F-22 stealth tanks and IR pod photographed

[disconnectedradical]

The F-22 can supercruise at even much higher speeds clean. Yet, the issue in both cases in range drops dramatically and the IFR Signature goes way up! In the case of the latter flight performance and RCS is also impacted.

Clearly, the USAF wants the tanks to extend the range of the F-22. Yet, like all external tanks they have considerable tradeoffs.

The F-22 upgrades increase the aircrafts range and provide better sensor coverage. Yet, in return it will operate at slower speeds, have less agility, and higher IFR Signature.

Is that worth it in the long run? Against lower threats that is an acceptable trade-off. Against higher threats questionable....

"IMHO"

You asked for the source then promptly ignored it when it said this:

“The F-22 LDTPs are advanced technological designs providing increased persistence and range while maintaining lethality and survivability. The low drag tanks are intended to minimize the impact of drag, facilitate supersonic flight with external tanks and extend the range of the F-22.”

You also missed the part where these tanks are specifically designed to be jettisoned with the pylon with minimal attachment points exposed so that the return the F-22 RCS and drag as close to clean configuration as possible.

“The pylons are equipped with smart rack pneumatic technology to accurately control ejection performance and smooth wind-swept surface for minimum drag without store.”

These tanks are specifically meant to address range requirements in the Pacific, it’s not meant for a “low threat” situation.

External stores have a substantial impact on the flight performance of any fighter. Just ask Jon Beesley....former F-22 and F-35 Test Pilot.

Old saying..... "you can't have your cake and eat it too"

If, you don't believe that. Then I suggest you take it up with him! (I dare you)

Again, no one ever said external stores don’t add drag. But the AIRST pods are very slick and then, their drag addition is minimal. And the low observable tanks are specifically said to facilitate supersonic flight, so even with the additional drag, F-22 still has some supercruise capability. Which you promptly ignore. This is getting extremely obnoxious.

I don’t care about your interpretation of what Jon Beesley said. Even with the additional drag from external stores, the F-22 doesn’t turn into some lumbering subsonic aircraft that can’t handle high threat environments like you keep trying to insinuate.

[ericchase88]

In F-22 fanboy world, people think big increases in drag and performance penalty doesn't apply to their favorite aircraft. The fact is this, USAF wants to retire F-22 by 2030 if not sooner because obsolescent and limitations of the airframe. Chief of Staff General Brown said this on record but Congress won't allow it because of politics. So now USAF is making best of the situation by applying bandaid upgrades bolted on to address airframe limitations and keep it competitive by giving similar capability to F-35, these are modest improvements made at big costs. Like external tanks that increase range but decrease performance and stealth, add on IRST pod that has to make many compromises to work on the F-22. For $70 million in upgrade for EACH aircraft you can almost buy a new F-35!

[charlielima223]

Since the F-22 upgrade cost will be about same as new F-35 just to get the same basic abilities, just to keep the F-22 competitive, then it’s completely valid to ask why not just buy more F-35s. USAF said it wants to retire F-22s by 2030, it’s congress that’s keeping it alive for politics.

I'm going to ignore the majority of your "intellectual"-ignorance and focus on the last part in hopes you can understand it so try to keep up...

1. Very simple, because the F-35 IS NOT a 5th gen air superiority fighter.

2. The publicly known but still top secret NGAD program still hasn't produced an aircraft yet. Much like how there are still plenty of F-16s still in operational service because there still isn't enough F-35s to adequately replace them all. The saying, "a bird in the hand is worth more than 2 in a bush".

[charlielima223]

In F-22 fanboy world, people think big increases in drag and performance penalty doesn't apply to their favorite aircraft. The fact is this, USAF wants to retire F-22 by 2030 if not sooner because obsolescent and limitations of the airframe. Chief of Staff General Brown said this on record but Congress won't allow it because of politics. So now USAF is making best of the situation by applying bandaid upgrades bolted on to address airframe limitations and keep it competitive by giving similar capability to F-35, these are modest improvements made at big costs. Like external tanks that increase range but decrease performance and stealth, add on IRST pod that has to make many compromises to work on the F-22. For $70 million in upgrade for EACH aircraft you can almost buy a new F-35!

Here let me turn this around on you and Corsair and see if you guys can spot your double standard...

To stay competitive into and beyond the 2030s the F-35 is getting a massive upgrade program that is adding more developmental costs and complexity to an aircraft that can just now carry weapons that an Viper, Hornet and Mudhen have been doing for years now. As far as I know even with its most current operational 3F software iterraton, it still cant fire cruise missiles. In order to carry the same number of missiles and bombs as a Hornet or Eagle the F-35 will need to sacrifice its stealth and range to do so.

Look at all that additional parasitic drag and radar reflecting surfaces!

