LmRaptorThe Raptors are supposed to be at Fairford, just not in what is called the static display area. They will stay at another ramp a Fairford: maybe the Northside or the place where the Thunderbirds were last year.
Cheers, Transall.
Well if thats the case they wont be to far from the main static area – They were just on the other side of the Nighthawk if I remember correctly.
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LmRaptorI thought the F-22’s were not being based at fairford with no static display as a result? Has that been changed? Any weather forecasts yet? The people im traveling with need to take leave on either the 14th or 15th.
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LmRaptorUgly?
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LmRaptorWell they’re definitely not related to that. Those have little windows for IR sensors and you wouldn’t be sticking them right next to the engine exhaust. 🙂
Your correct as there are no passive MLDs located in aft of the Raptor.
LmRaptorHe is refering to the F-22s passive missile launch detectors MLDs that formed the basis of the F-35s DAS. A 360 degree IRST of sorts with limitations.
If im not mistaken its the equivalent of the Eurofighters PIMAWS system – which if im not mistaken has not been integrated?
LmRaptorwow amazing video
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LmRaptorThat may indeed be the case but arguing about the F-22s VLO is a moot case. Cold war specs were unrealistic and any drop in overall signature is not a big issue as its frontal RCS is the most important aspect and where it excells the most. We have no idea of the extent of the changes – to the Raptors all aspect stealth. But they seem to be relatively minor in my opinion as its performing extremely well in exercises. So whatever tradeoffs were made they were aimed at producing the best product.
There are reports of the F-22 getting within guns range without being detected and reports of F-15s having issues to lock on to the jet within visual range. If these reports are true, and I dont see any reason not to believe them – one gets an understanding of how tactically helpful and extensive the F-22s VLO actually is. The F-22 was always designed with overkill in mind so any drop from what people had envisoned in the 1980s to early 1990s really seems to have had no real impact today.
LmRaptorAs I said earlier it is indeed a big if – but whatever happens there is no doubt that the F-35 is a major threat to the tiffy in the export market. Time will tell.
As to it not looking to promising that depends who and what your listening to. The pro-EF community generally want it to fail and as a result critise it in the media, whereas reading reviews about it in american editorials – its future looks brighter. The trick is to sift through the propaganda and the truth is usually between the two sides.
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LmRaptorFirstly arguing over the F-22 is no less easy than arguing about the Typhoon or the Rafale or the F-35. They all have their “fans”, – Its just as hard to get an admission of a technical issue in the tiffy from many in the keypublishing media side of things as it is from an F-22 “fanboy”.
In the GAO report it mentions 2 things:
1) They were in the process of correcting the signature issues. Something I believe they have done, costing 20 million dollars to do so. With additional production costs of 110 million – something Jwcook, you failed to quote.
2) It mentions they were in the process of redefining the VLO specs. Did they ever end up doing that? Another point would also be the fact that most of the specifications were set during the end of the coldwar – and many were unrealistic. Many of the changes are now ancient history (1994) – before the first F-22 was even flown in 1997 – thus many of these changes were at the drawing board level.
While I agree with you on the fact the F-22 is all aspect stealth – with many citing it as the stealthiest manned platform in the world and without doubt the most survivable. Its rear RCS is definately going to be higher than its frontal RCS – From an engineering standpoint its almost impossible with current tech to make an FJ equally stealthy from every angle – with the rear one of the big issues. However I wouldnt be astonished if we found the rear aspects of the F-22 being stealthier than the best frontal RCS of an operational tiffy. In fact I’d be surprised if it were the other way round. Secondly as we all know rear RCS is not as operationally essential as frontal – because if you see the F-22s **** your either dead or its going to be to fast for you to catch.
The final point is: whatever the issues – and the F-22 has had many like all FJ programs – it is still the best AD fighter in the world, ahead of the Typhoon – ahead of the Rafale – the Gripen – The Su’s and Migs and will remain so for the forseeable future.
LmRaptorI dont know if anyone else agrees with me but from now on I see nothing but trouble for the tiffy in the export market. If the F-35 is all it’s promised to be by LM, and if it keeps its price respectable, I cant see the tiffy winning to many export tenders; other than having a slight chance in India. The F-35, if as good as advertised will be the “all round” better performer while the Gripen NG will be the cheaper alternative which doesnt seem to far off the Typhoon capability wise. Lucky for us here in England BAE Systems has a slice of all 3 cakes. There hardly seems much point in the Typhoon with it featuring capability wise – inbetween the F-35 and Gripen NG.
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LmRaptorThen there must two diferent supplements, one for the USA and another one for Western Europe.
