Which is the best jet for air defence, air superiority and multirole ground attack? Air defence: Typhoon. Air Superiority: F-22. Multirole ground attack: F-35.
LMFAO. Yeah, you would know with your access to all of the information and flight tests, right? Give me a break. Multirole goes to the F-15E and you're a fool if you say otherwise.
The problem is that you are listing 3 very different roles of aircraft. Then in your own response you are listing once again 3 very different fighters (one even so vague as to having 3 different variants buy you are not specifying which one you mean). The Eurofighter Typhoon is classified as a "Multirole Fighter", it's closest US comparison is the F-16, one of the most successfull aircraft ever made. And a lot of courntries that considered the Typhoon (Oman, Qatar, Denmark, Turkey, Norway, and Romania), but passed on it. And for "Air Superiority", I would not be sure I would choose the F-22. Yea, it is a great aircraft, but there are very few of them. Compare 187 of the F-22 to over 250 F-15s. Yea, the stealth is an advantage, but is it enough to make up for the difference in niumbers? I am not so sure. And for "Ground Attack", I am sorry, I have to dissagree with you, unless you are talking specifically about the F-35B, which is not really in service yet. So I am going to have to go with the A-10 or the AC-130 for ground attack. If I was still a ground-punder, I would much rather have one of those 2 come over head then an F-35B. Other then the fact that I know the 35 would be piloted by Marines.
The Typhoon just doesn't meet the muster if we're considering state of the art fighters. It's not a stealth aircraft and would lose in any engagment with an F-22, F-35 or even the older F-117 in an air defense role. It would also be worthless in attempting to engage a B-2 bomber. Air defense depends upon being able to locate and engage an enemy aircraft and the stealth aircraft of today can avoid detection making them virtually impossible to engage except visually. With their detection systems and standoff attack capabilities a stealth aircraft can easily avoid being within visual range of other aircraft.
The Typhoon is the state of the art air defence figher. So you are tell me that there is no change a Typhoon could defeat an F-22? What happens when the F-22 runs out of medium range missiles since the odds are it will be outnumbered and the Typhoon does have good countre messures. In a dog fight I would give the advantage to the Typhoon, as a German pilot proved in a training exercise. The F-22 would be worthless in attemting to engage a B2 bomber.
I was thinking of the Tranche 2 block 10 air to air Typhoon flown by British or German pilots. I think I am right about the Typhoon being the best for air defence. Althought the F-16 is a great aircraft and is being upgraded. The Italians could have gone with the F-16, but went with the Typhoon, every nation that has the Typhoon could have gone with the F-16 apart from Britain. I don't make threads like this just to say what I think, but to find out what people like you and up on the governor know.
Yea, I see that. However, this type of thinking is pretty much gone in the 21st century. The "Specialized" fighter is pretty much history, with the exception of a very few designed with only one role in mind (like the A-10). And Stealth is kind of one-sided when it comed to air superiority. While very usefull on an attack, on the defense it is of lesser value then you might think. Part of the idea of having the aircraft up is so that the enemy knows they are there, and that can even be used to chanel them into places you actually want them to attack from. Wow, look at that giant hole in the enemies air defenses! 50 miles wide, right between 2 mountain ridges, in we go! Oops, what do you mean Ground to Air SAMs just fired up their RADAR and missiles are being launched? And more then fighters, good C&C assets can often make all the difference in the world in an air battle, more so then the aircraft themselves. Many of the aircraft Germany used were superior to their British counterparts. But Britan had RADAR and other assets (coast watcher observation units) that were able to let them move their fighters to where they did the most good, multiplying their effect tremendously. I do not look at something like this as just shiny pieces of equipment, but as parts of a compley network of attack and defense. And as awesome as some parts of it may be, it is almost useless without the other parts. Over the last several years I have had to explain to many people why PATRIOT batteries have STINGER crews attached to them, providing defense that they can't provide for themselves. Yea, PATRIOT can shoot down almost every aircraft ever built, but is helpless against low flying helicopters.