Not a stealthy dragster anymore now.

All this on an aircraft that struggled to meet the original KPPs on acceleration while clean mind you.

Also, I guess the JSF JPO, LM, and USAF think the legs on the F-35 is also subpar because if those new future fuel tanks for the F-22 works out, they want to see if it could be fitted on the F-35.

[disconnectedradical]

“Fanboy”

I’m no F-22 fanboy, in the past around 2017 or so I argued against restarting F-22 production because for the cost of restarting production it would not get new aircraft much sooner than NGAD.

Yet none of that takes away from the fact that the F-22 is currently the best air superiority fighter in USAF inventory and because of that it fills a critical mission, so it’s a cornerstone of air power that won’t retire until it’s replaced by NGAD. Whereas you and Corsair keep delusional claiming that somehow the F-22 is no better than an F-35 to try to push for some F-35 as an interim replacement, when that’s not the case. USAF even said that F-22 is the service’s highest near term priority, which you also ignored.

Then you make baseless assumptions and implications that somehow USAF purposely wasting money on the F-22 with “modest” upgrades, when you have no idea the details of the IRST, and then just ignore statements from USAF that the tanks are specifically meant to facilitate supersonic flight.

So take your strange combination of F-35 and Russia simping out of this forum.

[charlielima223]

Why don't you take your F-35 nonsense somewhere else, which is strange considering you also simp for Russia.

This is getting extremely obnoxious.

Unfortunately two members have made it a point to come to this thread to muddy up the waters. It's hard to ignore them at times.

On the subject of cooling.
(im guessing here) It could be that what we have seen so far are simply "advanced" mockup designs used for flight and radar testing. I would also make a guess that the final design will have some kind of stealthy novel air intake/scope design.

[wrightwing]

In F-22 fanboy world, people think big increases in drag and performance penalty doesn't apply to their favorite aircraft.

There aren't "big increases" in drag. These pods, are specifically designed to be both stealthy and low drag. The F-22 can still supercruise with them, so that dispels the notion that there are huge penalties.

The fact is this, USAF wants to retire F-22 by 2030 if not sooner because obsolescent and limitations of the airframe.

General Brown (or anyone else) has never said that they want to retire the F-22 by 2030, much less sooner. He has, however, said that the retirement would be event driven (i.e. only after NGAD is available in sufficient numbers and maturity.)

Chief of Staff General Brown said this on record but Congress won't allow it because of politics.

That remark was specifically related to the 33 Block 20 F-22s, that would require significant expense to bring up to the combat coded standard.

So now USAF is making best of the situation by applying bandaid upgrades bolted on to address airframe limitations and keep it competitive by giving similar capability to F-35, these are modest improvements made at big costs. Like external tanks that increase range but decrease performance and stealth, add on IRST pod that has to make many compromises to work on the F-22. For $70 million in upgrade for EACH aircraft you can almost buy a new F-35!

There's nothing modest about the upgrades the F-22 is receiving. Every system, sensor, computer, cockpit, engine, coatings, etc .....are being upgraded with the latest technology (i.e. maturing NGAD systems, and software).

[hornetfinn]

To stay competitive into and beyond the 2030s the F-35 is getting a massive upgrade program that is adding more developmental costs and complexity to an aircraft that can just now carry weapons that an Viper, Hornet and Mudhen have been doing for years now. As far as I know even with its most current operational 3F software iterraton, it still cant fire cruise missiles. In order to carry the same number of missiles and bombs as a Hornet or Eagle the F-35 will need to sacrifice its stealth and range to do so.

F-35 is going to stay far superior to any other multi-role fighter jet with those upgrades. Besides, same thing has happened to all those aircraft you mentioned. It has usually taken 10-20 years for a fighter jet really mature and get all or even most of the capabilities. In any case. Same thing with F-22 with these new upgrades. I have to also say that F-35 will still be far more survivable and have longer range and carry more weapons than most other jets even in "Beast mode". Most fighter jets usually don't even carry many more weapons or fuel operationally than what F-35 does internally. But unlike F-35 those other jets won't be stealthy in any configuration while F-35 can choose depending on situation.

I do think that F-22 upgrades are a great thing and will keep F-22 more than relevant for years to come. Both F-22 and F-35 will be needed and I think them having ability to share information between each other is one of the most important capabilities USAF should have. I know they have demonstrated that capability but I hope that it will also be significant operational capability.

[ricnunes]

To stay competitive into and beyond the 2030s the F-35 is getting a massive upgrade program that is adding more developmental costs and complexity to an aircraft that can just now carry weapons that an Viper, Hornet and Mudhen have been doing for years now. As far as I know even with its most current operational 3F software iterraton, it still cant fire cruise missiles. In order to carry the same number of missiles and bombs as a Hornet or Eagle the F-35 will need to sacrifice its stealth and range to do so.

