Love this picture of the F-22, too bad we had to retire the shuttle in the background.
Posted on 07/31/2012 9:26:07 AM PDT by moonshot925
The United States has spent nearly $80 billion to develop the most advanced stealth fighter jet in history, the F-22 Raptor, but the Air Force recently found out firsthand that while the planes own the skies at modern long-range air combat, it is "evenly matched" with cheaper, foreign jets when it comes to old-school dogfighting.
The F-22 made its debut at the international Red Flag Alaska training exercise this June where the planes "cleared the skies of simulated enemy forces and provided security for Australian, German, Japanese, Polish and [NATO] aircraft," according to an after-action public report by the Air Force. The F-22 took part in the exercise while under strict flying restrictions imposed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in light of mysterious, potentially deadly oxygen problems with the planes - problems that the Pentagon believes it has since solved.
The Air Force said the planes flew 80 missions during the event "with a very high mission success rate." However, a new report from Combat Aircraft Monthly revealed that in a handful of missions designed to test the F-22 in a very specific situation - close-range, one-on-one combat - the jet appeared to lose its pricey advantages over a friendly rival, the Eurofighter Typhoon, flown in this case by German airmen.
"We expected to perform less with the Eurofighter but we didn't," German air officer Marc Grune said, according to Combat Aircraft Monthly. "We were evenly matched. They didn't expect us to turn so aggressively."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“The F-22 took part in the exercise while under strict flying restrictions imposed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta”
Would love to know what those restrictions were and how the F-22 would perform without them. The F-22 is tremendously powerful and maneuverable with it’s thrust vectoring. Foreign pilots flying against them in earlier simulated encounters basically said, “It’s not fair, we can’t see it on radar and we can’t lock it up when in visual range.
Panetta is part of the administration that cancelled the F-22 and is a POS in general. I have to wonder if he wasn’t attempting to sabotage the F-22’s performance to justify the Kenyan’s ending the F-22 project.
Vietnam/Rolling Thunder, Yom Kippur War and Beaaa Valley
Love this picture of the F-22, too bad we had to retire the shuttle in the background.
we need the NOT THIS AGAIN pic. sounds like the ‘60s with the F-4C all missile no guns. as for BVR hell ROE says you can’t even shoot at a bad guy until he fires first. i can see iran sending up attack aircraft and put some civilian passenger planes in the mix. we shoot BVR in self defense and shoot a few of them down in the mix they get propaganda. we wait gor visual and it could be too late.
Modified B-1B’s fly behind the first flight of Raptors. Housing up to 100 air to air missiles each. Those missiles are slaved to the Raptors radar and can be fired one at a time or fired in series. Only two B-1B’s set-up for this air superiority mission could defeat any potential foreign air force.
A Growler, eh? How does that work?
This is not really a big shock. The Eurofighter is a very capable airframe and has some darn good missiles to go with their helmet-mounted sights. It is just not stealthy. If the pilot can see the F-22 it can get off an IR missile.
But I’m pretty sure the judges are “cheating.”
Because of stealth, the F-22 gets to CHOOSE if it wants to engage at close range; it can see the enemy but they can’t see the F-22. If it doesn’t want to fight close, it salvoes its AMRAAMS, a bunch of enemies fall out the sky, and the F-22 goes home. End of fight.
But the judges are probably starting the fight with fighters in visual range where the F-22s advantages are negated. So you have two equally matched airframes with equally well trained pilots trying to get each other to angle where they can get off an IR missile. Fifty-fifty is about right.
There we go again.. Advertising our military vulnerabilities. It’s an 0bama past time!!!!
BVR doesn't seem to happen as much as burn and turn up close.
/johnny
Thank you. Good point. Someone else mentioned B1-Bs, saying they carry up to 100 air to air missiles, that can be slaved. Now that’s an interesting option.
He was also not too proud and would disengage when the other guy got eyes on and showed some skill. Smart guy.
The not seeing him part is correct, but not the long range. One of the amazing things about Hartman was the extremely low number of rounds per kill he used. He prescribed filling his windshield with the enemy aircraft before firing.
That said, long range at the time was 1,000 yd.
I’m surprised that Obama’s ROE don’t mandate the use of beanbag rounds for air-to-air combat.
That sounds like a good resolution to the problem. Thanks for the mention.
Actually, the Russkis had better tanks than the Germans, such as the KV-12 and the T-34. The German tank pitted against the T-34 was the PKW-III with a 37mm or 50mm main gun. They had to change the role of the PKW-IV and equip it with a “long” 75mm to match it.
The PKW-V Panther was an attempt to copy the T-34 but Germans screwed it up by making it over complicated. The T-34-85 was probably the best tank of the war, in terms of numbers and capabilities.
What the Germans had was a DOCTRINE that used tanks in a more effective way than any of of their opponents, not to mention a radio transceiver in every tank (In Soviet tanks, only the platoon leader had a transceiver - the rest had receivers only, if they had radios...). They were able mass their firepower against the “decisive point” better than anyone else. The Russians eventually put an end to this with superior quantities of equipment. German fuel shortages did not help, either.
In addition, the Iranians apparently found the Phoenix, launched from the F-14, to be very effective during the Iran-Iraq War.
Awesome....Lookout now.
This is how we develop tactics. Place the aircraft in undesirable situations and figure out which tactics are best. When I flew the f-4 in the late 70’s we deployed to Nellis and achieved at least 50% kills against f-15’s, untill they developed tactics to mitigate their vulnerabilities.
Modern fighter pilots consider a multitude of variables and the AOB in real time to succeed. We can’t know what ROE they may have been dealing with to test their tactical options.
If the big balloon ever goes up I doubt visual ID will be required.
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