The last manned fighter aircraft in the USAF

[Militarydude]

The last manned fighter aircraft in the USAF


Entered service 2003
Crew 1 men
Dimensions and weight
Length 18.92 m
Wing span 13.56 m
Height 5 m
Weight (empty) 14.36 t
Weight (maximum take off) 27.21 t
Engines and performance
Engines 2 x Pratt & Whitney F119-P-100 turbofans
Traction (dry / with afterburning) 2 x ? / 155.69 kN
Maximum speed > 2 500 km/h
Armament
Cannon 1 x M61A2 20-mm cannon
Missiles 4 x AIM-120C AMRAAMs, 4 x AIM-9M/X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. GBU-32 joint directed air munition, AGM-88 HARM
Bombs GBU-22 Paveway III laser guided bombs



Information from:
http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/f22_raptor.htm

Are there any other similar aircraft under development around the world?

[matthew]

I'm not quite sure what to make of this thread...it looks like spam, but I am unclear as to the purpose of it. I moved it to the cafe instead of Absolute Beginner Talk and I'll let it continue or die here, but it's pretty off topic for a tech support forum, especially for a user's first post.

[darkninja]

The last manned fighter aircraft in the USAF

Are there any other similar aircraft under development around the world?

I dunno about the F-22 being the LAST manned fighter. Remote controlled and AI related systems have come a long way sure, but still are not quite up to the mental standards of a human pilot. Both AI and remote systems have many major disadvantages.

R.C systems risk jamming, and standalone AI systems lack the human judgement needed for more complex missions. Lets just say you tell a AI plane to bomb a enemy building. A human plane could decide "Wait a second, that looks more like a hospital!" where as the AI plane would go *BOOM*.

For dogfighting etc, machines do have major physical advantages over humans, however modern air combat seems to be more focused on range, intelligence and stealth then pure manoeuvrability and I could see those trends increasing into the future.

That said, the more manoeuvrable YF-22 did beat the YF-23, though the decision was most likely politics. Hence the F-22 is here today.

[PryGuy]

Su-47 'Berkut' (Golden Eagle) (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/s37/), my dear! ;) And no, it's not similar, it's far superior...

[xpod]

Re: The last manned fighter aircraft in the USAF

WHAT....No probs with your Xorg.conf,your wireless or your windows partition?

[PryGuy]

WHAT....No probs with your Xorg.conf,your wireless or your windows partition?LOL

[Dual Cortex]

Did he mean the latest?

[Titus A Duxass]

The F35 is in development.

[weatherman]

just take a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fighter_aircraft#Generation_5
I think the eurofighter is pretty cool (but I'm obviously biased hehe)
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/ef2000/

[Titus A Duxass]

The Eurofighter Typhoon is cool, I worked on that thing for 16 years.

[PryGuy]

The Eurofighter Typhoon is cool, I worked on that thing for 16 years.It's cool because you worked on it? ;)

[weatherman]

The Eurofighter Typhoon is cool, I worked on that thing for 16 years.
wow, what role did you have?

[Titus A Duxass]

what role did you have?

Prep of Maintainance Documents (how-tos :D) and development of maintenance tools.

[mips]

I'm just pissed USAF mothballed the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

The same goes for the Brits/French on the Concorde...

I understand why but that does not mean i have to like it ;)

[pelle.k]

As i'm from sweden, I take pride in our own fighter jets and whatnot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Gripen

Not an airplane but anyway - our own stealth warship;
http://www.global-defence.com/2001/SeaSpart5.html

"Stealth" submarine;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Gotland_(Gtd)
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=3056

[IncomingFire]

Similar posts showed up on other forums I visit, seems to be a new spam bot spreading its wings.

[maniacmusician]

[shrug] who cares if its a spambot. It's generating discussion that other people are interested in, and no links were posted, so it seems fine

[IncomingFire]

Never said anything bad about it.
Just letting people know it exists.

[Bezmotivnik]

I'm just pissed USAF mothballed the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
They're still working.

For that matter, the U-2 is still going strong, flying out of a "mothballed" decommissioned AFB near my town, among many other places. They're the eeriest-sounding plane I know of when they're coming in for landings. My hair just stands on end when I hear one coming in over the house in the dead of night.

People didn't believe me about this until Google Earth caught one flying just north of here and it was put up on The Register.

Look about 3/5 of the way down on this page (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/14/google_earth_competition_results/page11.html).

