you'll never get him.
He is primorski re-born.

Fact is, both the F-22 and Eurofighter are limited in performance, at least in terms of close-in turning and g-forces, by the pilot.  The F-22 is limited by its flight computer to keep the pilot from killing himself.  I'd guess the Eurofighter is programmed the same way.  Take the people out of the planes, and I'd like to see the performance.  

The F-22's biggest advantages include stealth and BVR capability, but there's more:

The F-22 has longer range––significantly.  The internal weapons bays magnify this advantage.  The Eurofighter can't be in clean condition with weapons.  It is only clean when it is unarmed, with the exception of a gun.  The F-22 is clean, in full range, full combat condition.  HUGE ADVANTAGE.

The F-22 can cruise at supersonic speed WITHOUT afterburner.  This adds greatly not only to its range, but to the its ability to effectively cover a large area.  This is why Japan was trying so hard to buy the F-22.  They know how much water a pair of F-22's can cover, compared to other jets.  

If anyone thinks range isn't important, then they have no clue why the P-51 made such an impact on WWII.  Range is a HUGE consideration, as is speed.  The top speed of the Raptor is classified.  If it can exceed mach 1 with no burner, then imagine what it can do WITH burner.

The Eurofighter is a great fighter, but is a Gen 4 fighter.  The F-22 is called Gen 5 because it is in a league of its own.  There are no other Gen 5 fighters, except maybe the F-35.  I'm not sure if it is considered Gen 5, or not.

Another item: The F-22 pilots have not been able to train with their aircraft using full capability, much, if at all, due to the Oxygen problem.  That leaves the pilots at a tremendous disadvantage against anyone, in a staged fight, where the conditions probably required close-in dogfighting.  My money says the F-22's were required to tie one arm behind their backs.  Their flight envelope may have also been curtailed, again, due to some of the problems.  

One last one....I'm not sure they were not handicapped in some way to protect secrets, too.  Why in the hell should they show their full capability to another country, even if it is a close ally?  We're not trying to sell them the jet, and there's no reason to show more than the capability of the opponent.  The practice wouldn't benefit them.  It would be more beneficial to handicap them and make them still learn to defeat the other aircraft, IMO.

If I had to go air to air, close or far, the F-22 would be my undisputed choice.  Anyone choosing anything else, knowing what we know, would simply be ignorant.

If the Su-27/30/etc are simply stolen old copies of retired designs (or whatever), then why do we need cripplingly expensive planes like the F-22 and F-35 to face them down?





They are a serious threat or they are not. Pick one.

I never got an answer



You feel it's tactically safer and smarter to only move by rotary air then it is to drive and occupy by MRAP?




I can see how that would defeat IEDs but the enemy always adapts. Once you go 100% air they are going to shift their assets and focus on how to kill you. That may be Ada or it may be mining the LZs but either way they are going to do their best to kill you.

Back in the lates 80s early 90s I got in a fight in a small bar in upstate NY ( I-81 just south of the cannada boarder)
Some canadian was running his mouth about how bad ass he/they were. I asked him to please help me out on something that I never could  understand.
The US has the symbol of the majestic powerful American Bald Eagle.
Canadians have a freakin maple leaf, hell I've wiped my ass with a maple leaf.

Needless to say we shut the bar down that night.

Good times.

Absolutely.
Aero Scouts. FireForce.

Walk and Fly.  Driving gonna get you killed

Plus you regain the mobility advantage we have completely abandoned.
10 years in Afghanistan and we still aren't fighting as well as we were on the ground in 1965.

The faults of Iraq and Astan are that the DoD and mainly big Army has zero ideas on how to handle an enemy after they smash the country into the ground. We are no longer advancing and now we are occupies. We have zero weapon systems that are designed for this so install we go out on patrols that allow us to npbe ambushed 100% of the time. A lack of CAS on target in less seconds is not the root of the issue.

So when they volley fire RPGs at the LZ or get their hands on fresh Syrian manpads to adapt to the new tactics. This is going to lower the rate of attrition over the now?  


What is the point. Big army hasn't learned shit from Vietnam. You go build Cops and Fobs only to hand them over the next week for no real reason. The enenmy camp is over the mountains to the east and until you occupy boots there you will never win. The same issue was never addressed in Vietnam.  At least big blue knows where it hurts the most to bomb.

There are some key differences.
Open terrain versus jungles and forests.  LZs are everywhere, you aren't as cannalized.
UAVs provide intel on the landing AO.
You fly to get close, fix the enemy with air (gunships would be optimal, LAARs will work well) and walk into the fight.  You don't land on top of them.
How many helos have we lost so fare to manpads?  How many did the Rhodesians lose with aleuttes?

We have built cops everywhere because we have no mobilty.  you could cut your troop footprint in half and still have better coverage.  

big blue has no clue where to bomb.  ask mchrystal.  we tried tethered goat in the korengal for 10 years.  didn't work at dien bein phu, doesn't work now.  Mobility is the key to COIN, not fires.

