F-22A in a spot of bother (major report)

[Batman]

I find the F a lot less confusing than the 117. The Air Force just plain doesn't seem to LIKE the A designator for ground attack birds (it's not like the F-105 or F-111 had all that much in the way of air-to-air capability either). Notice how most of the A label attack birds have been Navy/Marine Corps.

[Simon_Jester]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

[Batman]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

Technically untrue. The Nighthawk can always bring them down by ramming them.
And sorry, both the Aardvark and the Thud WERE dedicated ground attack birds. That's like saying the Tornado deserves a fighter designation because it can carry Sidewinders.

[AniThyng]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

Technically untrue. The Nighthawk can always bring them down by ramming them.
And sorry, both the Aardvark and the Thud WERE dedicated ground attack birds. That's like saying the Tornado deserves a fighter designation because it can carry Sidewinders.

Well if we're going to get all nitpicky, the Tornado ADV variant is an interceptor that carries AMRAAMS , and the Thud did get some air kills in vietnam so there's nothing wrong with asserting it is more of a fighter then the Nighthawk.

Clearly though it's because the USAF hates the A designator. You'd think the F-15E would be FA-15E

[Beowulf]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

The F-117 was cleared to fire a AIM-9 Sidewinder. Thus, it at least has a nominal capability for air to air combat. Such a capability has never been tested, and never will be. But they could shoot at something. It just that it ended up more productive to load it only with bombs.

[JointStrikeFighter]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

The F-117 was cleared to fire a AIM-9 Sidewinder. Thus, it at least has a nominal capability for air to air combat. Such a capability has never been tested, and never will be. But they could shoot at something. It just that it ended up more productive to load it only with bombs.

IIRC the sidewinder was for anti-AWACS missions.

[K. A. Pital]

How could it be for "anti-AWACS" missions when it's a short range missile?

[CmdrWilkens]

How could it be for "anti-AWACS" missions when it's a short range missile?

My guess would be, and I have no idea if this was even a viable mission, was that the 117 would be stealthy enough to penetrate the AWACS envelope and reach sidewinder range before being detected or at least before being engaged.

[JointStrikeFighter]

How could it be for "anti-AWACS" missions when it's a short range missile?

My guess would be, and I have no idea if this was even a viable mission, was that the 117 would be stealthy enough to penetrate the AWACS envelope and reach sidewinder range before being detected or at least before being engaged.

That was the theory yes.

AND IT WAS IN RED STORM RISING SO IT MUST BE TRUE!

[Vympel]

Red Storm Rising's stealth fighters were those made-up GI Joe ones.

[tim31]

If they operators on the AWACS were properly train, a Nighthawk stalking them would be made before it closed to a firing solution. I have nothing to base this statement on, of course.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Red Storm Rising's stealth fighters were those made-up GI Joe ones.

[Void]

Since the F-117 lacked both radar and radar warning receivers how it was supposed to find a Soviet AWACs is something of a mystery.

So I really doubt that was ever an intended role.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

Since the F-117 lacked both radar and radar warning receivers how it was supposed to find a Soviet AWACs is something of a mystery.

That sounds ridiculous - if it had no radar warning receiver, surely it was in mortal danger of blundering too close to an enemy land or air based radar and being detected despite its stealthy features?

[Simon_Jester]

But the 105 and 111 were at least nominally capable of opening fire on an enemy plane; if you were lucky and good you had a chance of shooting them down. The 117 is physically incapable of doing so; it's less of a fighter than the F-22 is a bomber.

Technically untrue. The Nighthawk can always bring them down by ramming them.
And sorry, both the Aardvark and the Thud WERE dedicated ground attack birds. That's like saying the Tornado deserves a fighter designation because it can carry Sidewinders.

What I'm saying is that the F-105 has shot down enemy aircraft. By contrast, the F-117 has never shot down an enemy aircraft. It's never even tried. Calling the 105 a fighter may not make a lot of sense, but it makes more sense, relatively speaking, than calling the 117 a fighter.

Note that the 111 appears to be in the same category as the 117, so you're right on that count.

I understand that the Air Force prefers to call its ground attack aircraft "fighters," but I think it's a category error to call an aircraft a "fighter" if it can't fight (air-to-air). So if we aren't going to call the F-22 a "bomber" (since it can drop bombs, but not all that well), we probably shouldn't call the F-105 a "fighter" (since it can fight, but not all that well). And we definitely shouldn't call the F-117 a "fighter" (since it can't fight at all).

