Jura The idiot
General
... self-talk, AFB? LOL
F-22 Raptor Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Not so much, I just want to defend this very fine airplane, and I happen to have a deep conviction that if we wish to maintain this fine Republik, we had better go back and build the "best airplane" for the job, as the alternatives will not be very survivable, and border on in-effective?
Brumby
Major
Report on the F-22 recent participation in exercise Iron Hand.
Excerpts from Air International June 2016 article :
"Much has been made of the F-22’s ability to fuse all of its sensor feeds into one picture of the battle space and its intuitive display for the pilot. During a defensive combat air scenario such as those staged during Iron Hand, Lockheed Martin’s slick fusion management computers provided the 95th EFS pilots with an overview of the battle space on their big, shiny displays. One of the best things provided to the F-22 pilot is the ability of the aircraft to know what types of aircraft are being detected and the lightning-fast speed at which it gathers that information. This places the F-22 pilot in a privileged position and allows him to provide greater threat awareness to other aircraft in the strike package. Explaining the concept, Major Lite said the F-22’s integrated avionics allow the information flow passed from the different platforms to be fused: “So our analysis of the battle is quicker, which allows us to pass anything we want the other aircraft to help with via voice. Based upon our location in the fight, it doesn’t hinder our ability to get the job done as a package, but our communication to other platforms is primarily voice to remain passive because one of the properties of a stealth aircraft is its emissions.” The automation of the Raptor’s sensor fusion capability and its resultant intuitive display was further explained by Lt Jolly: “The F-22 has ways of determining whether an aircraft should be displayed as a friendly, as a foe or as a neutral. But because that’s not a 100% guaranteed determination the pilot still has to look at it and make his own conclusion as to whether it’s a friendly aircraft or otherwise.” This is referred to as sensor task fusion, multiple sensor feeds melded on to one display that can be parcelled into different objectives. According to Major Tone, there is so much information available to the pilot it’s very easy for him to recognise what’s going on, develop a game plan, decide how to execute, and how to remain as offensive as possible but stay out of a threat’s engagement range, so much so that at times he can get overloaded with too much information: “When young guys first fly the jet, they become task saturated trying to figure it out, so we train to determine what specifically to look at and how to figure it out. The pilot has to focus on what he needs to pay attention to, typically to be as lethal as possible. “During debrief, we look at how we executed the mission. If we got a negative result, inevitably someone did something wrong. We work back and figure out where the training came off the tracks. Often the root cause will be an interpretation of what the jet was telling him. Either he sees it or doesn’t recognise it, or some kind of mix match between the two, where he’s so focused on something else he prioritised the wrong thing at that point. Many times they are just lessons learned when we do sims.”
A big part of an F-22’s ability to defeat an adversary in combat or training is the rules of engagement in force for the mission. The rules of engagement are dictated by the air tasking order, which is turn is driven by location and mission objectives. The Raptor pilot’s big advantage is the entire battle space situational awareness presented to him. Prior to crossing the battle line on a strike mission typically the pilot can see how many aircraft are airborne, their locations and altitudes.
Major Tone said that allows the F-22 to be more successful in the fight compared to other aircraft that rely heavily or their radars to search specific areas trying to figure out who is there: “The F-22 processes all information and provides the picture so we can act as the quarterback of the team and say here’s how we position, and here’s how we attack. The mantra of the F-22 still stands: first look, first shot, first kill. The ability to detect other aircraft, employ and kill it, most likely before the pilot even knows we are there, that’s what it brings to the fight.”
