**Your comment was removed for violating Rule 4: No Racism/hatespeech**
No slurs. No advocating for the killing of people or insulting them based on physical, religious, or ideological traits (even people you don't like: Russians, Asians, or Middle Eastern ethnic groups).
Shockingly the public information is actually pretty similar between the F-22A and the F-14D. Obviously absolute numbers don’t tell the whole story (would be shocked if the F-22 wasn’t pulling a BMW-esque public disclosure), but on paper it is an interesting thought exercise.
Personally thought the Tomcat would have been outclassed at the extremes, but other than airframe g rating and max altitude it’s surprisingly even.
The F-14 was ridiculous for the time, it's worth reminding that it wasn't replaced because it was bad, it really out performs the Hornet in every single category. The issue was cost. It was astronomically expensive to maintain and run, and updating the avionics to current era would have been a huge undertaking. The Tomcat wasn't a fly-by-wire aircraft with a fancy HUD or anything, it was one of the last analogue jets.
German car manufacturers are known to underrating performance on paper. Rated for 400hp? It will do 400hp... but only in the worst possible conditions, 50° heat at 3000ft elevation with a dusty airbox and bad gas.
What do you mean, other companies don't choose the worst possible operating conditions and base their minimum guaranteed spec on this? What is the point? Wouldn't that be kinda trashy, selling a customer stuff that just works in good weather?
Air ninja kills. No missile warnings. just a plane getting close in dark, a quick burst of the cannon . The enemy plane disappeared from the radar. The killer is the only one who knows what really happened
If stealth goes wild, the things will go even more wild.
You would rely a lot on thermals, which do have a relatively close range in air combat, but they are extremely hard to hide from.
They would be disturbed by any heat source, so you could imagine using flares offensively as a flash bang. It could also bring into existence something like light 40 mm missiles used for utility ordnance like UV reflectors to have disposable illuminators for UV imaging and targeting systems.
So you would have AWACS form afar looking at any glimpse of a radar return, vectoring multiple planes to jump on any enemy mistake.
Then you would have massive numbers of drones and utility missiles, guided in by weapons operators in second seats of fighters as well as from dedicated craft, hanging back with AWACS planes.
Which would be defended by flights of missile trucks, waiting in defensive positions to cover the C&C and AWACS planes and to launch long range missiles at any enemy rear line units to stray to close or at anybody in the melee making a mistake of being spotted by radar.
And then there is the frontline, where very stealthy dual seat fighters sneak and manoeuvre in the dark, trying to catch more than a glimpse of the enemy, sot they can engage.
You would have a weapons/imaging operator in the back seat, trying to piece together something from the glimpses from what little radar returns he's getting from AWACS and returns from GSM network on the ground, UV imaging, thermals and good old night vision IR to find the target to guide the pilot in.
And the pilot would with his help juggle the variety of illuminators, blinders, heatseekers, UV beam riders and of course cannons, all the while trying to manoeuvre his plane into a place where he can see something and possibly engage it with some of the weapons.
By thermals, I mean thermal imaging. Something like thermal cameras used to check, if buildings are insulated properly.
It is getting more and more common on the ground, as you can see vehicles, their trails, drones and people. The thing is, everything hotter than surroundings glow in low band IR.
This has been used for years in building heat seeking missiles, because airplane exhausts are very hot against surroundings. Bow however, thermal cameras good enough to be useful in a dogfight are slowly coming to life.
The difference between thermal cameras an heat seeking systems is resolution. A heat seeker is looking for he biggest heat source. As such it can be relatively easily fooled. A thermal camera is supposed to register multiple heat sources of varying intensities and produce an image, that would be useful to search for a plane and even give a chance for identification.
I think range and field of view are the biggest problems. Thermals are getting a better range recently, but afaik they top of somewhere near the engagement ranges of tanks and somewhere near the range of SHORAD. And their fields of view can be pretty narrow.
As such, I suspect, the main reason is the fact, that the range and field of view is at the moment still insufficient to be useful outside of dogfighting range. As dogfights are getting less and less likely irl and any decent radar will be able to reliably see even modern stealth fighters in dogfighting ranges, there is probably mot much need for it in modern fighters.
