Question on F-22 program.

[Fenrir003]

I watched an F-22 perform in an airshow and I would hardly call it mediocre, the J turn was very impressive and that thing could smoke any other fighter air craft in air to air, the only thing that will smoke the F-22 in the future will be boings pilotless fighters that can perform 20+ G turns (almost like a UFO) and are stealth but thoes will not be out until like 2020.

The US Air Force will recieve 3 more F-22's. After that the production part of the program will be cancelled. The remaining F-22's will be dispersed to air bases with a tasking required for the aircraft. However... While the 22 is an outstanding fighter, there are equals. The aircraft has many weaknesses the air shows and commercials dont show. Keep an eye on the Swedes SAAB program and the russians Sukhoi program. We are'nt the only ones with Generation Five aircraft in our fleet. oh.. And the russians were capable of that maneuver twenty years ago. I don't mean to sound like a prick but.. It's foolish to think that we are the best on the planet and unmatched in all we do. You lose wars and countries thinking like that.

 

[Fenrir003]

Also. We are a long way from deploying any kind of 'true' unmanned fighter craft. There is a difference between a uav and an experienced pilot. And before someone corrects me, UAV stands for 'Unmanned Aerial Vehicle... That classifies an F-4 Phantom drone as a UAV. The UAVs we currently have in service have nowhere near the response time of a pilot in the feild. The average time delay response between a current UAV and it's 'pilot' is between two and three minutes. Even self operated UAVs still have to process thier actions before exicuti
ng them. We don't have truly 'smart', self-contained aircraft yet. And Boeing is'nt the only contender... And the reason I say all of this as if it's current is beacuse it is. The average aircraft is designed almost twenty years before it's operational advent. We simply can't create computers that think and react fast enough. Despite what we see in movies like Eagle Eye and on military commercials, the technology simply is'nt there yet. Even the F-22 and F-23 run off of technology based in the 1980's. Sure, they have been seriously upgraded but.. It's just like a computer. By the time somebody brings aout the latest gaming/content creation machine it's being replaced by another in six months. Same thing with aircraft. It's been that way since 1913 when the first aircraft met each other in the sky. We literaly create them faster than they can stay in service. And ALL of these so-called UAVs still require human supervision. All we are really doing is replacing real pilots with wannabe's. To put it in perspective. It's would be like sending a robot onto the battlfield. It can choose and acquire it's targets faster than a human. It can take more damage than a human. And it can use bigger guns than a normal human... But someone WILL find a way to kill it. You can't replace intuition and experience with hard drives and servos. We currently have missles capable of mach+ speeds that can shoot down another missle in flight... While that other missle is in the exposphere. Thats like shooting a bullet with another bullet while riding a theme park ride. A carbon fiber aircraft will be no problem. But there lies the issue. Reaplace the human pilot and still keep the effectiveness. A drone can only drop chafs and flares so many times.

 

[Fenrir003]

A secdef whose hands are tied. F-35 is a joke and larger money trap considering what we have is doing its job well and no one is near coming up with something close to F-22 at this time.

I agree... For the most part. And the F-35 is a joke.. Oh.. And it's not a 6th gen jet.. We are currently working with gen five. Besides. The F-35 is a multi-role.. Not a dedicated fighter craft. Pit it against a gen 4.5 assault fighter like the Dassault Rafale and it WILL fall short. The F-35 is designed to fill multiple roles... Jack of all trades, master of none. I give the devil his due. It's not a bad aircraft. However, it's far from the best.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Good observations there, I am becoming more optimistic about the -35. But it is just not saving itself with all the DAS and other avionic systems. This aircraft, how could it replace the A-10 and take the same beating? Are they that cocky to assume that CAS will change its face with stand-off JDAMs? Naval aviators are afraid of this aircraft, it doesn't even come close replacing the Hornet.

The best aircraft there is has always been John Boyd's genius F-16!... Improve it, roll new versions out of assembly lines... It certainly mastered many aspects of combat...