"When the French "Shot Down" an F-22" Topic

"Evidence released last year confirms that a French fighter pilot once "killed" an American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in mock combat.

Although not unprecedented, the simulated shoot-down is still a big deal for a couple reasons.

For one, the Lockheed Martin-made F-22 is supposed to be the most fearsome warplane in history, a quarter-billion-dollar-per-plane technological marvel that flies higher and faster than its opponents while avoiding detection by radar. The Pentagon is counting on a tiny number of the pricey Raptors — slightly more than 180 — to ward off potentially much larger numbers of enemy planes for the foreseeable future. Every mock dogfight the F-22 loses undermines the Pentagon's plans for air dominance…"

Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

A couple of German Typhoons also scored kills on the F-22 a few years ago IIRC. A Raptor is supposed to kill its opponents BVR before they even knew what hit them. If an F-22 tangles in dogfights against more agile birds like the Rafale or Typhoon it is at a distinct disadvantage.

So I can't say that I'm surprised. Though I admit the following does sound a bit embarassing:

The U.S. pilots copped to just one loss in the war game — an F-22 defeated by a Mirage 2000 flown by an Emirati aviator.

Yep, the F-22 isn't really that good at dogfighting, since even Russian birds are better close in, especially with off-boresite targeting.

Mako 11,
What's not good about its dogfighting abilities?

A couple of German Typhoons also scored kills on the F-22 a few years ago IIRC

The Typhoons were stripped to bare bones to be able to do it. And the F-22 of course didn't bother with BVR kills.

Yep, the F-22 isn't really that good at dogfighting, since even Russian birds are better close in, especially with off-boresite targeting.

F-22 is better than most jets at maneouvrability. At full afterburning and standard operating load, it's thrust to weight ratio exceeds 1:1 (many current jets only get this at low loads or empty). It's also the only current Western jet in service with thrust vectoring.

F-35, Eurofighter, Rafale and Gripen don't have thrust vectoring. Eurofighter is designed as A2A so aerodynamics and thrust make it quite maneouvrable.

The Russian Flankers are maneouvrable byt only modified Su-30MKI/MKM, Su-30SM and Su-35s have thrust vectoring. The first two are in service with India and Malaysia and the Su-30SM and Su-35 in small numbers in Russian Air Force. Vast majority of Su-27/-30 and all Chinese Flankers don't have thrust vectoring.

The MiG-35 hasn't entered service yet.

The F-22s Achilles Heels are it's tanker and AWACS support. According to RAND, in any PLAAF v USAF engagement, PLAAF Flankers win due to numbers.

Basically they can keep the F-22s at bay whilst other aircraft take on non-stealthy tankers and AWACS.

F-35 is even more susceptible to these tactics due to lower range.

Oh and I have just have to throw a little jab at F-35, the ugliest bucket ever flown by US:

F-35 is basically a bomb truck. Even Air Combat Command chief, General Mike Hostage admitted:

If I do not keep that F-22 fleet viable, the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant. The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform. It needs the F-22.

airforcetimes.com/article/20140202/NEWS04/302020005/Air-Combat-Command-s-challenge-Buy-new-modernize-older-aircraft

And in another interview:

I'm going to have some F-35s doing air superiority, some doing those early phases of persistent attack, opening the holes, and again, the F-35 is not compelling unless it's there in numbers," the general says. "Because it can't turn and run away, it's got to have support from other F-35s. So I'm going to need eight F-35s to go after a target that I might only need two (F-22) Raptors to go after. But the F-35s can be equally or more effective against that site than the Raptor can because of the synergistic effects of the platform."

And

"The F-35 doesn't have the altitude, doesn't have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth."

aviationweek.com/blog/f-35-stealthier-f-22

In air superiority mission altitude and speed are critical. Both give flexibility and initiative and much more so than stealth.

To put it simply the F-35 isn't going to even touch a 1980s vintage MiG-31 due to speed and altitude issues.

The Navy's F-35C version is especially dismal getting down to A-6 level performance in some parameters due to massive compromises in airframe to accommodate both stealth and carrier performance (and Lockheed having limited carrier experience – S-3 Viking!). Hence they prefer F/A-18E/F than F-35C.

Bare in mind F-16 is prefectly capable of air superiority on its own and has shot down numerous aircraft including MiG-29s and high altitude high speed MiG-25s.

In fact what's interesting is that the USN and USAF are developing completely different doctrines to air combat. This is after decades of alignment following lessons of Vietnam.

The Navy has always been slightly more realistic though and far more responsive than the Air Force in terms of meeting new challenges (e.g. F-4 or F-14 or even F/A-18 in terms of multirole capability compared to F-16 which had it slowly bolted on in USAF service).

Indeed in the 1950s the USAF was actually unable to develop practical and efficient combat aircraft and ended up adopting USN developed F-4 which was a game changer compared to clunky Century series aircraft. They also adopted USN A-1, A-7 and H-3 in the 1960s.

The F-22 pilots were forced to start out at low altitude and low speed to give the Opfor a chance in this instance.

That is usually the case and almost never mentioned in these breathless reports.

When you start out ignoring or "re-animating" BVR kills just to give a game to the other side, you aren't learning much about the combat performance of the F22.

You really have to look at the rules of the game they were playing to see what happened. Same thing used to happen when the M1 Abrams was first going to the tank competitions. From what I recall everyone was beating them until they were allowed to use all the gadgets on the tank, then nothing could touch their scores.

Oh and I have just have to throw a little jab at F-35, the ugliest bucket ever flown by US:

F-35 is basically a bomb truck.

The USAF's insistence on not canceling the F-35 is due to its decades old belief that it must possess a hi-lo mix of fighters. The F-22, like the F-15 with its F-16, have to have a 'lo' component, in this case the F-35. Except the F-35 will probably end up costing more than the F-22. Such is the way when you're locked into outmoded thinking.

The USAF's insistence on not canceling the F-35 is due to its decades old belief that it must possess a hi-lo mix of fighters. The F-22, like the F-15 with its F-16, have to have a 'lo' component, in this case the F-35. Except the F-35 will probably end up costing more than the F-22. Such is the way when you're locked into outmoded thinking.

Don't dispute that.

Bungled procurement and poor planning has made the high-lo mix untennable.

The "low" F-35 is actually slated to replace "high" F-15s in both air defence and multi-role as well as "low" F-16 due to low numbers of F-22s. The USN already did this with "low" F/A-18E/F replacing "high" F-14.

Remember the combat exercise between the US and India a couple of years ago?

The Indians forces "killed" several F-22s, F-15s and F-16s.

Part of the ROE included, for the US, no BVR, no AWACS support, low altitude and no reacting until the first shot by the Indians.

Clever, no?

no reacting until the first shot by the Indians.

And given first shot = first kill, that meant the US was sitting ducks.

There were also restrictions on EW equipment but that was on both sides. It's quite common in international exercises so as to not give away key frequencies and capabilities.

The you tube footage is a bit disturbing. The French pilot sounds as though he is having the very best, then the very worst orgasm you can imagine.

ah that poor f22 pilot probably got a bit of ribbing over getting shot down