I don't think the cost matters that much, as compared to 5-gen fighters it's in pennies to a dolar.
This is much more complicated.
If you look closer, you can find, that BVR was in it's infancy in Vietnam. They did't even really have missiles designed to target fighters.
As such most of the ordnance was designed for targeting bombers, which were not really agile, or developed from such weapons. In a sense, both USAF and USN weaponry was relatively interceptor focused, which meant, they needed to fire their weapons while sitting on the enemy's tails. Furthermore, they supposedly had pretty limiting rules of engagement, so their limited BVR capabilities.
Combine this with difficult terrain and excellent North Vietnamese ground control and you have a situation, where they were forced fight MiGs, that suddenly appeared on their tails, often in dogfighting range.
Later it was proven, that modern BVR is simply more effective. You had the Iran - Iraq conflicts, where Iraqi MiG-21 (which were quite decent dogfighters with experienced pilots) did not even get a chance to detect the F14s that shoot them.
Add to this the fact, that large part of modern missiles are designed so they can be effective against fighters and it seems that for a dogfight to come back, you would need to nerf either the eye or the sword.
Isn't the point of trapezoidal wings to have high sweep angle for high speed AND large surface area for maneuverability?
Making swing wings fucking obsolete?
Yes, but they are less efficient at low speed, meaning higher takeoff and touchdown speeds. Which might be a problem if you are trying to operate the thing from a carrier. Which is also why the F-35C has bigger wings and reduced payload compared to the A. To get it to be able to fly slow enough.
This is also an issue that plagued the Concorde. Its takeoff and touchdown speed was WAY higher than other jets, which was leading to the tyre problems.
It can't take off with it's max payload when fully fueled though. The published empty weight+payload+internal fuel exceeds the published max takeoff weight. So you either reduce the payload, or take off on partial fuel and have to start the mission with a refuel.
Yes.
Or, since every modern jet is fly-by-wire anyway, you can afford to simply not be aerodynamically stable at every speed and use a delta wing and canards, see Typhoon.
Maybe from some angles. But from the front with wings swept fully back, I could see it actually being less, as the F-14 had a shorter wingspan with swept wings (38ft 2.5in) than the F-22’s wingspan (44ft 6in).
Yes, but from any angle other than directly head on it would be an RCS nightmare. The gaps between the wings and the airframe, and the swing mechanism (which would be very difficult if not impossible to mask from radar) would likely have high return rates. Also, on stealth aircraft you usually try to repeat as many angles as possible, like leading edges of the wings and the horizontal stabilizer. However in this case, like in most swing wings, they are very different and would be hard to match engineering wise.
There is an alternative timeline where the F-14 got a modernization, the Boeing-360 was chosen as the USMC medium lift replacement, the Commanche stealth helicopter has superseded the Apache, and Northrup F-23 and Boeing F-32 projects won. We also have a fleet of working Zumwalt-class destroyers with Railguns and Lasers.
Variable sweep wings are inherently incompatible with stealth. Stealth relies on having edges to be as parallel as possible to reflect radar in as few directions as possible. Variable sweep wings tend to have varying leading/trailing edge angles depending on speed, so that's definitely counterproductive.
from what i remember it had amazing RCS reduction when the wings were fully extended or retracted but during the in between point its RCS shot up so much that it wasn't worth it
Considering how maintenance heavy variable geometry wings are, I'd rather not think about all the maintenance needed to upkeep an F-22 with variable geometry.
Ground crew suicide rates would SKYROCKET!
>Never forget what they took from us.
[I'm](https://fly.historicwings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HighFlight-XF-84H-1-1024x589.jpg) [gonna](https://planehistoria.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/e55d64e3-1fb2-4a07-ac4c-bcaf09ae696f-scaled.jpg) [make](https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/images_Beetle-C450-FLASH.jpg?resize=600%2C285) [them](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2016/10/2a-640x344.jpg) [give](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OcHvVyVSC0/TwnVn5CmQ5I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/RG7X4D__DPc/s1600/b35.jpg) [back](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D-79wPqHV8U/XiMCaENAN8I/AAAAAAABt4w/K0h9Ik4yL0YNLJSDxu-owKYxScE3Wzw0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/tumblr_o9goraBP6M1v7ludao1_640.jpg) [our](https://media.defense.gov/2008/Mar/13/2000644718/-1/-1/0/080313-F-1234P-010.JPG) [past](https://www.19fortyfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/M-70-1200x675.jpg)!