[prizrak]

Su-47 'Berkut' (Golden Eagle) (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/s37/), my dear! ;) And no, it's not similar, it's far superior...

Was gonna say that. No one is developing similar aircraft. F22 was supposed to a rival to the Su-37 Super Flanker but since the development and deployment took so long the Su-47 came out and is pretty much a generation ahead already.

[mips]

They're still working.

For that matter, the U-2 is still going strong, flying out of a "mothballed" decommissioned AFB near my town, among many other places. They're the eeriest-sounding plane I know of when they're coming in for landings. My hair just stands on end when I hear one coming in over the house in the dead of night.

People didn't believe me about this until Google Earth caught one flying just north of here and it was put up on The Register.

Look about 3/5 of the way down on this page (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/14/google_earth_competition_results/page11.html).

I know the U2 still flies but the SR-71 is to costly to fly, we got satelites after all, real shame. Most beautifull piece of aeronuatical engineering i've seen.

[flapane]

Prep of Maintainance Documents (how-tos :D) and development of maintenance tools.

cool! did they develop it in Tolouse?

[Bezmotivnik]

I know the U2 still flies but the SR-71 is to costly to fly...
My information is that while it's off the USAF duty roster, there are still some operational SR-71s in use "by other agencies." Make of that what you will. :rolleyes:

I believe NASA still has some (NASA has some real oddities, such as the the oldest operational B-52B), but there are some black projects using SR-71s.

[cough!] Supposedly.

You would be surprised at all the very obscure outfits running their own in-house, black budget air forces lately. :-\"

[xopher]

My information is that while it's off the USAF duty roster, there are still some operational SR-71s in use "by other agencies." Make of that what you will. :rolleyes:

I believe NASA still has some (NASA has some real oddities, such as the the oldest operational B-52B), but there are some black projects using SR-71s.

[cough!] Supposedly.

You would be surprised at all the very obscure outfits running their own in-house, black budget air forces lately. :-\"

You know you will get killed by telling us government secrets like these, right? :mrgreen:

[Titus A Duxass]

cool! did they develop it in Tolouse?

Nope, it was developed by four nations (UK, GE, SP, IT) France went their own way with the Rafale because it can land on Carriers, the EF cannot.

It certainly was not developed in Toulouse, that is the home of Civil Aircraft.

[mips]

My information is that while it's off the USAF duty roster, there are still some operational SR-71s in use "by other agencies." Make of that what you will. :rolleyes:

I believe NASA still has some (NASA has some real oddities, such as the the oldest operational B-52B), but there are some black projects using SR-71s.

[cough!] Supposedly.

You would be surprised at all the very obscure outfits running their own in-house, black budget air forces lately. :-\"

Ok, sounds like silent black helicopter stuff ;)

[Bezmotivnik]

Ok, sounds like silent black helicopter stuff ;)
After 9/11 all the weird crackpot stuff became true, with near-infinite funding and a viciously competitive bureaucratic empire-building feeding frenzy. Everyone's in a scramble to get their piece of the pie and justify their budgets and obscenely bloated "civilian" contracts. I'm retired, but if I wanted to work in the Gulf, I could currently do my same old job for my same old employers for a thirty-four-fold (34X) salary increase.

Some of the results have been pretty hilarious, aside from the huge incineration of tax dollars. My favorite was the super-secret SIGINT planes circling on-station 24/7 over a small rural town in California for a few weeks trying to "secretly" intercept a Pakistani ice cream truck driver's family's cell phone calls. It was the biggest tourist attraction for fifty miles, and a media laughingstock.

:rolleyes:

Other results of this witch hunt growth industry have been disgusting, shameful and tragic, and I have lately seen these up close and personal. You know the old saying, "no matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up"?

It's absolutely true. :(

[civilian]

Ah damn, as a Canadian I wish we wouldn'tve dropped this one but oh well. I was pretty amazed that we we're actually in the race at one point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Arrow

The "would've been" best plane on earth at its time.

[xtacocorex]

NASA actually retired their B-52B and put a B-52H into service to replace it.

[mips]

Ah damn, as a Canadian I wish we wouldn'tve dropped this one but oh well. I was pretty amazed that we we're actually in the race at one point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Arrow

The "would've been" best plane on earth at its time.

Those are the same guys that built a flying saucer. Had some rediculous performance claims & never really materialised into much. Made for an interesting documentary though.