I don't know where you are getting your info.

In the F15 going supersonic with a full load of missles takes just a few seconds from a tactical turning airspeed. Can an eagle accelerate to supersonic as fast an F22 or maintain it for as long, of course not.

But committing on a threat and accelerating to supersonic speeds and launching missiles, including amraam, is routine.

Because missiles are good enough that if everyone sees everyone and shoots at everyone, everyone dies.  And since we had fewer airplanes than the enemy and tend to want to keep our pilots alive, we needed a new strategy.  Let's kill them before they see us, we said.  



 

I believe you Tiger.

i don't know where you get the info to draw conclusions like that. The AF does no such thing to the fighter pilots wing level and below that actually do the mission. I can't speach to policy makers, I had enough of the bullshit long before I got to that.

In my 16 years in the tactical AF, at the Wing level and below, nobody even reads or cares about AF doctrine. Is it mentioned in PME that everybody flushes as soon as the test is over? Sure. But that is the last we think about doctrine. We get assigned a mission and  go out and kick ass. In my day, I wrote a large section of the MCM 3-1 F15 tactics manual and I did not reference AF doctrine. I wrote it based on the threat and our capabilities and weaknesses.

I challlenge you to find an AF fighter pilot that is actively flying a jet, that even knows where to go to read what the AF doctrine is, never mind know it himself. There is no cool aid. You know more about AF doctrine that fighter pilots ( Ltc and below) because AF fighter pilots don't know nor do they care what that doctrine is.  We are the primary combatants, we don't get to choose our missions, we just get to perform them.

I know that I'm late to the party but:

Gripen>Eurofighter>F22

Su-27s aren't stolen from anything. The new Flankers (modernized Su-30s, Su-35s) are worthy aircraft that are actually very capable. Long range, large payloads and whatnot. Do keep in mind that at times the Su-27 had some advantages over the F-15C. The R-73 was superior to the AIM-9M, the R-27ER has a longer range than the AIM-7 and AIM-120 and it could carry up to 10 or 12 air to air missiles compared to the F-15C's 8.

Now, obviously both aircraft have been upgraded. Both upgraded F-15Cs and Flankers are very formidable enemies. Though the F-22's low RCS gives it a huge advantage against Flankers and Eagles.

How does the PAK FA stack up? No idea, but others are actively improving their designs and making new ones as we speak. Just because an F-22 is better than an Flanker or F-15 doesn't mean it is not needed unless you want to fall behind. While the PAK FA won't have as low of an RCS as the F-22 (at least that is how I understand it) it will still give it a huge advantage against F-15s or Flankers. That is reason alone to get F-22s, IMO.



Gripen is the F-5 of the 21st Century.

Superbug has a 12 missile load out.

I believe 12 AIM-120s and 2 AIM-9X for a total of 14. Though it doesn't have the speed to keep up with F-15s and Flankers if I am not mistaken. Not really a good interceptor.

Though I think F-22s can even double up AIM-120s on each external hard point. That would be a total of 14 AIM-120s and 2 AIM-9X, for a total of 16 missiles.

You need to invade Waristan to win, plain and simple. You destroy the route of the problem. Flying around in gunships doesn't solve that issue. Buy more ch47s if you have none left after air lift.

Well sure its not stolen. Was just poking fun at the poster who claimed it was based on the F-14 or something like that.



Point being, either they are viable threats, or not. It's directed at the peanut gallery which seems to think that Russian planes are unmitigated crap. To those people, why do we need F-22s and all this other overprices stuff? If Ivan is such a drunken incompetent, then why does the USAF so desperately need all these shiny hideously expensive toys?





And to mention again, the Su-27 family/MiG-35 family/Eagle/Typhoon/etc can all do a trick the budget-killing Raptor can't: Make more.

i think youre talking about me.  what i said was that the F-22 doesnt have an IRST (IR Search and Track)



 

Neither do USAF F-15Cs. Though Japanese F-15Js do:

They are putting irst in the front of a center fuel pod doe superbugs

Swedish > English

Apparently since 1987
Live and learn  - lol
maybe I'll just stick to reading these threads

Shit, everytime I talk about this the first word of their mouth is that I don't know the doctrine.  I always assumed they did actually know the doctrine because they defended it so vehemently.

So how can they defend something they know nothing about?  And why write it if you don't use it?

No you don't.
they simply need to know if they leave waristan they die.
They'll get the picture.

LOL Russia wouldn't even have calculators if they didn't reverse engineer the technology from America.
 

Name one war that was won in that matter. Shit or get off the pot. Doing patrols in occupied land while ignoring where the fighters operating bases are is a complete repeat of Vietnam. The wars in Astan have never been in Astan, it's always been tribal Pakistan and to a lesser extend the federal areas. But we are afraid of a nuclear player and so instead we pretend it doesn't exist and and continue with a war of attrition against any enemy who is prepared to fight for a 100 years or longer which we are not. The strategy is flawed, and nothing you have suggested will fix that.

