Most definitely, but 183 F-22s against a similar number of mobile S-3XX batteries? I’d wager it would be “I cant touch you & vice versa” if both sides are equally skilled. My point is against non peer nations, the F-22 is waaaaaaaay overkill (pardon my letter’ed histrionics). What the USAF currently has can whack countries like NoKo, Iran etc seven ways till Sunday, and then some. Its simply not required.

That is definitely a valid argument – but personally I would want to stick to the F-22. Where 70 billion over its development and procurement lifespan isn’t a dent in the US DoD budget. We both know if politics weren’t as they were the US would have got quite a few more F-22s for that same amount of money.

While with it one still has the silver bullet capability of defeating S-300/400 type SAMs and defeating advanced aerial opposition with minimum casualties. For if countries like Iran/NoKo purchase such systems – they will inflict relatively large casualties on legacy US jets – which would have quite a bad affect on US morale – which generally goes to war without much sustained public consent. While JSF would have required a lot more R+D needed to develop it without the F-22.

What would be more impressive? That money into the US economy, to sustain a long term fight in Iraq (Advantage? The US “stays”, it doesnt cut and run), research into inexpensive UCAVs and swarms that are smaller, cheaper and more numerous than the F-22 blanking out weapons sites with nil threat to any USAF personnel.

I say take the F-22 blanking out weapon sites with nil threat to any USAF personnel – and get out of asymmetric wars like IRAQ and spend that $170 billion annually on UCAVs so we can rapidly develop it technology – other forms of conventional warfare – and spend the rest on diplomacy – the best way to fight those types of warfare.

My point is that the ATF knocked one guy out of the fighter business (McD, and then brought him back as a “aw shucks” in the form of Boeing) and took far too much time & money to make a fancy gee whiz aircraft that makes me go “wow”, but provides little effect to the new gen wars the US is fighting. If all that money had gone “my way”, the US could have dominated both the conventional and the non conventional fight.

I say get out of asymmetric warfare entirely – accept with the digital age all top end systems of war take ages and cash to produce – from the EF / Rafale / PAK-FA / Raptor to the ABL etc etc etc.

🙂
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WELLBUTRIN SETTLEMENT UPDATE

Can you elaborate on that Nick?
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Paxil Sickness

Sorry LM, in your post there is nothing certain. Its just an unequivocal belief that whatever the EF consortium claims about their product is absolutely true & that it will, must and should be that way.

I must point out that even if I come across as overly enthusiastic about the tiffy – I’m not implying that it will crush/dominate all in its path – all I said was it is superior to the MKI/other MRCA competitors – that being in most cases if it were part of the same system – with the same pilots etc.

For all the yacking from the PR arms – do we know the exact RCS of the EF in the frontal sector? No we dont.

No but I’m fairly certain it is within the ballpark figures that are quoted in Aviation mags – and surely better than the Flanker family?

The exact range of the Captor? No we dont. This “Captor is world beating” stuff is frankly, all the rah-rah stuff that gets published in aviation mags and we should know better than to repeat it.

Fair enough, but from the toan-like-estimations/sources 🙂 released for a M-Scan of its area – not much compares.

Same for the MMI & what not. This world beating stuff is so old, that it should be discarded by now unless there is unequivocal proof.

Here I am trusting Jack and Jon’s word – for they are apparently exposed to details or at least the gist of MMI – and I’m generally pretty trusting. They have their careers entrenched in this kind of talk throught the industry – it wouldn’t do them good if they were spreading misinformation. But again you could very well be correct.

There are enough radars out there with similar superior capability- the APG-77, the new APG-63 AESAs, the APG-79, the Bars, the new Irbis…the list is long and by no means complete. And in many cases, they are far more mature and well developed systems while the Captor is yet being developed fully and might be supplanted by a Captor-E just to “keep up with the joneses”, in other words, for all its world beating capabilities, the threat perception moved on.

That is if we believe the hype of those systems – EF are aggressively promoting the Captor in its current form as a practical solution – they ask: what actual benefits are current generation AESA giving over current gen M-Scan such as Captor, in the A-A role? Are current gen AESA truely that game changing? BVR-wise AESAs don’t compete at the edge of the gimbal aswell as M-Scan do. For supersonic based tactics that might have an effect – such as when one attempts to crank away while maintaining radar lock – do the current gen AESAs have the range to maintain lock at the edge of the gimbal while fleeing? Captor does.

In the other thread, there was a list of all the stuff that is being done for the EF, many capabilities, that have been rah-rah’ed for ages on the Net & what not have yet to be demonstrated. In IAF observation, the EF is a good plane but not invulnerable or by any means so far ahead as you have implied. The same has been felt by other users too, journalist comments & media reports apart. If those were the standards one went by, every fighter out there is the best there is.

EF pilots seem very enthused by the jet as did the pilots from singapore – who according to those journalists believe it was the best technical option. Do you have information/links on the IAF observations? Did they get to fly the jet? Until the IAF have a proper evaluation of the Typhoon I personally wouldn’t put to much stock into what they think – as I doubt the full capabilities of either jet were showcased. Mutli-national exercises of that type would appear to be much more choreographed than say Red Flag or excercises within the EU.

All this crank stuff is also ridiculous since the EF propoganda attempts to use the Raptor PR to score a similar point, but neglect to mention the tactic is being carried out at much lower speeds and height differential.

