Raptor vs Eagle

Did anyone else catch the History Channel's "Modern Marvels: The F/A 22
Raptor" last night?

What an amazing plane. The Air Force did a head-to-head combat exercise,
one Raptor versus EIGHT F-15 Eagles. The Eagle pilots were all experienced
combat pilots, all with time in the Raptor as well -- so they knew the
tactics, and what to expect.

Didn't matter. One by one, the Raptor shot them ALL down. In post sortie
interviews the F-15 pilots said they never even SAW the Raptor, visually or
with radar. All they knew is that they were suddenly dead.

8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots) in the
world.

Looks like Lockheed's got another winner. (I just hope it isn't the last
manned fighter aircraft...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article CKFNe.267211$_o.147173@attbi_s71,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots) in the
world.

nit: 8 on 2. But yeah, that seemed to be amazing.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots) in the
world.

nit: 8 on 2. But yeah, that seemed to be amazing.

Well, that was kind of a weird thing about the show. I heard them say
it BOTH ways (once it was 8 on 1; then I thought I heard 8 on 2)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 20 Aug 2005 10:53:29 -0700, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:


8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots) in the
world.

nit: 8 on 2. But yeah, that seemed to be amazing.

Well, that was kind of a weird thing about the show. I heard them say
it BOTH ways (once it was 8 on 1; then I thought I heard 8 on 2)

There were multiple demonstrations. One of them was either 4 or 5 vs
1, and the other 8 vs 2.

In a previous article, "Jay Honeck" said:
Didn't matter. One by one, the Raptor shot them ALL down. In post sortie
interviews the F-15 pilots said they never even SAW the Raptor, visually or
with radar. All they knew is that they were suddenly dead.

A poster on rec.aviation.military was involved with the YF-23 project, and
they had similar experience in their simulations. The enemy just never
saw them before they blew up, even if their wingman blew up first.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
Probably a bad thing; most things are bad things.
-- Nile Evil *******

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots)
in the world.

Looks like Lockheed's got another winner. (I just hope it isn't the
last manned fighter aircraft...)

Impressive, but...

One must remember that it is politically important for military brass to
ensure that their latest toys get good press. Not saying the dogfight
was faked, but I would not be surprised to learn that the exercise was
designed to show the F-22 to maximum advantage.

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor, which
has gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane. At
one point in 1999, conservative Republicans Jerry Lewis of California
and Bill Young of Florida, and conservative Democrat John Murtha of
Pennsylvania, all key figures on the House Appropriations Committee,
attempted to zero production funding because of skyrocketing costs and
procurement "irregularities." To keep that from happening again, the
Air Force will make every effort to make sure the F-22 is perceived as
the uber-fighter it was touted to be.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

In article ,
"Dan Luke" wrote:

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor, which
has gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane.

Congress has this insane ability to be astounded at cost growth, even
cost increases they inflict on the system. :-/

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

"Bob Noel" wrote:

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor,
which
has gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane.

Congress has this insane ability to be astounded at cost growth, even
cost increases they inflict on the system. :-/

Well, *I'm* astounded at a $200M fighter that was supposed to cost
$90M (which would have been bad enough), how about you?

From the Project on Government Oversight:

The F-22 fighter development and testing program is dragging behind
schedule and attempts by the Air Force to control costs are failing
miserably, according to a new report by the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO),
Tactical Aircraft: DOD Needs to Better Inform Congress about
Implication of Continuing F/A-22 Cost Growth, GAO-03-280.

The new report, released late Wednesday by Representative John Tierney,
(D-MA), concludes that the Air Force has been unable to implement the
cost-saving measures it promised and has essentially kept Congress in
the dark about excessive cost overruns.

The report further states:
a.. At the current rate of spending, the Air Force will be able to buy
only 224 F-22s, and not the 339 planned as recently as last fall.


b.. The Department of Defense failed to disclose $1.3 billion in F-22
program cost overruns.


c.. The F-22 program is on target to exceed cost limitations imposed
by Congress.

"The story of the gold-plated F-22 fighter just gets worse with every
financial analysis," said POGO Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller.
"We hope that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will finally say 'enough is
enough' and pull the plug on this overpriced and unneeded Cold War
relic."