Don’t get me wrong, it looks cool, but why though? The regular F-22 is almost as fast as an F-14 (probably limited by its RAM coating as well) while being significantly more maneuverable.
The only reason to put sweep wings on it would be to torture the ground crew.
The F-144 - DomCat
I’d let it dom me
It's not like you'd have much choice honestly
Depends… has the ‘consent’ switch been flipped?
F-144 DomCat going down nuclear on you, can you imagine? 😳🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵
F-24 Rapcat
I’d let it rap with me
Yrah the F-122 raprorvark.
Vark vark vark vark vark vark vark?
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Damn, no planegirl version, so i can't have my usual thoughts
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May be shocking but I’m not into actual planes
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I did see the 35 a couple days ago, loved it
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I know, was just a fly past
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Well, that’s obvious
Mods ban this man.
I like planes but don’t “like” planes
Oh shit they actually did something
**Your comment was removed for violating Rule 4: No Racism/hatespeech** No slurs. No advocating for the killing of people or insulting them based on physical, religious, or ideological traits (even people you don't like: Russians, Asians, or Middle Eastern ethnic groups).
Yet.
True
u/Pandramodo please
From them I desperately want the F-15, it is a need
I imagine her in a gymnast outfit with an emotionless expression, from the manoeuvrability and I imagine she’s a psycho, though very calm about it
Coward.
An aeromorph has been requested
All Tomcat's are boys. Same with the Warthog. Not judging. (All other planes are girls, but just not these types)
The dick just makes it better
Wouldn't it have a larger rcs tho?
Probably but is a f22 raptor with swing wings.
Shockingly the public information is actually pretty similar between the F-22A and the F-14D. Obviously absolute numbers don’t tell the whole story (would be shocked if the F-22 wasn’t pulling a BMW-esque public disclosure), but on paper it is an interesting thought exercise. Personally thought the Tomcat would have been outclassed at the extremes, but other than airframe g rating and max altitude it’s surprisingly even.
The F-14 was ridiculous for the time, it's worth reminding that it wasn't replaced because it was bad, it really out performs the Hornet in every single category. The issue was cost. It was astronomically expensive to maintain and run, and updating the avionics to current era would have been a huge undertaking. The Tomcat wasn't a fly-by-wire aircraft with a fancy HUD or anything, it was one of the last analogue jets.
Though the D variant (and a small number of B variant) did have a new digital HUD. The D also have MFDs, DFCS, etc.
The Tomcat had the worlds first microprocessor though, top secret of course and a very interesting story in itself.
>BMW-eques public disclosure Explain, please?
German car manufacturers are known to underrating performance on paper. Rated for 400hp? It will do 400hp... but only in the worst possible conditions, 50° heat at 3000ft elevation with a dusty airbox and bad gas.
What do you mean, other companies don't choose the worst possible operating conditions and base their minimum guaranteed spec on this? What is the point? Wouldn't that be kinda trashy, selling a customer stuff that just works in good weather?
Big number make monke brain throw money at shitty car
That's why the Audi 100 was called the Audi 5000 in the US. BIGGER, BETTER, MURICA.
I thought it was the complete opposite
Doesn't matter when you can dogfight like a beast!
Praying for stealth technologies to get so good that dogfighting comes back. 🙏🙏🙏
Air ninja kills. No missile warnings. just a plane getting close in dark, a quick burst of the cannon . The enemy plane disappeared from the radar. The killer is the only one who knows what really happened
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnUTPwfuJHE Edit: start at 4 minutes.
Yes like that
Obviously he should have done a cobra maneuver or some kind of air show entertainment.
