bird is greatly overpriced and surely ain’t unbeatable, no matter how many Pentagon reports we might see in the future.. It lacks sharp teeth, as AMRAAM is one generation behind the whole conception of supremacy. That is my constructive critisism regarding this machine. I also wonder how this machine fits into the new definition of announced *anti-terrorist* war, but since I am no US taxpayer, I rest the case.

But that does not answer the question. The legacy F-15s are tired, as is a large part of the F-16 fleet. Te F-15s have over twenty years of air to air training behind them. You don´t need to recondition the airframes, you need a complete rebuilt. You need new engines, avionics, rebuilt airframes … and all this will give you about 15 years more operating life.
On the other hand there is the Raptor which is clearly superior and has been paid for already largely. The R&D costs, the testing costs, all this has been paid and cancelling the program will not bring the money back. The 250 million dollar cost is simply not true anymore. That is the price when you add the programm costs and divide them through the number of airframes.
Another cost factor is the small low production purchase of the USAF. Instead of buying 160 planes in 10+ years, they should buy 200 in 4 years.

The other unknown ist the F-35 Aardpiglet. Which at best will be a stealthy F-16, at worst a stealthy A-7. The plane lacks a decent AA missile load and the speed to be a true challenger to future russian or chinese fighters.
That is the plane that could be dropped. It is not good enough for high intensity and high threat conflicts, were you would better go F-22 + UACVs and it is too good for the anti terrorist wars.

The USAF needs to rethink their options, they can either be stuck with a bigger number of medicore planes (F-35), or with a smaller number of high perfromance planes + UACVs. Those could be added by legacy A-10s as special low intensity conflict wings. But that one mean to do away with the one plane – one pilot mytholgy that is endorsed by the USAF. Unfortunately most decision makers are pilots.

One question for the Raptor critics, do you believe that it would make sense to writte off all the billions of moeny that have already been spent on the programm ??

Which alternative is there for the USAF ?? The glorified stealth A-7 called F-35, the Super Bug, starting another totally new project ??

The fact is that the F-15A/B/C/D will need a replacement in the forseeable future, just because the airframes are tired.

[QUOTE=flex297]Hmm, I don’t know whether this is a similar situation. MiG-25s were mostly uninterceptable due to their tremendous speed of M 2.8, or even M 3.0 in extreme regimes, their counterparts being mostly Rhinos. Even if Raptor is able to supercruise at M 1.5 (a very remarkable achievement, IMO), it does not really put it in advantage as long as the intercepting fighters do not care about their fuel consumption, ergo range. [quote]

Yes, the MiG-25 was uninterceptable because of its speed, but on the other hand it was a huge radar target. So it could be detected quite early. Its speed however meant enemy fighters could rarely get into a firing position. The F-22 is slower, but the radar signature (and IR) is much lower. So does only have half the speed, but it should have a radar signature of the 1/10 of a MiG-25. So what is harder to intercept, a Mach 3 target you can detect at 100km+ range or a Mach 1,5 target you can detect at 20km+ range.

I don’t think that the Raptor is that hard to detect with other type of radar as the X-band Doppler device, against which it has been optimized.

Which we don´t know. And the raptor might be able to adjust to threat system by using different versions of RAM.

Hardly.. As long as USAF does not have an alternative to a heavyweight fighter, the program would not be cancelled even if the original requirements were never met. The most deadly thing on the Raptor is its (so far unearned) rumour.

The USAF wants the F-22 no doubt about it. However the pentagon wants to get rid of it since the Bush team got into power.

There is no reason to suppose, the Typhoon should be firing its missiles at M 0.8 only. Simply because there is no reason why its A/B should be turned off while performing an interception. Range plays little role here..

I presume Mach 0.8 as it is likely that the F-22 will be the first to detect an enemy fighter. Most conventional fighters however are caping at Mach 0.7-0.8. A conventional fighter would only accelarte using his AB (and spending his precious fuel) when he is aware of an attacking threat.

It probably is. But I think the gap between F/A-22 and Typhoon or Super Flanker is much thinner than the one of F-15A vs. MiG-23MF once was.

And I think that is what people thought about the F-15 as well. Was the F-4 not close to the F-15A. It was faster, had about the same range, could carry the sameweapons, had a two man crew. The only drawbback were the not so modern radar and the worse manouverability.

This, IMHO very cheap, phrase has very often been quoted, yet nobody ever provided solid background for whatever reason no fighter should be able to come close enough to F-22 to fire its missiles (which are not necessarily radar-guided only).. The Raptor can play hide-and-seek a bit better than its counterparts, but only from certain positions and angles. Its overall stealth capability is a perfectly overrated and unproven hype that many have swallowed down. The fact is that Raptor’s teeth are only as sharp as the ones of Typhoon, Flanker or Rafale, there is no serious advantage for the F/A-22 in terms of available Air-to-Air weaponry, which makes the whole $250+ million thing a bit doubtful. Regardless some improved characteristics over its counterparts I have serious doubts that it’s gonna be a win in terms of performance/cost ratio. Despite of plenty politics involved, there sure is also a technically and financially based background for the opposition in Congress that would like to see the programme dead. Politics aside, but they know the bird is light years away from *ultimate predator* as somebody (or you?) here pointed out.

You remember how difficult it was and is to bring down an MiG-25. So now imagine the F-22 as a slower but much less detectable MiG-25. And now make the MiG-25 manouverable like an F-15 or F-16. Easy to catch ? I donßt think so.
Also it is a rumor that is surfacig on the internet that the F-22 is not designed for all around reduced RCS. And I think that with all the pressure the plane has faced during the development phase and even now, a failure to fullfill the USAF requirements for RCS reduction would have terminated the programm.
So even we only give it half the RCS of an EF (which is the closest flying competitor and I bet the F-22 is much better) it would mean a 20% reduction in detection range. But that is not only for detection, but als for engagement ranges. The range of the active seeker of an BVR will be also more challenged. Now add the higher launch speed of the F-22 (Mach 1.3 compared to Mach 0.8) and you get a huge range advantage.
The big drawback of the ultra long range AAMs is the problem, that you have to detect a target at that range to make use of the missile range.
The F-22 is the best fighter flyin in the world today and enjoys a healthy superiority over all its counterparts. One could even say it is worth the the advntage the F-15 enjoyed when it went into service.