Dan Luke wrote:
"Bob Noel" wrote:

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor,
which
has gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane.

Congress has this insane ability to be astounded at cost growth, even
cost increases they inflict on the system. :-/


Well, *I'm* astounded at a $200M fighter that was supposed to cost
$90M (which would have been bad enough), how about you?

From the Project on Government Oversight:

The F-22 fighter development and testing program is dragging behind
schedule and attempts by the Air Force to control costs are failing
miserably, according to a new report by the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO),
Tactical Aircraft: DOD Needs to Better Inform Congress about
Implication of Continuing F/A-22 Cost Growth, GAO-03-280.

The new report, released late Wednesday by Representative John Tierney,
(D-MA), concludes that the Air Force has been unable to implement the
cost-saving measures it promised and has essentially kept Congress in
the dark about excessive cost overruns.

The report further states:
a.. At the current rate of spending, the Air Force will be able to buy
only 224 F-22s, and not the 339 planned as recently as last fall.


b.. The Department of Defense failed to disclose $1.3 billion in F-22
program cost overruns.


c.. The F-22 program is on target to exceed cost limitations imposed
by Congress.

"The story of the gold-plated F-22 fighter just gets worse with every
financial analysis," said POGO Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller.
"We hope that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will finally say 'enough is
enough' and pull the plug on this overpriced and unneeded Cold War
relic."

Just raise taxes. No problem. We're used to in MA where the Big Dig
went from $4B to $14.6B and continues to rise.

Dan Luke wrote:


"Bob Noel" wrote:

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor,
which
has gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane.

Congress has this insane ability to be astounded at cost growth, even
cost increases they inflict on the system. :-/

Well, *I'm* astounded at a $200M fighter that was supposed to cost
$90M (which would have been bad enough), how about you?

From the Project on Government Oversight:

The F-22 fighter development and testing program is dragging behind
schedule and attempts by the Air Force to control costs are failing
miserably, according to a new report by the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO),
Tactical Aircraft: DOD Needs to Better Inform Congress about
Implication of Continuing F/A-22 Cost Growth, GAO-03-280.

The new report, released late Wednesday by Representative John Tierney,
(D-MA), concludes that the Air Force has been unable to implement the
cost-saving measures it promised and has essentially kept Congress in
the dark about excessive cost overruns.

The report further states:
a.. At the current rate of spending, the Air Force will be able to buy
only 224 F-22s, and not the 339 planned as recently as last fall.


b.. The Department of Defense failed to disclose $1.3 billion in F-22
program cost overruns.


c.. The F-22 program is on target to exceed cost limitations imposed
by Congress.

"The story of the gold-plated F-22 fighter just gets worse with every
financial analysis," said POGO Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller.
"We hope that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will finally say 'enough is
enough' and pull the plug on this overpriced and unneeded Cold War
relic."


History repeats itself.

In the late 60's early 70's the "Fighter Mafia" and others showed how the
numbers of planes the USAF could buy kept going down donw donw from one
conflict to another. They argued that if we continue to gold plate our
fighters we'll end up with 10 solid gold planes.

A good brief analysis (tho not the only point of view) can be found in the
book "The Mind of War".

So anyways (according to the book) at that time the USAF was adding more
and more to the F-15 - gold plating - and that's when others started
pushing for the F-16. The USAF was forced into it because the Sec Def was
on board with the idea. They were told to have a hi-low cost mix so that we
could field a decent number of fighters.

Later on, all the USAF press releases sounded as if Hi/Lo was their idea
all along. Just one of the myths of the era, I suppose.

Same thnig seems to be happening now, with regard to gold plating and fewer
squadrons.

My concern is that we haven't fought a first rate, numerically equal or
superior, quality-equal Air Force in a long long time. Some day I expect
that we will. But when will that be? And will the F-22 be what we want
then? And if the fight is 10-20 years down the road, would it have been
better to field a few F-22's and get to work on the next one?

My pet theory is that the next time we are in a long term all out war with a
first rate power, all the fancy gizmos will be used up within 3 weeks and
we'll be back to bullets, grenades, and bayonets. I may exxaggerate
slightly but you gt my point. We don't have the manufacturing ability to
put out dozens of F-22's every month. And that kind of manufacturing
capability isn't build overnight.

--
Saville

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