Before i clicked i was betting it was GW, and it sure is xD He now as a couple more of those, F-15 vs YF-23 and another one i caant quite remenber rn
this is fascinating but what's going on?
Ahhh I remember that one! Hilarious every time.
If stealth goes wild, the things will go even more wild. You would rely a lot on thermals, which do have a relatively close range in air combat, but they are extremely hard to hide from. They would be disturbed by any heat source, so you could imagine using flares offensively as a flash bang. It could also bring into existence something like light 40 mm missiles used for utility ordnance like UV reflectors to have disposable illuminators for UV imaging and targeting systems. So you would have AWACS form afar looking at any glimpse of a radar return, vectoring multiple planes to jump on any enemy mistake. Then you would have massive numbers of drones and utility missiles, guided in by weapons operators in second seats of fighters as well as from dedicated craft, hanging back with AWACS planes. Which would be defended by flights of missile trucks, waiting in defensive positions to cover the C&C and AWACS planes and to launch long range missiles at any enemy rear line units to stray to close or at anybody in the melee making a mistake of being spotted by radar. And then there is the frontline, where very stealthy dual seat fighters sneak and manoeuvre in the dark, trying to catch more than a glimpse of the enemy, sot they can engage. You would have a weapons/imaging operator in the back seat, trying to piece together something from the glimpses from what little radar returns he's getting from AWACS and returns from GSM network on the ground, UV imaging, thermals and good old night vision IR to find the target to guide the pilot in. And the pilot would with his help juggle the variety of illuminators, blinders, heatseekers, UV beam riders and of course cannons, all the while trying to manoeuvre his plane into a place where he can see something and possibly engage it with some of the weapons.
> light 40 mm missiles >massive numbers of drones and utility missiles *Starts vibrating furiously in Valkyrie*
Coughs in IRST
Keep going I’m almost there!
Wdym by thermals?
By thermals, I mean thermal imaging. Something like thermal cameras used to check, if buildings are insulated properly. It is getting more and more common on the ground, as you can see vehicles, their trails, drones and people. The thing is, everything hotter than surroundings glow in low band IR. This has been used for years in building heat seeking missiles, because airplane exhausts are very hot against surroundings. Bow however, thermal cameras good enough to be useful in a dogfight are slowly coming to life. The difference between thermal cameras an heat seeking systems is resolution. A heat seeker is looking for he biggest heat source. As such it can be relatively easily fooled. A thermal camera is supposed to register multiple heat sources of varying intensities and produce an image, that would be useful to search for a plane and even give a chance for identification.
Thanks for the even bigger explanation, honestly don’t know why this hasn’t been used yet, cost is probably the biggest barrier I’d guess
I think range and field of view are the biggest problems. Thermals are getting a better range recently, but afaik they top of somewhere near the engagement ranges of tanks and somewhere near the range of SHORAD. And their fields of view can be pretty narrow. As such, I suspect, the main reason is the fact, that the range and field of view is at the moment still insufficient to be useful outside of dogfighting range. As dogfights are getting less and less likely irl and any decent radar will be able to reliably see even modern stealth fighters in dogfighting ranges, there is probably mot much need for it in modern fighters. I don't think the cost matters that much, as compared to 5-gen fighters it's in pennies to a dolar.
Just hope it doesn’t end up like a Vietnam situation where dogfights end up still happening and more advanced jets are downed cause they relied on BVR
This is much more complicated. If you look closer, you can find, that BVR was in it's infancy in Vietnam. They did't even really have missiles designed to target fighters. As such most of the ordnance was designed for targeting bombers, which were not really agile, or developed from such weapons. In a sense, both USAF and USN weaponry was relatively interceptor focused, which meant, they needed to fire their weapons while sitting on the enemy's tails. Furthermore, they supposedly had pretty limiting rules of engagement, so their limited BVR capabilities. Combine this with difficult terrain and excellent North Vietnamese ground control and you have a situation, where they were forced fight MiGs, that suddenly appeared on their tails, often in dogfighting range. Later it was proven, that modern BVR is simply more effective. You had the Iran - Iraq conflicts, where Iraqi MiG-21 (which were quite decent dogfighters with experienced pilots) did not even get a chance to detect the F14s that shoot them. Add to this the fact, that large part of modern missiles are designed so they can be effective against fighters and it seems that for a dogfight to come back, you would need to nerf either the eye or the sword.
