First fa-22 fighters delivered to langley

[Dave]

nice to see them finally showing up, though i doubt they will enjoy quite the dominance the AF expects. and i REALLY doubt that that sortie was done on any kind of level terms. count on murphy

[Smittie61984]

They are made here in Atlant and have seen them in action. They own F16s all day and all night. Fucking badass!!!

[smileyman]

Beyond Visual Range kills have become so last decade. The F22s stealth will be able to evade that capability and so will whatever the Russkies have cobbled together to counter it. So perhaps you have the makings of a real dogfight in the near future.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Smittie61984

They are made here in Atlant and have seen them in action. They own F16s all day and all night. Fucking badass!!!

thats no great accomplishment. F20s owned F16s all day and night too and it was just an F5 with a better engine and updated electronics

Originally Posted by smileyman

Beyond Visual Range kills have become so last decade. The F22s stealth will be able to evade that capability and so will whatever the Russkies have cobbled together to counter it. So perhaps you have the makings of a real dogfight in the near future.

assuming things do come back to visual/gun range dogfighting, the raptor is likely to come up a little short. the su-37 terminator features 3D vectoring nozzles and forward canards. can operate from unimproved surfaces and costs less.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Smittie61984

They are made here in Atlant and have seen them in action. They own F16s all day and all night. Fucking badass!!!

thats no great accomplishment. F20s owned F16s all day and night too and it was just an F5 with a better engine and updated electronics

thats one of the very few decisions that regan made that i wholeheartedly object to

Originally Posted by smileyman

Beyond Visual Range kills have become so last decade. The F22s stealth will be able to evade that capability and so will whatever the Russkies have cobbled together to counter it. So perhaps you have the makings of a real dogfight in the near future.

assuming things do come back to visual/gun range dogfighting, the raptor is likely to come up a little short. the su-37 terminator features 3D vectoring nozzles and forward canards. can operate from unimproved surfaces and costs less.

[smileyman]

Yeah but the Sukhoi is piloted by Russkies. I gots faith in our training.

Besides I don't think the Su37 is nearly as advanced...

[Dave]

Originally Posted by smileyman

Yeah but the Sukhoi is piloted by Russkies. I gots faith in our training.

Besides I don't think the Su37 is nearly as advanced...

russkies, or the chinese.

not everywhere but it does have the edge in a few spots. but now that you mention it perhaps a better match would be the mig 1.44 or the su-47 berkut?

[Adeptus_Minor]

Is it possible to make a plane "too good"?

[Corey]

Man, I lived at Edwards AFB right after they finished the first bits of flight testing on the F-22 (and right after one of them crashed coming in to land). It's a sweet plane, but they had the YF-23 sitting within view right off the flight line and that thing was pure sex in airplane form. I spent many hours staring at that thing. Wish I coulda seen it fly. The F-22 may have certain attributes that made it the victor, but the YF-23 was a way better looking plane.

[ericr]

The F-22 has actually been operational for about 4-5 yrs. I used to watch them test fly them off the Dobbins runway every time they rolled one out the back door of Lockheed. I was a civilian contractor at Dobbins from 00-04 while I was also in the AF Reserves there from 99-07. I want to say the first planes were delivered in 02 or 03 but I could be wrong.

The cost escalates every time congress cuts back on the order. The same dollars are spent in development to make 2 as 2000. The actual parts are cheap compared to the development costs so yeah, the price per plane is going up with every order cut.

They are one superbad plane fo sho!!