USAF Pilot Blasts F-22 Raptor

[Tripp]

The following appeared in the Atlanta newspaper...any thoughts? [Personally, I say build the blasted thing, but that's because it's built about 10 miles from my house, alongside the C-130 Hercules--nothing like hometown pride....]

quote:
Test pilot questions value of F-22 in future wars

By Julia Malone
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Washington -- A veteran Air Force test pilot and senior military aircraft designer Thursday criticized the Air Force's "dream" F-22 fighter Thursday as an "obscene" expense that will deliver few of its high-performance promises.

In the latest skirmish over the new generation of fighters, retired Air Force Col. Everest E. Riccioni said that the F-22 "is really not a very spectacular increase in capability" over the F-15 now in use. He said the new plane will be too big to evade detection and that it will be "totally irrelevant" to future wars.

Riccioni said the F-22 program would actually weaken U.S. air power because the high cost for each new plane, now estimated at $178 million, will mean that as few as 100 new planes will be purchased as current fighters are retired.

The U.S. Air Force "has always had and has always depended upon superior numbers to win," the former fighter pilot said as part of what he called a "fact versus fiction" analysis of the F-22 program.

"Numbers guarantee victory. Numbers develop intensity and allow multiple attacks," he said.

Riccioni, who helped foster the Air Force's lightweight F-16s, launched his criticism at a briefing sponsored by the Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group on federal spending and corporate fraud.

Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor for the F-22, rejected the critique, although company spokesman Sam Grizzle acknowledged that Riccioni is a "well-known concept developer for aviation programs."

"By all government accounts, the F-22's test performance thus far has been outstanding, meeting every design criteria with favorable margin," Grizzle said from Marietta, Ga., where the planes would be assembled.

"Our team is confident the F-22 represents a huge increase in capability over the F-15, and that the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center will validate the F-22's performance during initial operational effectiveness testing," he said.

The testing is scheduled to begin in August 2002, after production has already begun on the plane. That timing is among the concerns Riccioni raised.

Among his complaints about the aircraft, all of which he said were based on publicly available data:


-It's much bigger than other fighters, so that it could be easily seen unless flown at night.

"The plane is stealthy against air radar," but the data offer no information on whether it can be spotted by radar systems on the ground.

-Infrared sensors would detect its heat, and its shock waves could be picked up by sound monitors.

-Its publicly advertised thrust power is roughly the same as F-15s. "It will look very impressive," Riccioni said, but he predicted that the F-22 would maneuver much as the existing fighters do.

-Despite promises that the new plane could cruise efficiently at supersonic speeds for hundreds of miles, he said its large wings, needed for maneuverability, make it difficult to fly efficiently above the speed of sound. He said the range for such supersonic flights would be about 50 miles.

-Testing for the plane has been sharply reduced.

And in a critique made by other foes of the new aircraft, the retired pilot argued that it would be "irrelevant" now that there is no Soviet air force or any other serious competitor to counter. The F-22 would be of no use in 21st century conflicts against guerrilla forces, terrorists and drug lords, he said.

Although the F-22 has suffered setbacks on Capitol Hill, the plane has won backing from President Clinton this year in a budget that includes funding to buy the first 10 planes next year and 16 in 2002. The plan was backed in the fiscal 2001 defense spending bill approved by the House on Wednesday.



Edited by - Tripp on 14 June 2000

[Bully]

Tripp,
My thoughts are that we should continue to develop jets like the f-15 until we come up with a HUGE leap in technology. I look to what the ruskies are doing with the Su-27 and it's endless variants. Also, to a lesser degree, what the USMC has done with the Cobra(I know, I know...apples and oranges).
The airframes we have now are good ones...I agree with the Col. that the f22 isn't a big enough leap to warrant it's cost.
We could continue building f15 frames using newer materials, put some kinards or something on them to increase manuverabilty, and even put vectoring nozzels on them. Plus, we could even retro-fit some of these changes to existing planes.
Like the Col. said in the article, most missions are going to involve mud-moving in some third-world $h!t-hole where "stealth" technology is irrelevant. Plus, the Serbs showed that "stealth" was not all it was cracked up to be.
Personally, I'd like to see the Navy bring back the A-6 and continue the F-14 with improvements like glass cockpits, and new bells and whistles. Just imagine what could be done with an enhanced f-16, as well.
That's just my $.02

[Phoenix]

You´re right Bully. In case you haven´t heard it yet, the B-2 and F-117 ARE visible to G/A radar. The British and the French have confirmed that. By the way, the F-117 flight plan was given up to the Serbs by the French, but NATO covered it up. The Serbs knew exactly when it was coming and they pointede the radar to scan in only that direction. In the minute it was supposed to arrive, they just turned on the radar and it was too late for the pilot to do anything. Imagine how much would the Raptor be visible with its half-stealth technology. Waste of money. I agree with you all. Upgrade the current jets, or copy the Su-27 .