El Salvador.
Should we not fear a nuclear power?  Just checking.

That is exactly what the Su-27 and MiG-25 appear to be inlfuenced most by, and they are awesome platforms to build on, evidenced by the Su-30 and MiG-35 with 90's-era avionics.  I actually like the MiG-29/35 and Su-27/30 airframes better, since the Su-30M is a formidable opponent to the F-15C, and the MiG-35 is one to the F-16C/D and F/A-18C/D.  The lighter teen fighters were really handicapped by the weight requirements of the AF lightweight daytime fighter program, and that has plagued the F-16 from fulfilling its main role as an attack aircraft laden with bombs, while also handicapping the F/A-18E/F models from ever being able to fill the shoes of the Tomcat and A-6 Intruder.

The Soviets, and now Russians, had the benefit of hindsight on lessons learned from the US teen fighters, and responded with 2 truly enviable airframes, despite their initially crude, all-metal construction, which has since been replaced with advanced composites for surfaces in the Su-30 and MiG-35, in addition to avionics suites composed of AESA, IRST, ECCM, ECM, glass cockpits directly inspired by the F/A-18C/D and F-15E.  You can't look at the Gen 4 Russian birds' cockpits and come to the conclusion that these are Russian designs, unless national pride means more to you than blatant evidence.  I have to swallow my national pride when I admire the Su-30 as the true beauty that it is, but I also realize it is a product of US milestones in  high performance fighter design.  


This may come as a surprise to some people, but much of the cutting-edge US avionics was transfered to the Societ Union by various actors, inlcuding the foreign intelligence services of other "allied" nations of the US, members of US Congress, US military officers, private analysts, and even some of the contractors themselves.  

Sit in on a SAEDA briefing and you'll hear some of these cases mentioned.  That said, once the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia was able to procure more advanced avionics components on the open market, and has made great strides in compiling these systems into AESA, multi-mode missiles, ECCM, ECM, etc.  We still haven't seen any of these systems demonstrated in actual warfare by surrogates, and the Russian air campaign into Georgia was a scathing display of the inability to coordinate these assets, make precision strikes, and put together a professional operation.

The rotary-wing assets did a lot better in Georgia 2008, but fast movers, however inappropriate for much of the "war", left with a black eye in the assessment of intel circles.  Not really a theatre that provides the best opportunity to assess current Russian air forces capabilities, but it should have gone better.

That it is. It will intercept your Eurofghter with a Tomahawk from seemingly nowhere.

iirc, the US 'copied' the layout of the of the MiG-25 in the F-15.  the F-15 program was started as a response to the MiG-25 which the West thought was some super Mach 3 fighter



 

When would be the last time Canada designed and built a fighter?

OK you lost me.
Wouldn't the capability to search and track using IR be necessary to employ IR guided missiles?

Yes I am an ignorant fuck when it comes to modern air warfare technology.

Moose with wings taped on do not count.

Point is the Brits design and build shit so their criticism while misplaced is admissible. I won't have America's hat shit talking when even their fucking rifles are copies of ours.

no, the seeker head of an IR AAM can directed by the radar or helmet mounted sight.  iirc, the only US fighter to have had an integral IRST was the F-14D.  the Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen, Mig-27/35, Su-27/30 all have one



 

Next question is why the Raptor does not have this capability. It would seem a nice fit with stealth technology, no pesky radar emissions.

the Rafale also recently beat out the Eurofighter for India's medium multi-role fighter



 

This is what happens without knowledge of the history of intelligence operations, particularly regarding military aviation technology.  The MiG-25 was actually taken from prototypes in the US and Canada.  One of those became an actual production aircraft known as the A-5 Vigilante, which was an awesome plane in its day.  Imagine an A-5 with 2 vertical stabs, supersized to Russian "bigger is better" approach, and you have your Ye-155 program.





One of the main differences is that USSR built the MiG-25 with Nickel alloy, making is a heavy beast with crazy low G limitations, and the US built the A-5 with cutting-edge for the period alloys, avionics, even fly-by-wire.  Both planes were built for speed.

That decision was mostly based on the level of technology transfer rather than cost. The Indians need Western technology if they are to counter the next generation of Chinese fighters.

good point.  i think the Indian's use French targeting systems on their Russian supplied tanks.



these are the results of recent Swiss fighter trials:







 

True statement.



Just because one airplane beats out another in competition to for what a country will buy, does not mean it's the best plane.  It's also about the $$$ which is what happened in the Hungarians case.

To me the F15 always looked like an A5 Vigilante with twin tails.

ETA Looks like the A5 came first.

not necessary.. The IR seeker can be slaved to a lot of sensors.. radar, helmet, IRST....  

but ultimately its the Sidewinder sensor itself that must get a lock