The Super Hornet guns down the F-22 Raptor

Now that I look closer at the pictures I agree with deltaboy... in the first picture, the Hornet is coming from above, and in the second they are flyin directly at eachohter...

well nothing is 'untouchable'

people talk about the f-22 as if its got a romulan cloaking device from 'star trek the next generation'.

Similar incidences happened when the AF changed from the F4E to the F-16 A. Experienced F4 pilots could routinely shoot down all the newer aircraft within a certain performance envelope. The 50's era F104 was one of the most deadly fighters ever built but never saw much combat. It wasn't a dogfighter but was a point defense interceptor. It was scary fast, heavily armed and I believe it still holds many aviation speed and time-to-climb altitude records for single engine aircraft. Don't confuse dogfighting capability with shootdown capabilty. Our pilots made that mistake in the Vietnamese conflict. The NVAF also made the mistake of trying to shoot down the B-52 from the rear when they were rudely surprised by the tailgunner. They were shot down two times that I know of. The SuperHornet is stopgap fighter until the Navy can pony up for a swing version of the F22. Bringing up any new military aircraft system costs about the same as an aircraft carrier, so the Navy is caught between a rock and a hard place.

WVR rules, I believe the Su-35 to be the deadliest of them all.

But to the topic at hand, this really proves nothing. If you sent out 1 Raptor against 6 bugs, 1 is bound to pick up above the Raptor and over take him. We don't know the parameters of the excersize, so everything is pure speculation.

Shattered OUT...

Thank you Waynos for bringing up good points. It has NEVER been said the Raptor is unbeatable. Harder to kill yes, unbeatable? Not hardly. An isolated, or even uncommon occurance does not mean that there are suddenly huge questions about the WVR capabilities of the Raptor. It means that the pilot was outflown, or the other pilot was luckier and got into a position to shoot him. As someone else said though if that Hornet misses he's dead. There's no way he is going to be able to recover and get away from being shot down at 183 knots.

Originally posted by Harlequin
IIRC there has been less than 20 BVR kills since vietnam

Found it, I'll chuck it into a seperate thread.

Do I read this right that he's only going 180kts?

Do I read this right that he's only going 180kts?

Yes he’s going at 180 knots because he bled off too much energy trying to get that angle on the Raptor which is passing by way faster. If he didn’t down the Raptor he’s dead because he doesn't have the sufficient energy left to get away from a reversing F-22 coming in for the kill.

Impressive pics. Thanx for the links to the "debate" too. Most informative. Can any nation be successful without a "blend" of hardware? Or am I missing the point? Seems the fighter-jock debate from the link would lead one to believe that those who should know such things can't agree. Aren't the Super hornet and the '22 both "best" in different arenas? BTW: Is there anything in the Iranian AF that could take down either without a lucky shot? Thanx great thread.

I find this very hard to believe. The F-22 is far superior and it is unlikely that this event even took place. Even by chance!

I have seen reports of the Raptor taking on 10 F-16's at one time and defeating them. Before you get carried away, think about it gentlemen. This machine is way beyond anything in the air today (at least anything terrestrial). Many of you have followed this plane and know it.

Re-evaluate guys....

I find this very hard to believe. The F-22 is far superior and it is unlikely that this event even took place. Even by chance!

Actually the images are most likely real HUD frames, how they got on the net is another story but probably real nonetheless. Again, the F-22 is superior to the SH in the A2A role but that does not mean it can’t be shot down by it. Without knowing the parameters of this exercise we cant really conclude anything one way or another. And I don't know why your so adamant that these images are fake, unless you thought that the F-22 was some sort of god protected machine that could never be harmed your opinion of the plane should not change one bit because of these two images.

i like to see the typhoon and the f-22 go head2head in a training excerise!!

ive just spent the last 30mins looking around on google and its suprising how many websites are comaring these aircrafts!!

all in all though, the summery ive come up with is the typhoon can do 90% of what the f-22 can and price wise you can buy 4 typhoon's to 1 f-22.

so i guess it shows which is best value for money.





[edit on 11-4-2006 by st3ve_o]

I absolutely believe this happened, the F-18 is one excellent aircraft, and considdering it was a F/A-18F (two-seater), the F-18 had an extra set of eyes AND a navigator to help spot the F-22.

Way to go super-bugs! I love both these aircraft to death and even though the F-22 has the advantage, I do believe under the right conditions the F-18 IS able to take down a F-22.

Also, the aircraft is STEALTH not INVISIBLE to radar.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Meaning that the F-22 wasnt allowed to engage BVR. The raptor is mainly designed to draw first blood (first look, first shoot) not to be a dogfighter.

I completely dissagree with that. If the USAF wanted a better BVR fighter they would have chose the Black Widdow, but they wanted a fighter that also excelled in dog fighting, otherwise it was a complete waste of money for the plane to have a gun, as well as thrust vectoring.

Interesting thread and the pics are really cool to say the least. But.......

As pointed out before, we know nothing about the conditions surrounding the dogfight.

At close range, the F-22's stealth is irrelevant and the oldest set of sensors around, the Mark One Eyeball will pick it up. Also, at that range IR sensors may also be able to get a hit as well.

I also agree that skill in a close in fight can make a huge difference.

the more you do acm, the better you will be a defeating your enemy. thats what top gun, red flag, etc are all about. so the hornet won this round but remember they are just learning to fly the raptor, give the pilots a few more acm's in the raptors and they will be better pilots.

them machine a very capable dog fighter, you just have to learn how to push it to its limits

As a former USAF Ammo troop, I'll put my money any AAMRAM or AIM9x missile equipped aircraft over Typhoon, Su35 or anything else on the planet except the SR-71 or its replacement. The old F4 splashed more Soviet/Russian designed fighter aircraft than the rest of the next combined. The Phantom properly armed is still as deadly an adversary as you could face. BTW The A-10 has scored the only air-to-air gun kills of aircraft since Vietnam. In a low altitude enviroment, no other aircraft can match it. It can turn inside any of the high flyers. Check your six, bug and bird boys!

you did read the thread where since vietnam under 20 aircraft have been shot down in BVR haven`t you? - nearly ALL aircraft kills using missiles have been in WVR

and no matter how much spin certain people like to put on it - that`ll be the way it`ll stay.

Originally posted by Harlequin
you did read the thread where since vietnam under 20 aircraft have been shot down in BVR haven`t you? - nearly ALL aircraft kills using missiles have been in WVR

and no matter how much spin certain people like to put on it - that`ll be the way it`ll stay.

Thats seems to be more of a political consideration that anything to do with the missiles increasing accuracy. Not many fighter pilots have ROE's that allow BVR missile shots. Most have to close to visual range and ident BEFORE shooting

Originally posted by FredT
Thats seems to be more of a political consideration that anything to do with the missiles increasing accuracy. Not many fighter pilots have ROE's that allow BVR missile shots. Most have to close to visual range and ident BEFORE shooting

Even if that is the case, yeah... so...

If thats the way wars are fought these days, thats the way they are fought! So one of the F-22's main advantages is removed. Although the key advantage is probably his better situational awareness, I think its generally agreed 90% of fighters are shot down 'by the one they didn't see' - the F-22 should be able to manouevre into an advantageous position prior to the combat itself.

[edit on 12-4-2006 by kilcoo316]