[Void]

Since the F-117 lacked both radar and radar warning receivers how it was supposed to find a Soviet AWACs is something of a mystery.

That sounds ridiculous - if it had no radar warning receiver, surely it was in mortal danger of blundering too close to an enemy land or air based radar and being detected despite its stealthy features?

Yes actually, which is (partly) why it got shot down in Serbia.

A more detailed answer would be when the F-117 was designed truly mobile SAMs were rather rare. Most could only operate from pre-prepared sites that could be identified in advance and so the F-117 would have its flight path carefully plotted to avoid coming into enemy radar range.

[Sea Skimmer]

Since the F-117 lacked both radar and radar warning receivers how it was supposed to find a Soviet AWACs is something of a mystery.

So I really doubt that was ever an intended role.

The aircraft was in fact flown with radar for trials. It totally displaced the normal laser targeting gear. Many evolutions of the aircraft were studied and probably more then one prototyped that’s still classified. Its clear an air to air role was never serious with the stock plane, but it could do it on paper using a friendly E-3 or ground locating stations as a guide.

One should keep in mind that when the F-117 first flew the only Soviet early warning plane was the Tu-126, which was no better then an EC-121, which is to say not very good at all. It would have been easy to shoot down with just about anything.

I understand that the Air Force prefers to call its ground attack aircraft "fighters," but I think it's a category error to call an aircraft a "fighter" if it can't fight (air-to-air). So if we aren't going to call the F-22 a "bomber" (since it can drop bombs, but not all that well), we probably shouldn't call the F-105 a "fighter" (since it can fight, but not all that well). And we definitely shouldn't call the F-117 a "fighter" (since it can't fight at all).

The current designation systems say’s an aircraft is a fighter even if it has only minimal air to air capability, its very clear on this. The same thinking prevailed before the 1962 system was introduced except for aircraft with tail guns. The A-9/A-10 should have been F-17 and F-18 as well once they added the Sidewinder capability, but the attack designation was vital for political reasons. As it is the things are flown by fighter pilots.

The F-117 has its designation though because the USAF had already used F-113 through F-116 for other classified projects in the Nevada Desert, mainly flying captured and stolen MiGs. It is out of series and in the wrong designation system, so I don’t get why people make such a big deal out of it when its so absurdly clearly non standard to begin with. Continuing the classified numbers made a great deal of sense because that way the larger number of people who knew about the MiGs would assume any documents that showed 'F-117' indicated another MiG model. Not a secret stealth aircraft.

[Void]

Yes but it never got that radar. So it's kind of a non-issue in regards to the aircraft as it was fielded.

[SAMAS]

It's interesting how this kind of outright defrauding of the government does not bother right-wingers, even as they go apoplectic over relatively small sums of money being spent on other priorities such as environmental monitoring or the arts. No one is ever going to be charged with fraud here.

To answer this earlier question: Because Military Spending is Enzyte for Republicans -- it give them big hardons and bigger grins.

[Simon_Jester]

The current designation systems say’s an aircraft is a fighter even if it has only minimal air to air capability, its very clear on this. The same thinking prevailed before the 1962 system was introduced except for aircraft with tail guns. The A-9/A-10 should have been F-17 and F-18 as well once they added the Sidewinder capability, but the attack designation was vital for political reasons. As it is the things are flown by fighter pilots.

I believe you, and I agree that this is what they are thinking. But I still say it's completely freaking idiotic. There is no internal logic to using the name "fighter" in this context, especially when another designation exists for aircraft dedicated to air-to-ground work.

Again, calling the Nighthawk the F-anything is worse than calling the Raptor the B-3... and it will be a cold day in Hell before anyone in the Air Force even considers doing that.

[Batman]

I rather suspect the designations subdebate warrants a split by now because it has apparently developed a live of its own that has nothing to do with the original topic of the thread.
If anything, the F-22 (whatever happened to F/A-22?) should be called either the AF-22 or the BF-22 (and from what I can tell the B for bomber prefix has always been reserved for STRaTEGIC bombers over the last half century, rather than anything primarily designed for ground attack, and the Raptor most certainly ISN'T). Not that the people who manage the US armed forces necessarily always abide by the designation rules they are SUPPOSED to. SR-71 comes to mind.