The one that i have read says “It is capable of making quick searches for electromagnetic emitters and then locating them through sequential triangulation, giving angular accuracies of better than one degree, and with a range in excess of 54 NM (100 km´s).”Every document (public of course, the classified ones might say something completely diferent) that i´ve read about the AN/ALR-94 puts the detection range for the same (less than) one degree in the exactly same “ball park” that was quoted to the DASS system. Of course that you can have much longer ranges with the DASS, but then the angular accuracy drops, and thats a problem that any system will face, be that the DASS, the AN/ALR-94, or the one in the “Milleniun Falcon”.
Forget the “dwarfing”…Cheers
Last I checked the UK was in Europe instead of the USA. But thats besides the point. According to Bill Sweetman the AN/ALR-94 can be used to geolocate emitters at ranges of up to 250 nm, um to me thats almost 5 times the range quoted in the latest supplement – which to me is dwarfing the DASS system. Id be really interested to which costs more, as the ALR is said to be the top piece of tech on the F-22.
LmRaptorCost is the key here, these are multirole aircraft, replacing older multirole aircraft in sufficient numbers to deploy and use and even lose. This is not the case with the F-22.
Yes but do they have to be manned??, is that in anyway sensible?. no one in a stealth aircraft is going to actually eyeball the missile site… are they??.
Having an F-22 as the sensor is dumb, unmanned systems are far better to send, they are much more expendable.
Cost wise would you rather have 20 F-22 with a few hundred SDB or 40 cheaper aircraft with 100 Cruise missiles?.
Whats more tactically useful, having F-22/F-35 fly within 30KM of these missiles/radars or cheaper aircraft having long standoff capability.
Cheers
Where is the problem? The Typhoon is a child from Cold War times, which was intended to deal with “Super Flankers”. In 1990 the political world did change and the Typhoon was seen as a replacement of the aging Tornado at first. Just to find new roles to safe that investment.
Non serious do see something like a high-tech war between former Superpowers with a well kept atomic arsenal really. Even in the 80s that chance was slim, if it ever was a real option.
How many S-400 systems are to find outside Russia right now and in the near future? The S-400 system is too expensive to buy and to operate to have big numbers of that. It does not take much time and money to built the number of cruise missile in need, when such demand will rise in the future.
It is a waste of money, to have and run systems right now, when there is no real need for that.
When I remember well, the UK is part of the NATO and its arsenal and has not face serious future threats alone.
Both you and Sens are missing my point here a bit. I was refering to insurgents when I asked what capability does the tiffy bring to the fight that the Tornados lack. The answer being: the tiffy brings a slight yet insignificant advantage over the Tornado when fighting insurgents. Thats because it was designed as Sens said to beat the Super Flanker threat; the same thing an F-22 was designed to do. So my whole argument was: you can apply the same logic to the F-22 as to the EF Typhoon. Because essentially they are designed not for counter-terrorism but for conventional warfare against near-equal enemies or enemies with advanced anti-aircraft technologies. So cutting the F-22 program on the grounds that its not designed for counter-terrorism to me seems unfair and one could use the same argument for the tiffy. As to cost, GDP percentage wise for the USA I wonder who is spending more, The USA for the F-22 or the UK for the Typhoon?
Dont get me wrong, I am a Typhoon fan, perhaps more so nowdays than a Raptor fan. But to me, kicking the F-22 for its lack of a counter-terrorism role can be applied to the tiffy just as easily. And while one is definitely more expensive, it might prove much more useful/successful in an anti-IADS role than the other.
Jwcook – Of course one would prefer to use unmanned aircraft. Who wouldnt? But Im not sure what UAV/UCAV in service your refering to that has the ability to perform SEAD/DEAD against a country that might equip with S-300/400 and with a formidable airforce. I dont see the Predator and its derivatives with that ability? As to eyeballing a SAM site, I thought the whole point of VLO/LO was to avoid eye contact :).
I dont get what your talking about when you say having the F-22 as a sensor is dumb? The point is, it is a sensor and according to reports an excellent one at that. For example after reading the latest Eurofighter Typhoon supplement from AIR International – they give a range figure for the tiffys DASS system against IADS, and comparing that to the AN/ALR-94, it is dwarfed by a factor of 5 times in range. SEAD/DEAD is time critical – an S-300/400 site is not going to remain in place constantly (let alone be visible constantly), especially when faced with an incoming assault. Thus I think the USAF are vindicated in making the F-22 an “uberfighter” as you term it; where it has that combination of Stealth, speed, altitude – that current UAVs dont have, and sensor technology if one believes in the claims about its EW suite, and saturation attack with 8 SDBs – with standoff ranges of 113 kilometers. So yes Im inclined to go with the 20 F-22s over 40 cheaper aircraft or the unmature UAV/UCAV technology for the next 10-20 years. They have the ability to snuff out time critical SAMs that pop up on the EW suite as opposed to needing fixed co-ordinates that rely on non real time data. That is ignoring the effort thats gone into LOCAAS/SMACM – miniature cruise missiles which might increase that standoff range significantly.