F-35 is going to stay far superior to any other multi-role fighter jet with those upgrades. Besides, same thing has happened to all those aircraft you mentioned. It has usually taken 10-20 years for a fighter jet really mature and get all or even most of the capabilities. In any case. Same thing with F-22 with these new upgrades. I have to also say that F-35 will still be far more survivable and have longer range and carry more weapons than most other jets even in "Beast mode". Most fighter jets usually don't even carry many more weapons or fuel operationally than what F-35 does internally. But unlike F-35 those other jets won't be stealthy in any configuration while F-35 can choose depending on situation.

Ditto hornetfinn!

I do think that F-22 upgrades are a great thing and will keep F-22 more than relevant for years to come. Both F-22 and F-35 will be needed and I think them having ability to share information between each other is one of the most important capabilities USAF should have. I know they have demonstrated that capability but I hope that it will also be significant operational capability.

While I do think/believe that the F-35 can indeed take and is more than capable of taking the air superiority roles from the F-22, it doesn't make any sense to retire the F-22. If we exclude the F-35, the F-22 is the most recent fighter aircraft that was introduced by the USAF so, why retire a new aircraft which besides being new is a 5th gen aircraft?? So yes, it makes all the sense in the world to upgrade the F-22 in order to make it even more capable and relevant into the future.
Now procuring new built F-15EX's, that's complete nonsense but then again this is the subject of another thread...

[ericchase88]

F-22 cost much more than F-35 to operate and it takes $70 million upgrade to each aircraft just to be competitive and catch up with capabilities F-35 is getting or already have. For that money you can buy another F-35! There’s no wonder USAF want to retire F-22 by 2030 according to General Brown. What’s the point of F-22 if it does the same thing as F-35 but need upgrades to get there that cost as much as a new F-35?

Unless you want to take it up with Chief of Staff General Brown.

[charlielima223]

@hornetfinn and ricnunes, relax guys. I wasn't bashing on the F-35 but rather I was pointing out the hypocrisy Corsair and that other person have on the F-22. If they're going to say that upgrading the F-22 is too expensive and not worth it, they should say the same about the F-35 or any other modern fighter aircraft for that matter. If they say external add-ons will degrade the F-22s RCS and speed, they DEFINITELY have to say the same for the F-35.

[wrightwing]

F-22 cost much more than F-35 to operate and it takes $70 million upgrade to each aircraft just to be competitive and catch up with capabilities F-35 is getting or already have. For that money you can buy another F-35! There’s no wonder USAF want to retire F-22 by 2030 according to General Brown. What’s the point of F-22 if it does the same thing as F-35 but need upgrades to get there that cost as much as a new F-35?

Unless you want to take it up with Chief of Staff General Brown.

The upgrades aren't to catch up to the F-35. The F-22 is already the superior air superiority fighter. The upgrades will ensure that there's nothing even close until NGAD had been in service for years.

[charlielima223]

@eric

Take it up with reality instead of one person's comment...

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/f-22- ... -unlikely/

The facts in reality is that we dont know stage in maturity NGAD technologies and material are. No specific defense company has been nominated as the prime contractor. No one knows what the aircraft look like besides guesses by conceptual art. When a company is named as the prime contractor and when the aircraft is finally revealed to the public, it still has to go through the long arduous process of testing and development before it is even gets the approval stamp of operational. Even then it will take time for it to reach an acceptable operational capacity (capabilities and numbers) before the F-22 could even start to be retired.

[ricnunes]

F-22 cost much more than F-35 to operate and it takes $70 million upgrade to each aircraft just to be competitive and catch up with capabilities F-35 is getting or already have. For that money you can buy another F-35! There’s no wonder USAF want to retire F-22 by 2030 according to General Brown. What’s the point of F-22 if it does the same thing as F-35 but need upgrades to get there that cost as much as a new F-35?

Unless you want to take it up with Chief of Staff General Brown.

According to the latest link shared by charlielima223, we're talking about a $7.8 Billion program which will be applied to 142 F-22 aircraft. Doing some rough math, that's around $55 million per aircraft (and not $70 million) which is lower than even a new built F-16V (or a F-35).
Again, the F-22 is a new and latest gen fighter aircraft. By this reason alone it doesn't make sense to retire the aircraft. Even without the update, the F-22 is still an extremely capable aircraft (much more capable than for example a F-15 in air-to-air roles or even in a few air-to-ground ones). These updates will make the F-22 an even more capable aircraft than it already is.
The USAF clearly needs to keep the numbers of available modern fighter aircraft as high as possible and keeping the F-22s while at the same time building new F-35s will ensure/help with this.

[ricnunes]

@hornetfinn and ricnunes, relax guys.

I'm relaxed...