Warbird Information Exchange

Just the fact that someone who knows as much as Randy does even takes the time to respond in these forums is amazing to me.
He can sit on any high horse he wants, in my book.

9 feet.

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I'm the first to admit that there are a lot of things I don't know about. I'm just a dude who happens to be in the military and fly jets for a living. That doesn't make me anything other than someone who is very fortunate with what has happened in my life. It never endows anyone -- myself included -- with some kind of omnipotence about aviation topics.

This topic, however, happens to be one that I have experience in, and one I feel pretty qualified to discuss.

I'd expect, either on this internet forum or in real life, when I am caught "talking out of my a$$" that someone who knows better would call me out on it.

Next time I roll into a topic that is an area that you have significant experience in, and I am clearly not as knowledgeable or experienced, and I begin to make statements that are clearly ignorant or ill-informed, feel free to tell me to shut my pie-hole.

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High horse? YGFSM. The "high horse" ladder is 9' to climb into the cockpit of an F-15E near all the bomb stencils on the fuselage for his dozens of combat missions. Doesn't mean he's always right, but I'll bet on him every time in a WIX "best dogfighter" thread. His posts aren't made from a high horse but rather something called real-world credibility and experience. Maybe you got a lot of experience flying fighters too I don't know but bashing is usually what happens during debates when substance can't win the day. I encourage you to reread this thread and I hope you'll see he's exercised amazing class, restraint and a reasoned, fact-based articulate construction of his arguments in all of his responses.

Nice thread , made me laugh .

ww1 Definately the Albatross VII
WW2 its hands down the fw190C v18 . Pity it never flew but would have been a real terror in the sky !
post war : Probably the Mig 15 although Sabre is not far off
Vietnam war : Mig 21 followed by F4 , F104 gets honourable mention
post vietnam : Mig 25/31 . F15
Current : Su-37 followed by F22

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Thank you, Paul, for saving me from having to type a similar reply. Well said.

The premise of this thread was a neat idea. It diverged but I still learned a thing a two about airplanes - and people too.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

I'm an American taxpayer, and I've been paying federal income tax for 35 years now. I am constantly amazed at the truly silly things that our government spends my tax dollars on. I also happen to work in the defense industry, and have done so for 30 years. One of the products I'm currently "involved with" is used on the F-22. Because of my involvement, I know something of the Raptor's capabilities, though obviously not a huge amount. Knowing what I know, I was deeply disappointed by the government's decision to halt procurement of the F-22. There is a profound need for the F-22. Russia has not stopped trying to develop world-beating fighter aircraft, with a keen eye toward foreign sales. They're turning out some darned-good fighters these days. While it's unlikely that America will ever fight Russia, it's very likely that we'll have to fight someone who's bought some of these spiffy new Russian fighters. Our pilots need to be able to defeat these threats, and the Raptor is the plane to do it in. Let's suppose that your son or daughter is a fighter pilot. Would you feel comfortable sending your child out in an F-15 to do battle with an opponent who's flying an SU-30? Didn't think so. You'd rather have you offspring flying a Raptor. The F-15 is a fabulous aircraft with amazing capabilities. It is arguably the best of the 4th generation fighters. It's going to be a sitting duck in the face of 5th generation fighters. Sorry, guyg, but that just won't do.

I was the first one to respond to this thread. After reading all of the responses, my choice for today's best dogfighter is unchanged. It's STILL the F-22 Raptor.

Randy, thanks for bringing your insight and experience into this discussion. When it comes to air combat in today's world, I can't think of anyone I know whose opinion is more credible than yours. And thanks for defending my right to participate in this discussion.

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

McDonnell (dba: Boeing) is proposing a stealthy version of the F-15C. They are targeting a less expensive "stealthy" platform without all the super secret features.
VL

F-15SE "Silent Eagle"

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I'd be interested in Randy (or others) comments on my previous posts - the silence makes it appear I'm either dead right or dead wrong - and the former's not usually the case anyway!

I don't care what any (hypothetical) kid of mine might fly - but I'd want to know it was for good reason their life was on the line.

Here, as elsewhere, some good points, but I'd counter that history shows that in air combat, as elsewhere, the quality of the equipment is rarely 'the' decisive factor. With a pilot flying a Raptor against 'MiG X' (as always before) the quality of training, motivation (on many levels) and thus morale is what really makes the difference is these hypothetical '1v1' scenarios. Without these however good the aircraft the pilot - and their vital support team - won't get the best (or sometimes anything) out of their equipment. The vast morale, motivation and training differences are what's been decisive in the Middle Eastern air wars since '45, why the Pakistan/India situation remains competitive, and is the explanation for so many nations 'faced down' in Far Eastern posturings... and so on.

But those 1v1s don't happen - combat is almost always unbalanced (asymmetric in the military jargon) and 'God is on the side of the big battalions'. Limited quantities of advanced equipment will usually be overwhelmed by massive quantities of adequate equipment, aside from single 'war winners' - the military's wanted silver bullet. That, of course does not apply in pre-war posturing and diplomatic pressures.

That all said, there's an argument that we are entering an era of such expensive high technology that the normal parameters don't apply, with very few obscenely expensive and hypothetically effective 'super-weapons'. Rather like Dreadnoughts - to expensive to lose, maybe. I don't know. Certainly in W.W.II the Allies (east and west) avoided losing with mostly 'adequate' rather than excellent equipment in the early war, and the superior kit they used later was fighting a war that no-one had predicted the technology required.

