Posted on 01/17/2006 5:06:21 AM PST by MARKUSPRIME
They are really no replacement for the A-10. The apache and super cobra helos are the only thing that comes close in that role.
The plan is to have a couple hundred Raptors (I think 180+ are funded) and a couple thousand JSFs (F-35s).
I have seen the F-22 flying around Texas down here and they are so damn quiet it is scary.
There, fixed it for you.
There was a picture of this on the Lockheed-Martin website, of the F-22 dropping the bunker buster. Maybe they photoshopped it, or the Air Force?
Russian, Chinese and Iranian type threats are more dangerous today than then vs. the Soviet Union. The antiair and anti missile system S300 & 400 as well as flanker fleets in these places were superior to our current inventory of aircrafts, in pure a/c vs. a/c comparison. The Indians beat us up in exercises using assymetrics.
This airplane is way overdue. Meanwhile the US Navy is still behind in terms of technology vs. the French Rafale (which is being exported tentatively to places like Saudi Arabia) and would have trouble (were it not for a superior radar and aegis system) against Indian Navy Flankers. So we still have holes to plug, which we hope the JSF will do, though it's a single engine inferior in thrust to weight to the Rafale and Indian Flankers.
For maybe ten years - until Mach 10 remote-controlled UAV drones start coming on line at a million dollars a piece, and any good video game player can take out a whole squadron of F-22's in three minutes from behind a computer screen in Beijing.
The USAF is moving in the same direction already.
Doesn't matter. Once you have air supremacy you can do your bombing with C-130s or even C-5As and C-17s!
Feh.
It's designed to kill enemies and break their toys, and do it with virtual impunity.
(Of course, that does have the effect of shortening wars etc.)
Sure it was not a JDAM?
EMCON about a 1/4 way down this link
Excerpt:
EMCON 1 is the stealthiest, and EMCON 5 is the least stealthy, allowing the most use of radar and radio. In its auto mode the F-22 would normally travel in the stealthiest mode, EMCON 1.
After a potential enemy is spotted, the aircraft systems will gradually increase the EMCON condition as the opponent gets closer, in order to provide more data for targeting, or in the worst case, jamming. It increases EMCON in non regular steps based on the evaluated range of the enemies' detection systems and weapons.
It will take a lot longer than 10 years.
And they are going to cost a whole lot more than a million dollars apiece. And the data links had better be hardened. And directed energy detection will have to be perfected. Mach 10 UAV? High and hot eh?
Satellite borne control means the whole thing depends on our deciding to leave those assets in place while we are fighting against these things.. (unlikely) so, unless we let them use this technology, "super drones", its pretty much useless in the long run. Thats the meaning of air supremacy.
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