I don’t recognize the name Jake Donovan either but I’m assuming he’s legitimate. Let’s also assume that his comments are sincere and truthful as far as his experience goes. The only way to know what these comments are worth is to interview him personally, and get his perspective. The F-35 prototypes were not examples of operational weapons and neither were the first few F-22A’s built (even less so for the YF-22’s). If he flew both of these aircraft it is likely they were both limited by the cleared flight envelope of the period. The F-22 has cleared much more sky now, way beyond XF-35 territory. I think everything is “Jake”, from the air vehicle performance point of view, not perfect, but wow. It is well known that the F-22 specs were such that it gave up nothing in maneuvering performance to the F-15 while adding many new wrinkles, notably in the supersonic speed and high alpha areas. I suppose pilots differ on the utility of flying fast, but in the F-22 you better get used to it. High and fast, low and fast,…anything and fast will be the description of most F-22 missions. Don’t forget, it can slow down and "turn & burn" just like legacy jets, just in case. It can also recover energy faster than any current jets. One version or another of the F-35 will probably be competitive with the F-22 in the traditional mid-altitude dog fighting arena. So will some foreign types. The F-15 is prone to this difficulty too, isn’t it? It seems to me, if you are likely to be on a par with your enemy, it would make good sense to take the fight elsewhere, where you have an advantage. The F-22 can do that. For instance, consider the fallout capability of a “supercruise” fighter. What can it do if it lights the afterburners? Is there any tactic that can take advantage of an x0000 feet/min rate of climb at M=1.5 at 36000 ft (or an energy equivalent sustained g supersonic turn)? What would be the range of an AIM-120 if it were launched from x0000 ft altitude traveling at xx00 knots (kind of a booster stage)? Fill in your own guesstimates for x. Good people are developing tactics now to give the USAF the advantage it deserves. Take note that I am only talking about aero/propulsion performance, not offensive and defensive equipment performance. As I recall, there were to be some stunning improvements provided there too, improvements not likely to find space on the F-35. Are these improvements factored in to Capt. Donovan’s opinion? If Capt. Donovan has narrowed his view of performance down to range/payload, he would find me in agreement when he prefers the F-35C. It should be hard to beat as a bomb truck, while retaining competitive A2A capability against new European types, but it is further away from being operational. I don’t know anything about the electronics and stealth in the F-35, but its appearance would suggest that it is not being designed as A2A optimized as the F-22. If the preference is based on economics, maybe he’s right too. A big bunch of faith has to go with that one too, though. One assumption is that the F-35 is “good enough” in the A2A role, even though we know that better is achievable. Another assumption is that the cost predictions of the F-35 are anywhere near realistic, since the amount of units purchased is always being renegotiated, and all the bugs have not been ironed out. As long as we’re in the “good enough” mode, why do we need anything better than the Super Hornet? That would save even more bucks, and we’d be just as good as the Europeans, and maybe a tick ahead of the Chinese.
I prefer the Confederate Cavalry philosophy (N.B. Forrest?), “Get there first with the most”. That would more aptly describe the Raptor in the air supremacy role. It would be fun to exchange ideas with Capt. Donovan but neither one of us can speak freely, I’m afraid. A more productive discussion would probably be obtained with the Operational Test pilots at Nellis. I want to know what they think. If the odd-ball stuff that defines the F-22 is not useful, then we should have the hide of the person(s) who said it was. If it's not worth it, we spent a lot of the national treasure getting an air show airplane.
Oops, I have turned this into another of my infamous monologues. My apologies.<img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>
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