This is where I disagree mostly with you. Even if the Raptor program was to coin the word, it doesn’t take away from the fact this has been part of the EF philosophy from the start. Don’t underestimate the EFs performance from an operational ceiling point-of-view. It won’t be to far behind the Raptors, while its SC isn’t in the same class it will definitely engage in the use of AB while “cranking” away at least while turning. Also don’t neglect the benefit performance has on the fight – the same saying as I quoted before applies – systems can only go so far. The EFs supersonic performance advantages are pretty impressive – it will shrink the NEZ of an enemy missile by admittedly an unknown magnitude. But that alone will give the EF an advantage when engaging teen series fighters assuming they have the same missile ranges – which is pretty much what the EF has currently in the AIM-120 vs R-77 – the Meteor will only increase this advantage. While a Ramjet R-77 is probably a bit futher off in terms of operational service.

Any worldclass user will have a good eye in the sky, his fighters will remain passive, detect the EF at sufficient range & can afford to remain high subsonic while attempting to flank the EF for BVR shots. Saves fuel & is more well coordinated to boot. There are dime a dozen methods and I am not even getting into the pros and cons of TVC both in WVR and BVR.

That is assuming the EF doesn’t have similar support in the form of AWACS etc. While if they the systems are equal the EF still has top notch supersonic agility which can give it an edge – despite what systems engineers want us to believe :). I’m really talking about the standard notional head-on BVR engagement – it is the only way to compare modern AC, as there are so many other variables as you imply yourself.

Talking about TVC is interesting – from my limited education – I would say to you TVC is much more effective in its non-traditional forms. Neglecting HOBS/HMD – in a WVR situation with multiple boggies and wingmen – TVC won’t do much to help. Turn rates wise TVC has an effect in a limited number of flight regimes – pretty slow (even TVC equiped pilots don’t want to go there unless at an airshow – it may help you to kill but it leaves you vulnerable) – and pretty high up (which is why it is of more importance in a BVR engagement – but you still need the supersonic wing/aero config to enable quicker turns in that envirnoment); it isn’t TVC – but rather lift that turns a jet. Even in those limited circumstances such as slow and low the EF has HOBS/HMD to compensate when it finds itself in a 1 v 1 against a TVC Su-30 MKI. An example is – above certain speeds the F-22s TVC doesn’t come into play – in many flight regimes it doesn’t engage as there is no point in using it. Up high and for trim drag control it has benefits – so for idealistic BVR and in some very limited WVR combat it has uses. But other than that it is nothing more than a selling point/PR and fanboys delight in my opinion.

Fact of life is that as an overall package, the EF is a worldclass system – which by itself is a significant accomplishment for EADS, but its nowhere near the kind of system that makes opponents go wobbly kneed & retire, despite the marketing PR.

Perhaps that is the case – but personally I would take it over the MKI – which was my original point.

The point is simple – the EF has some pros vs its peers, and some cons. And the result is that a skilled operator with a sufficient force structure (AWACS, IFR et al) can effectively counter what the EF brings to the table. And if the EF were to go up without supporting assets, it would be hammered.It is the Raptor, like we were discussing in the other thread, which brings the combination of speed, absolute stealth & range into one package that makes even a complete force package vulnerable.

I agree it probably can’t do what the F-22 with no support does against F-15s/6s + AWACs + other support, routinely/consistently. Note – I stress consistently – because even without AWACs support – the EF should at least equal the kill ratio’s of most legacy jets with support – for NG digitilised RWRs/EW/ESM systems such as DASS will alert the EF to legacy/4 gen+ jets that are radar silent but being datalink guided by AWACs – why do you think the F-22 has gone to so much trouble with LPI datalinks – and why is there is such a fuss over sharing info with no legacy platforms – because its bloody expensive to retrofit the whole fleet with F-22 style datalinks and from what I have seen nonthing other than the F-22 or F-35 have such systems. So while Tornados using JTIDS/MIDS might be silently guided against F-18Cs over switzerland – MKIs wont be silent against an EF.

The one system the EF has which gives it an edge in A2A is the Meteor. But again, the Meteor is not unique to the EF. Its on offer from MBDA/EADS to other customers who could integrate it as well. And the Sukhoi dudes appear pretty serious about introducing new LRAAMs as well. So again, its by no means certain that the Meteor will remain a “unique system”.

Agreed.

🙂
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Free **** video

GREAT link Sens. $hit…… I could have used some of that earlier this year…..
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HERBALAIRE

From what I have read regarding the federated vs CNI approach is as you say pretty complex system whereby upgrading it becomes difficult from a hardware perspective – there is talk in the industry – if you read avionics mags – of redesigning the CNI in the 2010-2014 timeframe basing it more on the future JSF system – which will employ COTS tech. If I remember correctly.
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HairyVirginity

He admits it finally.
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Airsoft Pistols

Ok :).
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Ferrari california

Yes Hyper but you could deduce from the economics and performance details released that it is indeed a special system. You could also listen to the people who know the system and claim it is the best passive EW suite fitted to a fighter. Or you could dismiss that as propaganda. From my posts you can see what I believe to be the truth. Two things it has as I have said earlier is perhaps the largest SIGNIT database available and PIMAWS – something DASS doesn’t have.
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Lincoln capri specifications