Excerpts from Air International June 2016 article :
"Much has been made of the F-22’s ability to fuse all of its sensor feeds into one picture of the battle space and its intuitive display for the pilot. During a defensive combat air scenario such as those staged during Iron Hand, Lockheed Martin’s slick fusion management computers provided the 95th EFS pilots with an overview of the battle space on their big, shiny displays. One of the best things provided to the F-22 pilot is the ability of the aircraft to know what types of aircraft are being detected and the lightning-fast speed at which it gathers that information. This places the F-22 pilot in a privileged position and allows him to provide greater threat awareness to other aircraft in the strike package. Explaining the concept, Major Lite said the F-22’s integrated avionics allow the information flow passed from the different platforms to be fused: “So our analysis of the battle is quicker, which allows us to pass anything we want the other aircraft to help with via voice. Based upon our location in the fight, it doesn’t hinder our ability to get the job done as a package, but our communication to other platforms is primarily voice to remain passive because one of the properties of a stealth aircraft is its emissions.” The automation of the Raptor’s sensor fusion capability and its resultant intuitive display was further explained by Lt Jolly: “The F-22 has ways of determining whether an aircraft should be displayed as a friendly, as a foe or as a neutral. But because that’s not a 100% guaranteed determination the pilot still has to look at it and make his own conclusion as to whether it’s a friendly aircraft or otherwise.” This is referred to as sensor task fusion, multiple sensor feeds melded on to one display that can be parcelled into different objectives. According to Major Tone, there is so much information available to the pilot it’s very easy for him to recognise what’s going on, develop a game plan, decide how to execute, and how to remain as offensive as possible but stay out of a threat’s engagement range, so much so that at times he can get overloaded with too much information: “When young guys first fly the jet, they become task saturated trying to figure it out, so we train to determine what specifically to look at and how to figure it out. The pilot has to focus on what he needs to pay attention to, typically to be as lethal as possible. “During debrief, we look at how we executed the mission. If we got a negative result, inevitably someone did something wrong. We work back and figure out where the training came off the tracks. Often the root cause will be an interpretation of what the jet was telling him. Either he sees it or doesn’t recognise it, or some kind of mix match between the two, where he’s so focused on something else he prioritised the wrong thing at that point. Many times they are just lessons learned when we do sims.”
A big part of an F-22’s ability to defeat an adversary in combat or training is the rules of engagement in force for the mission. The rules of engagement are dictated by the air tasking order, which is turn is driven by location and mission objectives. The Raptor pilot’s big advantage is the entire battle space situational awareness presented to him. Prior to crossing the battle line on a strike mission typically the pilot can see how many aircraft are airborne, their locations and altitudes.
Major Tone said that allows the F-22 to be more successful in the fight compared to other aircraft that rely heavily or their radars to search specific areas trying to figure out who is there: “The F-22 processes all information and provides the picture so we can act as the quarterback of the team and say here’s how we position, and here’s how we attack. The mantra of the F-22 still stands: first look, first shot, first kill. The ability to detect other aircraft, employ and kill it, most likely before the pilot even knows we are there, that’s what it brings to the fight.”
Jura The idiot
General
previously I expressed certain reservations in this Thread, so let me put here
AF releases Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan
and if you opened the document
you could see the fourth paragraph of THE 2030 OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT part:
"The Air Force’s projected force structure in 2030 is not capable of fighting and winning
against this array of potential adversary capabilities. Developing and delivering air superiority
for the highly contested environment in 2030 requires a multi-domain focus on capabilities and
capacity. Importantly, the rapidly changing operational environment means the Air Force can
no longer afford to develop weapon systems on the linear acquisition and development time-
lines using traditional approaches. Air superiority capability development requires adaptable,
affordable and agile processes with increasing collaboration between science & technology
(S&T), acquisition, requirements and industry professionals. Failure to adopt agile acquisition
approaches is not an option. The traditional approach guarantees adversary cycles will outpace
U.S. development, resulting in “late-to-need” delivery of critical warfighting capabilities and
technologically superior adversary forces."
AF releases Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan
and if you opened the document
you could see the fourth paragraph of THE 2030 OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT part:
"The Air Force’s projected force structure in 2030 is not capable of fighting and winning
against this array of potential adversary capabilities. Developing and delivering air superiority
for the highly contested environment in 2030 requires a multi-domain focus on capabilities and
capacity. Importantly, the rapidly changing operational environment means the Air Force can
no longer afford to develop weapon systems on the linear acquisition and development time-
lines using traditional approaches. Air superiority capability development requires adaptable,
affordable and agile processes with increasing collaboration between science & technology
(S&T), acquisition, requirements and industry professionals. Failure to adopt agile acquisition
approaches is not an option. The traditional approach guarantees adversary cycles will outpace
U.S. development, resulting in “late-to-need” delivery of critical warfighting capabilities and
technologically superior adversary forces."
Brumby
Major
This newly released plan would require greater successive content to digest and understand what it actually means in developing future capabilities to dominate the air space post 2030. What is clear to me is that for some time I seen the emphasis moving away from a platform centric approach to effect centric in the form of networked battlespace capabilities. In other words, the notion of a 6th gen platform is dead in the waters and IMO is a correct strategic repositioning.
