F-22 Freaking Cool

[Woodlouse2002]

I highly doubt the US would be willing to export it, or that any other government could realistically afford it, never mind RAF, just going to have to adapt to the lesser fighter

The last thing the RAF needs is a multi billion pound cold war dinosaur of a fighter. Air supremacy isn't an issue any more.

[Chris_F]

I highly doubt the US would be willing to export it, or that any other government could realistically afford it, never mind RAF, just going to have to adapt to the lesser fighter

There's been talk about foreign military sales.  The US allowed foreign military sales of F15's so there's no reason to not sell the F22.  Granted I'm sure the F22 that sees foreign military service will be a different plane than the one that sees US military service.  I doubt the RAF would be interested in an expensive second rate version of an air superiority aircraft.  I'm sure they already have aircraft that can fill the role better than a dumbed down F22 for less money.  A US ally that's swimming in cash and lacking a domestic defense aerospace industry?  That would be another story...

[Woodlouse2002]

[quote]
There's been talk about foreign military sales.

[Chris_F]

[quote]
I think the lesser fighter Heathaze was referring to is the JSF. *shudder*

[Woodlouse2002]

[quote]
In that case I guess I don't understand.

[Chris_F]

[quote]
Still the XF35 is it not?

[Mobius]

When the F-22 went in the catalogue its name changed from F-22 to F-22/A.  Perhaps the alpha designation is the official last naming step?

The F-22 briefly had the F/A-22 designation to denote it's strike/attack capabilities, but the Air Force reverted back to the F-22, so maybe the /A is to show that.

[Chris_F]

The F-22 briefly had the F/A-22 designation to denote it's strike/attack capabilities, but the Air Force reverted back to the F-22, so maybe the /A is to show that.

No, I think the "A" denotes the first generation of the aircraft.  If they do an upgrade it'll become a "B", and so forth.  The F/A thing happened at a time that funding was in doubt and the Air Force was trying to imply some additional capabilities for the aircraft (ground attack) that they really didn't intend to use, but it made for a better pitch on capitol hill.

IIRC the naming went something like this:

X-23
F-22
F/A-22
F-22
F-22 A

But that's just my fuzzy memory talking.  It's been a long development program...

[Mobius]

No, I think the "A" denotes the first generation of the aircraft.  

Oh, right, right now it's the F-22A, but you had said it was the F-22/A, so I thought either the "/A" was misplaced, or it was to denote something different.  But if you just mistyped it, I can see what you're saying.  The last letter identifies different varients of aircraft (e.g. F-16A, F-16B, F-16C, F-16D, F-16XL, etc...), not necessarily generation.  Upgrades are denoted denoted differently for many aircraft, for F-16s, it's the various Blocks of F-16s that are manufactured (e.g. Block 50/52/etc...) and somthing else for F-15s (for the life of me I can't remember right now).  Generations are much more broad groups of fighters.  Current fighters now are 4th generation fighters (like the F-14, F-15, F-16, or F-18 ), or fighters in service from approximately 1980 to 2010, however, the F-22, F-35 and other new fighters are all 5th generation fighters, which is the newest generation of fighter aircraft, and probably one of the last generations of manned fighters.  Maybe that cleared us up a bit?

[Chris_F]

[quote]I thought either the "/A" was misplaced, or it was to denote something different.

[dcunning30]

According to wikipedia, it's no longer the X-35

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II

F-35A is the conventional plane
F-35B is STOVL
F-35C is carrier version

[Woodlouse2002]

According to wikipedia, it's no longer the X-35

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II

F-35A is the conventional plane
F-35B is STOL
F-35C is carrier version

I thought it only lost it's X designation when it came out of the development stage. And from what I last heard there's a lot of weight issues that need sorting before they can actually start producing it.

[dcunning30]

I thought it only lost it's X designation when it came out of the development stage. And from what I last heard there's a lot of weight issues that need sorting before they can actually start producing it.

In the section called Thrust-to-weight Ratio, the article mentions that issue, and it seems Lockeed Martin already came up with a solution.

[Chris_F]

I thought it only lost it's X designation when it came out of the development stage. And from what I last heard there's a lot of weight issues that need sorting before they can actually start producing it.

They're in SDD (Systems Development and Demonstration), so although technically it's still development, it's progressed quite a bit through two major development phases.  It's certainly not a prototype anymore.

And I wouldn't be suprised if "weight" is just the first of the problems this aircraft will experience.  It's typical to have all sorts of delays in military projects like this.  They make Airbus's A380 seem absolutely timely by comparison.  :)