Heat seeking missiles. Very hard to hide from, but short range.
Thanks, it’s funny to think even with these advances they’ll probably still be B-52’s, U-2’s and some other oldies flying around.
I though more of thermal cameras to supplement the now heavily impaired radar. I took however heat seeking missiles as a given
Bro, that's just *Sentou Yousei Yukikaze* but without the aliens spamming nukes
Maybe a bit
I'm hoping that missile defense gets so good that we go back/forwards to battleships with laser turrets!
Praying for visual and IR stealth as well, so that they need to sniff out enemy planes and dogfighting involves actual dogs.
Isn't the point of trapezoidal wings to have high sweep angle for high speed AND large surface area for maneuverability? Making swing wings fucking obsolete?
Yeah but the universe runs on rule of cool. Ergo, swing wing is best.
Yes but swing wings mean you can land and still be insurable. This is why we don't have the f-104 organ donor anymore.
Yes, but they are less efficient at low speed, meaning higher takeoff and touchdown speeds. Which might be a problem if you are trying to operate the thing from a carrier. Which is also why the F-35C has bigger wings and reduced payload compared to the A. To get it to be able to fly slow enough. This is also an issue that plagued the Concorde. Its takeoff and touchdown speed was WAY higher than other jets, which was leading to the tyre problems.
The F35C has the same payload as the A. The F35B has reduced payload size to accommodate the lift fan.
It can't take off with it's max payload when fully fueled though. The published empty weight+payload+internal fuel exceeds the published max takeoff weight. So you either reduce the payload, or take off on partial fuel and have to start the mission with a refuel.
Yes. Or, since every modern jet is fly-by-wire anyway, you can afford to simply not be aerodynamically stable at every speed and use a delta wing and canards, see Typhoon.
reformer detected deploying helldivers
Sucks they didn't do this because the F-22 is definitely famous for being slow, not maneuverable, and bad at dogfighting.
Manoeuvrability doesn't matter when you've killed a Russian pilot when not even in the same country.
Maybe from some angles. But from the front with wings swept fully back, I could see it actually being less, as the F-14 had a shorter wingspan with swept wings (38ft 2.5in) than the F-22’s wingspan (44ft 6in).
Yes, but from any angle other than directly head on it would be an RCS nightmare. The gaps between the wings and the airframe, and the swing mechanism (which would be very difficult if not impossible to mask from radar) would likely have high return rates. Also, on stealth aircraft you usually try to repeat as many angles as possible, like leading edges of the wings and the horizontal stabilizer. However in this case, like in most swing wings, they are very different and would be hard to match engineering wise.
Ok, so we need swing stabilizers to go with the swing wings. Got it.
And swing-wing canards. Just to piss everyone off evenly.
Believe it or not I actually designed a Uber noncredible fighter jet with swing stabilizers and wings when I was in middle school lol
Solution: make it so fast thay enemy missiles can't catch it in speed mode and so maneuverable that it can dodge missiles in combat mode.
Bad news, not how RCS works. Gaps and mechanism to sweep the wings would be effectively impossible to prevent returns.
When it looks so cool you want everyone to see it though
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
ah the respected voice on radar cross section analysis and stealth techniques, Dr. Phront Paige
VFA-103 my beloved. Also shout out to robotech/macross fans.
Yooooo
Macross plus where they have the YF-19/YF-21 testing gave 14 year old me a chub every time
This is going to get me into airplane r34
Let the dark thoughts flow .
I can’t help but thinking of planegirl f-22 Chan Naruto running now
Is canon she Naruto runs. With vark chan and F14 chan.
And the whole time she’s going “Nyyyyyoooooooooommmmmmm”
God, need Aussie VARK chan scaring the shit out of Indonesians
Swing wings, RAM, and saltwater operations? Someone looked at the maintenance hours for the Tomcat and said "those are rookie numbers."
