Friday Fly-by - F-22 Raptor Maneuverability
This week’s fly-by features a montage of video clips of the F-22 Raptor’s first full tactical air show demonstration, performed at Langley AFB in April 2007 by pilot Major Paul Mogataken. It includes cobras, backflips, super-high-alpha flight, hovering with its nose pointed straight up, super-fast pitch-ups, and some sonic shock condensation cones and wingtip vortex contrails (“vapor”) at the very end.
As you may already know, the F-22 is essentially invisible to the enemy in combat; in simulated war games, its pilots consistently “kill” the enemy while remaining undetected. In addition, the Raptor has the fastest cruise speed of any aircraft currently flying (MACH 1.5 - 1.75, depending on whom you ask). It’s capable of breaking the sound barrier while in a straight up vertical climb, fully loaded, and is highly sophisticated in how it manages, shares and integrates information and presents it to the pilot.
During this exhibition, the USAF allowed one more thing about the F-22 to be shown to the public: its amazing maneuverability. No other American fighter in history has so empowered its pilot and provided such impressive combat performance capabilities.
Doug
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Reader Comments (5)
I would like to see how your Raptor would perform against against the Russian Sukhoi SU-35. You even posted a video of it on your blog in September. I think the SU-35 put on the better show.
Awesome piece of weaponry.
I can't imagine the G-forces the pilot has to push through with some of those abrupt moves! It must be a rush to fly one of these every day!
What are you, Jargesh, a Ruski? With all due respect, the Sukhoi has some interesting show maneuvers, especially fishtailing, but it isn't in the Raptor's league as a fighting machine.
I would pay big money to witness a mock dogfight between the Sukhoi and Raptor. My guess is the Raptor would kill the Sukhoi before he knew he was there. I'm not saying the Sukhoi isn't a good plane, but it isn't a Raptor. Different aircraft are designed for different purposes. The Raptor is a fighting machine. The Sukhoi is for air shows.
Hey Doug, thanks for turning off the comment delay! Can't have any continuity when you do that.
This is a magnificent display of what we can accomplish with unlimited resources and amazing technological know how. People complain that we replace aircraft before ever even using them. They are seemingly oblivious to the fact that military preparedness requires that we be always one step ahead of our potential and real enemies who are constantly trying to best us. If these armchair generals were in charge, we would still be flying F-86s and would be in no position to defend against more current technology.
As for the Sukhoi, it is no Raptor!