For me cruise missiles dont answer the questions I put forward in my earlier post, and nor do non-VLO aircraft operating in S-300/400 threat areas with cruise missiles. How is information gathering going to be possible with UAVs/information gathering aircraft operating hundreds of miles away from where they would normally operate as they are denied the airspace? How are cruise missiles going to be affored such targeting data when operating so far from the action, against mobile targets such as S-300/400?
Also I dont agree with the assumption you make that the F-22/35 need to be at 30 kilometers away from the target. From specs relating to the SDB 60 nm is a far cry from 30 kilometers.
LmRaptorJust look at the last large conflict against a foreign country with IADS airforce and an army… Hmm IRAQ!!
Now look at what happens, the initial campaign lasted weeks, the losses on the Coalition side were extremely light, Shock and Awe did indeed work to remove the government.. then what? remember the saying “won the battle but lost the war??”
How about comparing what happened after GW Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ and then tell me the air component is the one with the problems!!, if only the US had had a few hundred F-22’s that would have made a huge difference, I think not.
The US is suffering from being equipped with the wrong equipment mix…
You seem to have this notion that total air dominance is the only requirement to avoid casualties.. IraqAfghanistan proves the point, where are most of your casualties.
The F-22 does not bring anything to the fight in the two biggest theaters the US has been engaged it in since Vietnam.It is of no value in the age of cruise missiles for the bombing role, why send in manned fighters to a dense IADS.. thats just foolish why take the risk because the F-22 is not totally invisible to radar.
It only has the niche role of uber fighter to keep the it from being eclipsed by the F-35, and this is only by a small margin, plus the F-35 is ahead of the F-22 in several other areas.
I would suggest there are bigger problems in the US military than getting 300 odd uber fighters…Honestly – can you not think of something better the USAF could spend its limited budget on?
What sort of conflict are you imagining where the F-22 is indispensable or where other assets couldn’t do the same tasks?
Cheers
By that logic one could make the same case about the Typhoon or Rafale. If insurgents are the only ones to be fought I dont see what benefit the tiffy brings to the fight that the Tornado cant handle? So relatively speaking thats just as big a waste of money.
I have seen a few journo’s take the line that TLAMs/Cruise missiles are the best way to shut down an IADS. While surely crucial to the anti-IADS effort, they have some serious limitations that make “stealth” SEAD/DEAD aircraft essential.
They are generally very very expensive munitions by comparison to what the USAF could do with an SDB or a JDAM and an F-22. Correct me if I am wrong but in the Royal Navys case, we only purchased just over 100 TLAMs since 1995. That number today is surely lower, probably around the 60 or 70 mark nowdays?
One of the main issues with a TLAM is the mobility integrated into the newer S-300/400 systems. I dont see how a TLAM with set co-ordinates traveling at subsonic speeds can combat the mobility of such systems. Not to mention launching cruise missiles at the target requires knowledge of where the target is; will we always have that information and will it always be there?
Additionally point defense systems developed by the Russians in the last 15 years claim to render subsonic, non-stealthy cruise missile attacks ineffective, something they’d have a harder time with, by stopping 16-32 SDBs simultaneously.
I believe this argument holds for Stormshadow/Taurus and to a lesser extent JASSM.
I would far rather have the stealthier F-22 as opposed to an F-35/EF Typhoon combined with cruise missiles than just having cruise missiles when combating an advanced IADS.
LmRaptoryup..
That about covers it.. you can move the figures a round a bit, the empty weight is quite mobile:)
It just needs an accurate figure for any one of the parameters and it will get a lot more precise, there have been some excellent sources posted here, which all point to this general area…and your taking the most optimistic view.
Try the figures with a bit of pessimism in the empty weight department, and ‘bobs your uncle’ thats the ‘sensible’ range from the data available.
Cheers
Perhaps it is an optimistic view – although im not to sure about that. Something I cant get my head around is the supposed fact that the F-22 is around 18+ tons empty. Dimensionally the F-22 is not much larger than an F-15C – volume wise – which certainly doesnt explain the fact its quoted nowdays as 5-6 tons heavier.
I agree with Distiller that its probably closer to the 16.5 ton mark empty weight. Or at least closer to the original specifications – I have a feeling its a case of the USAF down playing certain capabilities of the jet. All the “official” weight specifications have gone up and down and back up.
LmRaptorI dont see the point in releasing the F-22s exact figures to the public, especially when the aircraft is not meant for export like some other FJ’s. Being up for export or not makes a big difference as brochure specs would have a place in the marketing – whereas with the F-22, LM dont need to give away the specs but rather rely on published exercise results.
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