What I do know is that when the RAF pilots fighting in the Battle of Britain looked down, they were over their homeland, and that - not tools like Spitfires and Hurricanes - was critical.

Just some thoughts.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I agree with the above statement . Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan , and Vietnam . When your fighting on home soil it doesnt matter how good you are technology wise , your always gonna have the support of the people

Remember that it's important to look outside the scope of this thread -- the "best dogfighter" -- to really see what a fighter aircraft need be capable of doing these days.

The capability to successfully maneuver 1 v 1 is simply one of many important disciplines that an aircraft must excel at in order to be a success.

James, you're right that often times pilot skill, training, and currency is more important than equipment.

Let's not forget, however, that these 1 v 1s are taking place in a threat environment that includes surface-to-air threats, multiple aircraft (and aircraft type) tactics, etc. Defense systems are layered, with many different types of detection, tracking, and kill systems. Fighter tactics involve those defense systems, too. It is very easy to sucker an aircraft into a SAM or AAA ambush while he is concerned with only watching the other airborne aircraft he is maneuvering against.

While a pilot in a lesser aircraft may be able to best a better aircraft one on one, that lesser aircraft is going to have a tough time when encountered with those equally-advanced surface-to-air systems.

Obviously this is an argument that depends highly on whose turf a fight is taking place on. The US military has spent the last 50 years based on the concept of being primarily an expeditionary fighting force, ergo fighting on someone else's home field. Because of this, the ability of our aircraft to survive against those threat systems, too, is paramount.

It's all well and good to argue that an F-15 or F-16 is "good enough" to fight against current generation red/gray fighters like the Eurofighter, Rafale, or Flanker series. It is another thing entirely to suggest that it is adequate to survive in an SA-10/12/20/23 SAM (S-300 series, for you non-NATO folks) threat environment.

Don't forget that this concept of "masses of adequate equipment" doesn't lend itself to expeditionary power projection, either. Those masses have to be flown to another part of the world where they have to be fueled, armed, and maintained. Last time I checked, even if the aircraft is less expensive, the bombs, beans, and bullets are still the same price. More importantly, we in western society also put a very high price (both numerically and philosophically) on the pink body that operates that "adequate" aircraft. With the average price of producing a current US fighter pilot somewhere in the $6,000,000 range *each*, the people aren't exactly throwaways, either.

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JDK, I think your points have merit, but the F-22 has game changing attributes. In today's world, I'm not aware of any other platform with two huge advantages the F-22 has. First, stealth in a true fighter aircraft. Second, the level of cockpit integration and the increased situational awareness that provides.

Until someone else fields a fighter with those characteristics, I think the F-22 has a huge, huge advantage because it is "the Hun in the Sun" 100% of the time. By that, I mean, it should always (OK - usually) get the drop on its opponents enabling first pass kills against unsuspecting targets. That tactic is the proven recipe for success in aerial combat.

After the first pass, the F-22 has the aerodynamic performance and the advantage of stealth, both of which should allow it to disengage or reposition for another attack under advantageous circumstances.

And to follow up on Randy's point, the SAM threat is very real, but is diminished by stealth. With a stealthy platform, a SAM battery's detection and targeting ranges are much reduced. Add in supercruise, and the SAM battery's decision cycle is compressed as well, so (hopefully) the F-22 is in and out of the SAM's kill radius before the enemy can detect, ID, decide, launch, and deliver the missile to the target.

Thanks Randy.
FWIW, I agree with the points you make here, and the asymmetric combat situation you illustrate - both expeditionary and in terms of ground to air threat chime with what I was aiming at with the statement that 1v1 combats are essentially an irreliavent exception.

An important point. However one observation I'd make to go with that would be that the US places a higher 'value' on their servicemen and women's lives than the British or many other western forces. That seems to join with (maybe drives) a need to 'buy off' or further minimise risk by the use of higher technology than other forces think viable.

To put it another way the US military can spend more on equipment for its personnel, but it also feels a need to do so.

(The latter approach to the Vietnam war was probably the most extreme example, with 'never in the field of human conflict had so many munitions and so much money been spent for so little result'. And an important rider to that - the suggest on is a perception, not an accusation (against Britain and the western powers or the USA) nor do I know which is the 'better' approach or how to quantify it! That expenditure 'might' have won.)

Behind that again of course is you can't just buy military effect, you have to have a political and morale support to make it work, witness all the tinpot dictators with 'cool' aircraft and inadequate (training, morale) personnel which inevitably mean the machines rot by the runway or in the sand.

That's probably true, but as Randy's said we don't know.

I won't therefore speculate on how the F-22 can make tea and coffee simultaneously, but I'll certainly say it's far from the first 'weapon system' and not (sadly) the last to be given this status. As you've felicitously said, 'game changing' - all that means is the game's changed, not won. The Athenian Trireme, the Roman army system, the castle, armour, tanks, gas, atom bombs, IEDs are all 'game changers' and none have proven to be the solutions to war or winning that some see in them. The nature of warfare changes, but (sadly) the war stays the same.

And that at the nub is what's 'wrong'* with the initial question. 'Dogfighters' don't operate in isolation but as one, currently not-decisive minor cog in a much larger 'war system'. In a Top Trumps** way aircraft 'a' beats aircraft 'b' statistically, but in reality all the other factors are usually more critical.

As someone once said, 'it's a very poor way of settling an argument'.

Regards,

*But worth asking, and an interesting discussion. Not a swipe at the original poster.
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Trumps

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com