Posted on 05/05/2016 9:25:42 PM PDT by cba123
I feel like the F-22 Raptor is a distinguished, expensive, and elegant farewell to the era of manned fighter aircraft.
The future is in low-cost autonomous aircraft without the need for bulky life-support. It’s high time technologically that the U.S. air superiority doctrine centered on drone warfare and parted ways with the weakest link in any order of battle: The human pilot.
The next generation of dogfighter will be small, ultra-maneuverable, and probably operate in pods or swarms.
Given that uplinks and communications are susceptible to ECM, the real doctrinal singularity for U.S. warplanners will be signing off on an autonomous mode where the drones are not micromanaged by a remote human pilot, but can make on-board decisions to complete an assigned mission.
There is no air force in the world prepared or equipped to counter a USAF that never loses pilots and can produce replacement aircraft at pennies on the dollar for every adversary it downs.
Heck, yes.
Best air superiority fighter ever made... far better than F-35s in that regard. It was stupid to shut down the line at 185 planes and not recover the R&D costs over a longer period, more planes.
Agreed.
wow
I don’t think there is anything wrong with what I said. Surely, there have been technological advancements beyond what was incorporated into the existing F-22.
i dont know anything so i was shocked but i believe you :)
Sorry. Since Freepers tend to be more knowledgeable about military matters than myself, I took your comment as though you thought I was being a dunderhead because I either did not realize the plane infrastructure was advanced as can be or that new technology could not work on it.
I didn’t think that to be the case in either instance.
Of one thing plans circa. 2000 (themselves based in the strategic outlook of the 90s) visualised the USAF having a core of 400 F-22 and 1000 F-35s, right now. (Fortunately the world has turned out more peaceful than anticipated then, Right?).
The article characterises the F-35's air-to-air as "strong but brittle".
If the data link is updated you're good. But lose the data-link in any other fourth/fifth gen fighter, you still have an effective bird, lose it in an F-35, you are in an F-105 Thunderchief.
Solution: restart F-22 line, or build the F15-2040C
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