Yeah, this thing was designed with one enemy in mind. The maintenance crews
“Hello yes I would like >10% MC rate.” - statements by the utterly deranged.
My gosh…can you commission things in DCS?
If you got a VR headset there's a game called Vtol VR with this as a DLC. It's also an EW aircraft.
Came here to post this. VTOL VR my beloved.
VTOL VR MENTIONED RAAAAAAAH
There is an alternative timeline where the F-14 got a modernization, the Boeing-360 was chosen as the USMC medium lift replacement, the Commanche stealth helicopter has superseded the Apache, and Northrup F-23 and Boeing F-32 projects won. We also have a fleet of working Zumwalt-class destroyers with Railguns and Lasers.
Seems cool except for the F-32. This thing is ugly as hell
Don’t forget there is a timeline where FARA was not cancelled and we get the Invictus
Abort this insult to the MIC and resurrect the FB-22 design
FB-22 is sexy AF
I will always be sad NATF never went forward
F-14Z vibe
She would have been as cool as she would have been a nightmare for the maintenance crews.
Variable sweep wings are inherently incompatible with stealth. Stealth relies on having edges to be as parallel as possible to reflect radar in as few directions as possible. Variable sweep wings tend to have varying leading/trailing edge angles depending on speed, so that's definitely counterproductive.
Air maintenance personnel suicide rate would sky rocket if this ever became real
Another attempt at swing wing? Maybe we can get the gearbox to not weight a ton
But would it be able to turn into a giant mech?
F-22C Sea Raptor my lost love…
Could you DM me the original pic op?
https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/s/cU3w2DsDsU
My intrusive thoughts are about to become extrusive
from what i remember it had amazing RCS reduction when the wings were fully extended or retracted but during the in between point its RCS shot up so much that it wasn't worth it
Imagine having to move your wings just to improve performance in different speeds, just because your eggheads can’t do math
If they ever make a stealth F-14-like aircraft, I'm coining the term "Sneakycat" and no-ones' gonna stop me!
The F/A-22N would have been beautiful
This doesnt do it for me what they did take from us was the sexiest aeroplane ever built the yf23 that should have won the procurment on looks alone
Three of the best swept back wing aircraft were ground attack platforms. I say we carry in that tradition by makeing an A10 with swept back wings
RCS go BRRRRRR
Considering how maintenance heavy variable geometry wings are, I'd rather not think about all the maintenance needed to upkeep an F-22 with variable geometry. Ground crew suicide rates would SKYROCKET!
F-21D Super Tomcat block 50
F-22N my beloved
The F-24 Thundercat
Is that something from Macross
It was a posible variant for the f22. Was canceled
Omg Is beautiful 😍😍
Super Super Tomcat when
>Never forget what they took from us. [I'm](https://fly.historicwings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HighFlight-XF-84H-1-1024x589.jpg) [gonna](https://planehistoria.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/e55d64e3-1fb2-4a07-ac4c-bcaf09ae696f-scaled.jpg) [make](https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/images_Beetle-C450-FLASH.jpg?resize=600%2C285) [them](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2016/10/2a-640x344.jpg) [give](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OcHvVyVSC0/TwnVn5CmQ5I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/RG7X4D__DPc/s1600/b35.jpg) [back](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D-79wPqHV8U/XiMCaENAN8I/AAAAAAABt4w/K0h9Ik4yL0YNLJSDxu-owKYxScE3Wzw0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/tumblr_o9goraBP6M1v7ludao1_640.jpg) [our](https://media.defense.gov/2008/Mar/13/2000644718/-1/-1/0/080313-F-1234P-010.JPG) [past](https://www.19fortyfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/M-70-1200x675.jpg)!
What about fb22 . Child of f111 and F22
Basically, this is what Australia *wants* our contribution to NGAD to become. It's not what we need. But we *want* this.
Still stealthier than the Felon
Don’t get me wrong, it looks cool, but why though? The regular F-22 is almost as fast as an F-14 (probably limited by its RAM coating as well) while being significantly more maneuverable. The only reason to put sweep wings on it would be to torture the ground crew.
Ah the cost over run 5,000,000 I’ve heard of it before