Raptor vs Eagle

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 13:03:45 +0200, Martin Hotze wrote:

On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 18:52:39 -0500, "JJS" jschneider@remove socks
cebridge.net wrote:

The most amazing thing was watching the raptor fire missiles while the
airplane was rolling very fast. I've never seen a jet do that. The
ability to super cruise and the vectored thrust would make this the best
fighter in the world without all of the electronic wizardry and stealth
capability.

and what are you (the USA) going to do with it? you already can have
world domination with the military arsenal you currently have. There is
no logic reason for even more military power.

#m

That's actually not true. Technologically, our primary fighters are on
par with what is readily available around the world. And, let's not
forget that the F16, F14, and others, are available on the world market.
Let's not forget that Russia has their top technolgies on the market;
which are on par with current US offerings. Heck, even European
countries have some top notch technologies on the market. For now, the
line of deliniation is a small gap is US technology, mostly by means of
support infrastruture, and a large gap provided by superior training. Any
nation is capable of closing the training/pilot gap; especially with
Russia so willing to provide those services.

The F-22 is designed to address tomorrow's world today, not the other way
around. Do you know what the world holds in a decade from now? How about
two? China is looking to upset the world both militarily and economically
within the next decade. What will the world look like in two? China is
not exactly the nicest guys on the block.

People who say the world has no need for the F-22 need to stop looking
down at their feet and try to look over the horizon. With the BEST of
luck, the F-22 will be a huge waste of money. Remember, weapons systems
serve two roles. One, lethality. Two, deterence. If the F-22 serves
only a deterence role, it's paid back its investiment.

From a technology perspective, China is growing rapidly. In less than a
decade, China is now able to design and build their own CPUs which are on
par with Intel's Pentium; much of which was reaped from technology
publically available from places like the US and Europe. They are rapidly
closing the technology gap to build something on par with the Pentium II.
Their DSP (Digital Signal Processor) capabilities are rapidly growing as
well. In case you don't know, DSPs are used for everything from basic
radio to complex radar/sonar systems and even complex digitial encryption
communication infrastruture.

With available technology of Pentium II-class processors, China will
finally be able to create super computers in mass which are on par with
what the US had in the 70s, 80s, and even into the early 90s.
Remember, the F117 was built using 1960s technology, most of which was
done on a slide rule; thus the very odd shape. This opens the doors for
all sorts of new technolgies; radar/sonar, stealth, high energy physics,
new classes of encryption, new classes of decryption, new manufacturing
technologies, higher quality military equipment, more powerful explosives,
silent subs, etc....the list is practically endless...and they have no
shortage of labor to build on what is already available in the market
place (skills and both hard and soft technology).

Lastly, let's take a look at some numbers. Ford spent a BILLION dollars
to develop the Ford Tarus. In turn, they were able to spread their
investment over many, many, many units (I don't recall the sales figures).
The Tarus was developed in what, the early 90s? I don't know what this is
in today's inflated dollar, but I do know that's a lot of bucks on
something that is simple and VERY well understood. After all, the ICE and
automobile are fairly well understood, even in the 90s. On the other
hand, almost everthing in the F-22 is brand new, leading edge technology.
The number of units on which they can spread their development cost is
very low; in the hundreds.

The technology that comes out of the F-22 program will in turn, go into
new plane development. As a US citizen, I understand these are expensive.
It does upset me that the project seems to be growing without bounds.
Having said that, I do understand that the resulting technology will feed
into other programs for decades to come. I also understand that their
technology is helping to keep the entire world safe.


Greg