F-22 Raptor Thread

[Air Force Brat]

you quoted me twice above, but didn't say anything as far as I can see LOL

Yep, my computer was formatting the post without allowing me to quote, LOL, sorry. I don't think their numbers are accurate, we had 187 and had three loses.

One at Edwards, one in Alaska, (Capt Haney), and one at Tyndall,,, 187 minus three is still 184, but we did have a bird recently up-graded to combat status,, so 185? I don't think 186 is accurate?

we also had at least two tail-strikes??? I believe one of those has been repaired and returned to service

 

[Air Force Brat]

you quoted me twice above, but didn't say anything as far as I can see LOL

In any regard, even 100 F-22s are a serious "game changer", enhance those with F-35s and you really don't want to go fly against that, and that's the main idea, any near peer engagement against 5 Gens is gonna be costly.....

I am an advocate of "throttling back" when it comes to "beating" on those airframes, lots of aircraft have been lost by the Air Force and the Navy for "pushing harder" than was necessary, I well remember losing a C-130 at Little Rock, when the airplane was "deep stalled" and lost a wing.

an aircraft that had been "beat on" in SEA, sometime you should watch an assault strip landing from that era,, Lockheed realized that wing boxes could fail....

so SLEPing those F-22 airframes should start early!!

 

[Jura The idiot]

now noticed promises inside
USAF looks at Raptor unit structure

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The US Air Force is to examine the F-22 Raptor force structure following a US Government Accountability Office report that said the fleet is unable to full meet its operational mandate under the current organizational strycture.

Units in Hawaii and Alaska are forced to cover the Homeland Defense mission due to a lack of other assets in the region. Coupled with a hefty demand for the Raptors to deploy on exercise and a lack of suitable ‘Red Air’ training assets, the distributed Raptor force may be consolidated to a certain extent to enable a more coherent approach to training and availability.

The USAF is also moving forward with plans to equip Raptor pilots with a helmet-mounted display system by 2020 along with communications upgrades called TacLink 16 and Tactical Mandates (TACMAN) that will be integrated in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Once modifications have been completed, the F-22A fleet will comprise 139 combat-coded Block 30/35s, 32 training Block 20s, 12 development test/operational test (DT/OT) Block 20/30/35s and two pre-block test aircraft. The Block 30/35s will include 39 Block 20 aircraft from Lots 3 and 4 that will be upgraded.

The service is considering upgrading the 34 remaining Block 20s that support training and test efforts to the combat-coded Block 30/35 configuration and estimates that effort would cost $1.7 billion.

 

[Air Force Brat]

now noticed promises inside
USAF looks at Raptor unit structure

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and well they should, money is NO object when it comes to the defense of the free world, and the Raptor remains the most dangerous adversary on the planet, irregardless of protestations to the contrary from friend and foe!

 

[Jura The idiot]

and well they should, money is NO object when it comes to the defense of the free world, and the Raptor remains the most dangerous adversary on the planet, irregardless of protestations to the contrary from friend and foe!

Raptors are neglected big way,

for example "The USAF is also moving forward with plans to equip Raptor pilots with a helmet-mounted display system by 2020 ..." inside CombatAircraft link above,

while I've read somewhere they had HMDs down in Angola around 1980 (against South Africa), LOL now but it's not funny

 

[Air Force Brat]

Raptors are neglected big way,

for example "The USAF is also moving forward with plans to equip Raptor pilots with a helmet-mounted display system by 2020 ..." inside CombatAircraft link above,

while I've read somewhere they had HMDs down in Angola around 1980 (against South Africa), LOL now but it's not funny

Raptor maintenance is likely the best in the world, so NO they are not neglected! and while I get your point on HMSD,, that's like deciding if you're going to mount a scope or a red dot sight on your rifle.

the Raptor is still using a "scope", the F-35 has a "red dot", the new teck brings several incredible advantages, most particularly the "look and shoot, of the high off bore sight missile shot" and "situational awareness" brought by "sensor fusion"...

The F-35 is the "electric jet", nothing else quite like it in the world, you can "plug and play" anything you want, the F-22 has earlier electronic hardware and soft-ware, and it is much more difficult to plug a new piece of hardware, like an HMSD into that system and have it function correctly and reliably.

With the Obama administration and their horrible damage to the military, think "sequestration", or even "shutting down the F-22 line", they didn't give a "rats ass" whether the Raptor had a HMSD or not?? its very difficult to totally assess, much less "undo" the damage the former administration did to the US military... so its no stretch to say our Nation's defense was neglected as a whole?

however, I wouldn't want to find myself in front an F-22, there is nothing with wings on this planet that I would ride against an F-22, NOTHING!

 

[Pmichael]

The only thing Obama actually did was to follow the directive of the Bush adminstration regarding the end of the F-22 - like so many other projects which became victims of the rather pointless ME adventure.

and you're likely right, as I said the F-22 is actually operating in those exercises as a 4++Gen,, its not actually allowed to function as it would in a real conflict, because you would never see it,, the only message would be that "you're dead"! So instead that stealth advantage is gone, its quite possible a Raptor could end up on the front end of a Typhoon, but not too likely, in reality the F-22 still retains a crushing advantage..

An Su-57 or Su-35 would be a suitable match for the F-22, but without OVT, other platforms simply lack the "power and pitch authority" of the F-22, and the F-22 retains a decisive thrust advantage at that.

"Would never see it", of course you would see the F-22. In what childish terms are you even operating?

 

[Air Force Brat]

The only thing Obama actually did was to follow the directive of the Bush adminstration regarding the end of the F-22 - like so many other projects which became victims of the rather pointless ME adventure.



"Would never see it", of course you would see the F-22. In what childish terms are you even operating?

you're quite right about the first point, in fact we could really blame "Boo Boo Bob Gates", Rumsfeld, Cheney, and George Bush, but Obama and Hillary are the direct authors of their failed "Arab Spring"!

then how would you define Beyond Visual Range?

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

while I've read somewhere they had HMDs down in Angola around 1980 (against South Africa), LOL now but it's not funny

Not a Helmet mounted display, a Helmet mounted sight. And it Was South Africa who developed and employed it not Angola. Angola Used Russian Fighters that lacked that system until after the war when they copied it into the 4th gens.
What's the difference?
The HMD displays data regarding the flight and targeting as well as following the movement of the Pilot's head to assist in keeping the Missile on target.
HMS just does the latter and the pilot tracks it with a crude gun sight mounted on the helmet.
The USN trailed something similar the Honeywell’s Visual Target Acquisition System which is this helmet.


The Russians who supplied fighter to Angola also took note but again It's little more then a helmet tracking system with a molecule.

What they want to add to Raptor, Retrofit into legacy machines and built into Lightning is far more sophisticated. You might as well compare a Model A to the latest Ford off the Production line.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Not ... And ... not ...

oops you're right I confused the sides and acronyms

(the story:

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I've read coupla years ago)

but the way of 'upgrading' Raptors is an outrage