DEATH FROM ABOVE!

[Kenny Husin]

Speaking of Tomcat improvements, I am still waiting and hoping and praying that the Navy comes to its senses and bring back to life the striken Tomcat 21 variation... still hoping...

[Tripp]

quote:
Waste of money. I agree with you all. Upgrade the current jets, or copy the Su-27 .

DEATH FROM ABOVE!


Hmm...I'm willing to say it's a safe bet that the US won't be making any Flanker knock-offs anytime soon. But then again, I did download the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" performed by, of all people, the Soviet Red Army off of Napster. I guess anything's possible these days.

As to the Raptor: I guess I came across as foolhardy, but pride can only go so far. I agree, it doesn't make much sense to develop an entirely new airplane when we can exploit current airframes (a la the F-15E). As Mcaf has so astutely pointed out, the budget cutting affects the lower end of the spectrum, so dropping $178,000,000 on 1 airplane doesn't make much sense when we can't fix our vaccum cleaners and waxing machines.

I have this recurring dream that the Tomcat is miraculously spared from extinction and reintroduced to the Navy as a Tomcat II version...with a glass cockpit, fly-by-wire flight controls, and newer, more fuel-efficient engines. *Sigh* Oh well...guess the Super Hornet will have to do...

One other thing...I was walking back to my dorm from class today and happened to notice a sign posted on one of the buildings...it read "Fallout Shelter Inside" and had the nuclear radiation symbol on it. Turns out, this sign is on all of the older buildings on campus. It just struck me as so out of place...this vestige from the Cold War. Hell, the Russians are [supposedly] our friends & we're about to grant China Most Favored Nation trade status. Here in the States, we live in relative peace (thank you, John/Steve/Dave/Q, et al). Iraq continually poses a problem, but they don't have anything that could reach us. Even the North Koreans (most likely nation to lob nukes into our neighborhood) are making moves towards reconciling with Seoul (although it wouldn't surprise me if it were a front...lest we forget Japan's diplomacy even as they bombed Pearl Harbor). Oh well--I'm rambling, so I'll shut up and go to bed.

Peace in the East,
Tripp

[Dave Shutter]

I have read theorizations, and not just in the JFK movie, that we fought Viet-Nam so co-orporations could get weapons contracts. How and why our Government goes through some of it's procurements is far beyond me, and I quess more politically astute people than me as well. I've loved the Raptor since I first saw it, but not as much as the YF-23. Now that I know exactly how much it costs the affection's a little bittersweet knowing what cuts the current admin has done to the services. At that price, can we really buy enough birds to really make any difference in the event of another large shooting war with a country that has large numbers of 4'th gen fighters, provided either from us or from Crazy Ivan's going out of business sale? And this goes back to some anti-raptor sentiments: The F-15 is undefeated in over 150 air-air engagements, most coming from Israel. the Tomcat doesn't have a fraction of those kill numbers but I think that's a testament to it's strength; imagine if some other fighter (like the proposed Navy FB-111 variant???) was out there going nose to nose with Russian bombers and fighters over the oceans in the seventies and eighties? The F-16 is a combat proven bird and the Hornet's Desert Storm and Kosova performance also speaks for itself.

I've sniffed a lot of rising sentiments among F-14 pilots (and Navy pilots in general) that SuperHornet may not haver been that much of a wise choice over Tomcat 21, it certainly didn't cost a whole lot less, especially in light of the "Bombcat's" remarkable strike capability which has been proven in recent years, including combat in Kosova. And any Tomcat pilot will be happy to list for you the areas where the E/F's performance still falls way short of the capabilities of the outgoing Turkey!

As for multi-role capability...hmmm...For one million dollars, name the only carrier jet on the planet that can carry the TARPS imager, a weapons loadout, it's gun, and still fly at max range...

But then again, you know that they say about hindsight: eveything's 20/20 looking out your a**hole...

D

[Steve Wilkins]

Well, I'm for mass producing the T-34C Mentor and attaching wing bomblets so that we can send our SNA's (student naval aviators) on kamikaze bombing runs. I'm sure the SNA's won't mind....right John? They could get all this flight time and not even need receive their wings. Just think of all the advantages. We could save a heap of cash and put it into the surface navy in the form of bigger bonuses for all the hardworking SWO's out there. . But better yet, the Raptor goes away and we upgrade the T-34's with glass cockpits and de-icing boots. I'm telling ya, we could do our country a huge service by following this type of stategy.

Best regards,