F-22 - Operational Relevant Revolutionary

Stealth and stealth-defeating technology is constantly getting more advanced. Like a game of extremely high tech cat and mouse. The F-22 is invisible to radar now, but in 20 years who knows if it still will be, or another country may have a plane just as invisible. The only way to fight may well be close air to air combat utilizing the good 'ol eagle vision that pilots have.

The F-22 incorporates every bit of technology it can in one package so it may deal with any situation. As for cost, consider it 'buying in bulk' it is much cheaper to get all the capabilities in one package, than to have many different planes developed and built for all different scenarios. Air superiority means you take into account the threats of the past, present, and future.

...back in the 60's the missile was supposed to eliminate the need for a gun on a fighter...

I think that modern A/C designers have heeded the lessons learned from that mistake. Yes the 22's biggest advantage lies in it's stealth capabilities. The argument that it's thrust vectoring counters the point of it's stealthiness just falls into the same thinking that we suffered in the early 60's.

Yikes! SUPERGT...you might want to educate yourself on fighter aircraft before you make statements...cause you're WAY off here...

An aircraft so utterly expensive, with systems that contradict itself in it's own purpose. Stealth technology so that it can be able to 'shoot-and-run', all the while using thrust vectoring to help within a 'close courters' situation; the same situation it's purpose was to keep from getting into. All with other (and fractionally cheaper) aircraft that have been proven to do all this without the insanely costly methods implemented in the F-22.

Probably the most economically inefficient and least practical aircraft ever conceived. It sure better be successful for the cost and hype it's riding on.

to the f-22 detractors...

the us is not in the habit of playing catch-up.

Currently only four pipeline students are in Raptor training. Once they see how they fair, then possibly more. As for the Raptor...having been in the Air Force, I can tell you we need the new aircraft for many more reasons than some outdated Soviet threat. They really are not all that expensive...only $130 - $136 Million per copy. Certainly not the most expensive aircraft the Air Force is currently buying.

I was still defending our F-22s, stating some of our logic behind buying them, and just using something close to home for you to relate too. Not sure where you were going with that one.


My point was that military forces, all over the world, plan ahead the best they can and thus (if they can afford to) buy equipment based on what they think they will need in the future. We like the multi-role capability of the F-22, so we kept with it and bought it.

It's unfortunate that people such as Force_Feedback make such ignorant comments about subjects they don't fully understand.

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As a colegue i can asure you that we are aware of the possible scenarios regarding the Mediterenean.One of your ''scenarios'' nearly came true in 1996 with the IMIA crisis.We are also aware that your military industry (lockheed martin especialy)found very good clients in Greece and Turkey.No friction,no crisis,no arms deals if you get my point

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Ooo Really your Greek. Good for you. Ill Shake my head when the Greeks forget to plan for potential threats in the future and loose any advantage they have to the enemy who ever that is. Like it or not the world is the way it is and you have to plan for the future.
Thats when Ill shake my head.

See what you've done now? Got me talking politics...sort of.

The key word is POTENTIAL. We (the US military) plan for all sorts of scenarios. For example, I'm sure somewhere deep in the 'files' is a plan in case Greek and Turkey start acting up and what our course of action would be. To sit idly by and not at least give it a thought and plan is only asking to get bit in the butt later down the road. There's a lot of ignorant folks out there that will blab about kicking Iran's butt ect ect. But as a professional military officer, we do not take anyone lightly. Especially countries such as I've stated before.

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ALTHOUGT i'm greek i could not have agreed more.The bird is a fine piece of macinery but its outragously expensive.AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!STOP LOOKING FOR ENEMIES!''POTENTIAL THREATS IN IRAN CHINA AND N KOREA".YOU need to give your head shake

To plan for the current state of warfare can have very negative repercussions in the future. Obviously we can't predict the future, however there are still potential threats in Iran, China, and N Korea. Will those pan out? Who knows. I'm not going to sit here and debate international politics. However, the F-22 is not only the best air supremacy fighter around but it also carries SDB's and tactics to employ these weapons are currently being developed by both test and operational squadrons. Will it carry the same bomb load as a F-15E or Superbug? No. But it will get to the target MUCH faster, with LESS refueling, and hit time sensitive targets with great precision. Much like those cunning terrorist leaders we are going after.

What's wrong with having the ability to own the skys? Sure there's no USSR knocking at the door any more but it's not that simple anymore. Dont forget there are alot of SU's getting spread around the world these days and airforces like Russian and China are making big leaps and bounds with their airforces.
You need to give your head a shake.

The f I should care, not my tax money being wasted on something that is not needed, so that vid may have been 8 min with chances to win free merchandising, still not enough to make everybody forget about the cost of 1 of those. Apart from that, yeah, this plane will rule every training flight for the next 20 years, too bad the F-18 will still be doing the real world jobs and not defending against an attack of the Soviet Union... Oh wait... d***, my stasis capsule just deactivated... what has happened in the last 20 years???? Oh, wait, let me check a news site... Oh, the news is focussed on 'terrorists' now, ahhhh, they have state of the art air forces that surely will invade the US and shoot down all those F-22s.

Hells ya

Good Stuff! Thanks for the post.