So even though we say we can't be platform centric, the F-22 is "the" platform that makes all of this possible. You have to have "hardware" gentlemen! all this "lawyer talk" around sensor fusion, swarming drones, etc, etc, etc, "enabled" the "smart people" to talk themselves into "canning" the lovely F-22 and into placing all our eggs into the F-35 basket, which is an immature, "second tier" A2A platform.
The F-35 will mature, and it will be a very effective A2A platform, but it does have inherent weaknesses when compared to the Raptor,
1. The Raptor "owns" the high ground, and operates well above many of the threats!
2. The Raptor will super-cruise at Mach 1.8, which give it the ability to "get in AND more importantly to Get OUT!"
So as the "Airmans" F-22 summary above makes very clear, it is indeed a very superior airframe, which opens up the opportunity to win, and do so decisively!
Jura The idiot
General
the thing is around 2030 the production of New Generation Aircraft (the newspeak
for US 5Gen, possibly including F-22 restart as I assured "dtulsa" on Facebook a second ago LOL) will be something like one hundred (100) copies for something like twenty billion (2E10) $ YEARLY so I would've imagined the USAF announcing something more optimistic than what I posted above (inhttps://www.sinodefenceforum.com/f-22-raptor-thread.t6557/page-74#post-400304
Brumby
Major
the thing is around 2030 the production of New Generation Aircraft (the newspeak
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/f-22-raptor-thread.t6557/page-74#post-400304
The airforce study points out what we have already seen in the F-35 program for a long time is that such a long product development cycle is not acceptable and clearly cannot address the rate of ongoing threats. Therefore it is not business as usual.
This situation reminds me from business school when I did my MBA three decades ago that one of the core strategic principle is to ensure alignment of your product development cycle to your business model. For example, in the news business your product development cycle is measured in hours, and so from news sourcing to reporting the content has to delivered within hours and not days or else you will be out of business fairly quickly.
Likewise, the USAF has concluded it just cannot go through a 6th gen product development cycle with the type of timeline as the F-35 and remain relevant in addressing future threats. It has approached the problem from another perspective in that the end result is to dominate the battlespace post 2030 (effect) and the question is about what capabilities are required to achieve such effect. One way is to concentrate the effort on a singular platform (traditional) and the other way is to focus on systems of systems. In other words it becomes platform centric vs effect capabilities/effect centric. Concentrating your development on multiple systems and stringing them together for the desired effect has obvious benefits such as :
(I)multiple parallel developments rather than sequential;
(ii)risk reduction;
(iii)incremental benefits and smoother in result; and
(iv)less complex per development stream
There are also risk with such an approach and the main ones being risk of integration is much greater with product coherency and in battlespace execution.
Whilst the approach is about systems of systems, the key enabler in my view will be the F-35 in being the center piece of such an approach.
and now we get to the nub of the issue, very nice summary Mr. Brumby, and I completely concur with your summary. Indeed the F-35 will be the numbers game, the 64 dollar question is will 150 or so Raptor's,. maybe 120 be enough top-end airpower to get us over the hump, and the easy answer is NO. So rebirthing the F-22 is a viable answer to that question, and that question is now being asked by the people who pay the bills.
as they say?? rebirthing the Raptor would take an act of congress?? LOL, and now we have an outside chance of getting that "act of congress" LOL. I think it was no doubt "stoopid" to have cancelled the Raptor, and it was done for the sole reason of "insulating" the F-35 from harm???
The Raptor was a much better airplane, at what now is obvious was a very good price point?? The F-35 is a much more capable avionics pkg, but the F-22 does own some very important advantages over the F-35, which no amount of upgrading will ever give the ThunderHoggeII, great airplane that it is???
Sixth Gen is for the foreseeable future "unobtanium", largely because of money, but of more significance, it offers NO superiority to the Raptor at present!
Bernard
Junior Member
Question: In a real war against a peer or close peer. How would the 120 or so F-22 Raptors be deployed? Bring back to the homeland? Or would they be forward placed as squadrons of only F-22s or split up and placed with squadrons of 4th gen planes and used as force multipliers? *Here and away?*
Sorry about the war scenario question, I am just curious how they would be deployed in real life scenario right now.