[Count Chocula]

Not that the people who manage the US armed forces necessarily always abide by the designation rules they are SUPPOSED to. SR-71 comes to mind.

Actually, that designation (SR for "Strategic Reconaissance") is one of the more sensible designations, though the "71" portion of the moniker is a mystery to me. Maybe that was its planned deployment year?

The SR-71 began life designated A-11 by Lockheed, according to my 1975 copy of "U.S. Fighters," but the Air Force hung the YF-12 moniker on it, for "Fighter, Experimental." Its original design criteria included a long-range radar, infrared sensors, sustained Mach 3 speeds, and the internal carriage of Hughes AIM-47 Falcon air-to-air missiles for the interception role. The Falcon's warhead, by the way, could be conventional or sub-kiloton nuclear. I'm guessing that the Vietnam discovery of the SA-2, and the downing of Francis Powers' U-2, killed the fielding of the F-12 for the same reason the US killed the XB-70 and XF-108. But, the A-12 was too good to scrap, so it was tweaked for the high-speed recon mission. So the SR-71 met its mission criteria as a fighter until its raison d-etre disappeared and it was "repurposed."

Oh, and back to the OT: how difficult would it be to make an F-22 variant with large enough side or underwing bays to carry 2,000lb-class JSOWs or LGBs? Hell, FAST packs worked for the F-15; would making the side bays wider or longer on the F-22 be that big a challenge? That way, you could get the payload of an F-35 with the speed and mission turnaround time of the F-22 as is...and lower F-22 unit costs by making a couple hundred of them.

[Batman]

Not that the people who manage the US armed forces necessarily always abide by the designation rules they are SUPPOSED to. SR-71 comes to mind.

Actually, that designation (SR for "Strategic Reconaissance") is one of the more sensible designations

Except the designation system doesn't HAVE SR for 'strategic recon'. It's got R for recon and S for antisubmarine work. An SR plane if going by the established designation system (which I already said they don't always abide by) would be a recon bird modified to do sub hunting.

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh, and back to the OT: how difficult would it be to make an F-22 variant with large enough side or underwing bays to carry 2,000lb-class JSOWs or LGBs? Hell, FAST packs worked for the F-15; would making the side bays wider or longer on the F-22 be that big a challenge? That way, you could get the payload of an F-35 with the speed and mission turnaround time of the F-22 as is...and lower F-22 unit costs by making a couple hundred of them.

The F-22 has three main fuselage sections and modifications to lengthen or widen any of them would lead to highly prohibitive costs. The internal bay could be made to accomdate two 2,000lb bombs though using blister bomb bay doors but that would add too much drag for good supercruising. At that point you have a bad spot to work from, and need to go further to have any point. So FB-22 studies also looked at just to increase the size of the wing, and hang bomb pods under the wings. The last two of the concepts show here do this.



Such an FB-22 would not supercruise, its engines would produce less dry thrust for a much longer range. It would still be able to make a supersonic bomb run on burner.

[Count Chocula]

Batman: it looks like the SR prefix was Curtis LeMay's fault:

The originally planned USAF designation for the aircraft was RS-71, following on from the planned RS-70, a reconnaissance version of the XB-70. However Curtis LeMay preferred the SR designation and wanted the RS-70 to be named SR-70. When the aircraft was to be announced by Lyndon B. Johnson on February 29, 1964, Johnson's speech was modified by LeMay to read SR-71 instead of RS-71.

IOW, it's a nonsensical designation based on a gen'rul's preference. And since gen'ruls are at the right hand of God, so mote it be.

Skimmer, thanks for the info. The ausairpower argument earlier in the thread, proposing that Australia adopt the F-22 and an upgraded F-111 (newer avionics and radar, higher thrust engines, and supercruise capability) makes a lot more sense. F-22s would make excellent escorts for upgraded, F/A-18 E/F LO enhanced, re-engined F-111s. Export considerations aside, the F-35 looks like a worse bet than more F-22s for air superiority and defense suppression, and F/A-18 E/Fs and F-15Es (while they last) as the strike craft, with the F-22s performing the Wild Weasel and high cover roles. Hell, with F-22s as the "angels," the Marines could retain their Harriers for the battlefield support role once the Lightnings clear the path. This is probably a stupid question, but has the Navy looked at a navalized version of the F-22 for the fleet defense role? The F-4, after all, worked well for both the Navy and AF and was the only plane the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels both flew.