The Raptor is the worst fighter jet because it's ridiculously expensive - about 5X as much as an F15 eagle, which is just as good for the threats that we'd realistically be up against. The B2 is even more of a joke. You could build 50 B52s for the cost of 1 B2.
All this relentless logic is daunting. But I'll let my heart rule what's left of my head. English Electric/BAC Lightning - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Lightning
Well, I see a limited role for the F-22, but I do not think it should ever replace our more conventional assets. And the B-52 is now only good as a bomb truck in uncontested airspaces. For goodness sakes, most of them are older then the parents of the pilots. Put them into a conflict with a serious air threat (or ground to air threat),a nd they would be shot down by the dozen. Sorry, but I value the lives of the crews more then that, cost be (*)(*)(*)(*)ed.
I worked as a contract engineer on the JSF program for five years and so I do know the capabiliites of the F-35. The F-15 was an excellent aircraft in it's day but the F-35 is far superior to it in all combat roles. While the F-35 doesn't have external paylaod capabilities like an F-15 it can attack ground targets with impunity. It also has the stealth capabilities to engage and defeat an entire squadron of F-15's in air-to-air combat. The F-15 is a wonderful fighter and has proven itself in that capacity but its just old technology today similiar the the old F-14's that the US Navy eventually had to retire. The F-18, which I've also worked on, is also an excellent carrier aircraft but the carrier version of the F-35 is also superior to the F-18 that it will replace. The bottom line is that stealth aircraft are superior to non-stealth aircraft in all missions. That's a simple fact.
I've personally worked on the F-117, B-2 and F-35 programs and the development costs for stealth technology is very expensive but the production costs are not. We must remember that on all of these programs the government issued design specifications that pushed the envelope of technology. The actual technology simply didn't exist and had to be created for each of these aircraft. That is and has always been very expensive. The problem is when we use the costs of developing new technology in evaluating the production costs of an aircraft. When I worked on the B-2, for example, Northrop offered the US Air Force a fixed rate cost for production of $154 million per aircraft (with conditions) after the initial development of the technology and flight testing. While probably slightly more than what it would cost to build a B-52 today it wouldn't be that much more and the B-2 is a far superior aircraft. Perhaps a better cost comparison would be the B-1B where 100 were produced and the allocated budget for 132 production B-2's was required to update the B-1A and then produce the 100 B-1B's. That was not a logical expendature because the B-1B isn't anywhere near as good as the B-2. The F-22 and F-35 have also pushed the technological envelope requiring the development of new technologies for those aircraft. Once again this costs al lot of money to do but if we don't do it the aircraft are literally obsolete when they're produced. The development of new technology is where the costs are and not in the production once the technology is developed and tested.
I think we also have to consider the future value of all the technological innovations that go into all these aircraft. I'm sure some of the computer systems, radar, engine tech etc. etc. will be used in other future aircraft. At the very least, the lessons learned from the F-22/35 will be incorporated.
And this is something that is missed all to often. Quite often we are able to learn as much if not more from a "failed" design as we do from a successfull one. For example, consider the USS Enterprise. The first Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carrier, it was intended to be the first of a class of 6 ships. While still an impressive ship in it's own right (and the oldest ship on active service in the US Navy), the designers decided to instead step back and do a complete redesign of the plan. This led to the development of the Nimitz class carriers. And heck, look at the lineage of the premiere carrier aircraft in the world today. Originally the YF-17, the aircraft that lost the competition with the aircraft that was adopted, the F-16. Then the Navy was ordered to look into this as a possible addition to their carrier air wings (though the F-14 was capable, it was expensive and maintenance intensive). So the Navy started to use it, and the Marines. But in many ways it took a back-seat to the Tomcat. But research and refinement continued, until the F/A-18 bears little resembelence to the original YF-17.
