F-22 Fighter Loses $79 Billion Advantage in Dogfights:
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."
from http://news.yahoo.com/f-22-fighter-l...opstories.html
Umm, the F-22 was never designed to be the world's best dogfighter. So the plane sucks because it does not do what is was never designed to do?
The fact that such a stealthy aircraft can pretty much keep up with non-stealthy fighters in a dogfight scenario is an amazing engineering feat.
That's kind of like saying that, close up, artillery loses its advantage, or should a helicopter be grounded, it loses it's ability as a fearsome anti-tank weapon, doesn't it?
I don't think the US military gave the F-22 its stealth capabilities to win dogfights where stealth helps little when the opponent actually sees you.
Maybe stealth abilities will prevent missiles from locking on. So even in close range dogfights, it's useful since enemy missiles can't lock on you anyways.
As said above, the whole point of the F22 is to take them out from BVR first. You'd think from some of the posters here that it was the super aircraft of the millenium but like anything it will have advantages and disadvantages against certain other aircraft. That's normal.
It sounds to me that the F22 pilots underestimated the Typhoon.
Originally Posted by Ought Six
Umm, the F-22 was never designed to be the world's best dogfighter. So the plane sucks because it does not do what is was never designed to do?
The fact that such a stealthy aircraft can pretty much keep up with non-stealthy fighters in a dogfight scenario is an amazing engineering feat.
Yes it was actually designed to be able to match the Su-27 and Mig-29s and other potential future threats in the WVR arena. Just because it is stealth doesn't mean its aerodynamics and agility suck. The thing is supermaneuverable, It was designed to be an air superiority fighter first and ditch the stealth features that gave poor flight characteristics of the F-117 and it has awesome engines to back it up. With the improvements made in RAM coating, composites, engineering,avionics an AESA radar it more than makes up for not having an almost pure stealth prioritized airframe like the F-117.
Not true, IR and radar seekers will still be able to lock on. What it hampers is the detection range for an enemy fighter radar and its BVR missles. Stealth and IR supression does not make it invisiible radar or IR seekers but rather smaller. Even if a scenario does involve WVR combat the F-22 is an excellent dogfighter don't doubt it.
If it took required removing all the tanks, pods, pylons, and missiles off the EF in order to give it a fighting chance, what is it going to use as a weapon against the F-22 armed with Aim-9x and Aim-120D?
God help them when the F-22 gets EODAS-like upgrades for it's MLD or one of its wing mates takes a networked shot. 1v1 dos not happen in real life.
An active missile's seeker is degraded in the same way as its parent fighter. If its parent's radar has 1/10th the detection range then the missile suffers from the same 1/10th range. If it normally locked on at 10 miles, then it's now 1 mile. If the F-22 can stay outside that 1 mile box and kill the launching fighter (so no updates arrive) then its RCS played a big role in keeping it alive.radar seekers will still be able to lock on.
Typhoon was designed to dogfight, YF-22 compared to YF-23 still had serious dogfighting capabilities but is a stealth design with some compromises.
The F-22 was designed to kill the other guy long before it came to a dogfight. Barring that, the F-22 can dictate the terms of the dogfight.
Guess which one I'd rather be in
Did not say anything different, I would rather sit in a F-22 going to combat. I dont have any flight experience, but even I would have a chance to win a fight against SU-30 after a few simulator hours...
That said, the Typhoon with METEOR missiles and PIRATE IR sensor is a very good BVR fighter too.
What pods are you talking about? The wingtip pods that house the EW-suit and the towed decoys are an internal part of the aircraft and weren't removed (I don't even think they can be removed that easily). What other "pods" could you mean? Laser designator for ground targets? Why would it carry one for dogfighting? The F22 doesn't even have the ability to carry one..
Same goes for the pylons, the EF carried the AA pylons on stations 12 & 13. One mounted the flight recording pod required for Distant frontier/ Red Flag and the other an IRIS-T missile for balance and maybe the sensor. The BVR station are semi internal on the central body and cant be removed. So they just didn't add any A2G pylons under the wings, same goes for the F22. That they flew without the full load of the 4 semi internal BVR missiles is normal procedure and I doubt the F22 carried a full load. Waste of money.
They didn't carry drop tanks, so did the F22. Why would they carry drop tanks, if the mission is BFM/ dog fights and the internal fuel is sufficient?
Why would you try to degrade the achievements of the Luftwaffe? The F22 isn't unbeatable, so what?
God help them when the F-22 gets EODAS-like upgrades for it's MLD or one of its wing mates takes a networked shot. 1v1 dos not happen in real life.
What would you think the results would have been during this exercises BMFs if the Germans would have brought the brand new HMD? What ifs...
Urgh, what a nothing article. The F22 in "not being invincible" shocker....
The Eurofighter is an extremely capable modern fighter aircraft, noone should be shocked that it managed to claim Raptor kills at Red Flag.
Does this mean:
1. The F22 Raptor's stealth isn't a useful ability in air to air combat, regardless of range.
2. The Eurofighter is now the bestest aircraft in the world and better than the Raptor.
3. The Luftwaffe officers are actually claiming their Eurofighters are the bestest aircraft and better than Raptors.
4. Getting kills at Red Flag can be relied upon to represent a real world combat scenario.
5. The Raptor utterly sucks at dogfighting and now deserves a reputation as such (because of said Red Flag losses).
It should be obviously no to all of the above.
But I'm sure people on internet boards somewhere are variously claiming all of these already.
As a side point, I remember reading somewhere Eurofighter's final version Tranche 3B will have, amongst many other improvements, LERX which will further improve turning rate by about 10%. When Tranche 3B eventually gets all of it's promised abilities, it'll be even more formidable.
It's true what you say, but the F-22 crowd set this situation up by themselves. Many people were hinting at the F-22 being the best in all situations and virtually invincible. Not surprising that articles as this one now tries to rub it in their faces that they're wrong. It's still an impressive aircraft - but maybe now some people will stay more realistic.
Before this thread spirals off; we don't know the ROE's, we don't know if the EF's being "slicked-off" was a combat configuration, and we don't know if the F-22 flight restrictions/G-load limits placed by Panetta handicapped their performance envelope. Either way, good job to the Luftwaffe. Better a lesson learned now for Raptor pilots than a costly one in real combat.
Why not take the F-117 and put amraams on it then....
and I don't blame those posters, americans in general are marketing the f-22 like it's the death star.
oh yes. And don't get me wrong I like the Raptor, but for that price....
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