Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
see the f-18 and f-4 for good examples of this
Warbirds Thread
- Thread starter PsihoKekec
- Start date
Extremely no.
The F-4 Phantom II was designed from the start as an all-weather fighter-bomber, i.e. a multirole aircraft for both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles.
The F/A-18 Hornet was also designed as a fighter-bomber, to the point of having this explicitly highlighted as a selling point with the non-standard "F/A" designation instead of F.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
was moreso reffering to the fact that despite being naval aircraft they ended up being used vastly more by airforces due to their excellent design. and the F-4 was designed first and foremost as a interceptor/fleet defense aircraft
Yes and no. Interceptor was always one of the core roles, but the F-4 was designed from the start as a versatile all weather fighter-bomber with a big emphasis on bomb load; the original prototype design had eleven weapons hardpoints, with the production version bringing this down to nine.
bintananth
behind a desk
The F-4 also wasn't designed for low altitutude "oh fuck, this is going to suck" Wild Weasel SEAD missions and the early ones didn't even have a gun because they weren't designed for dogfights.
paulobrito
Well-known member
One plane designed from the beginning to be multi-role is the Rafale. And do it very well.
bintananth
behind a desk
The Rafale also had sane design objectives instead of the "It must be the best at everything" BS the US tends to dump on engineers.
The F/A designation is awkward. "Attack" is such a brisd term. They should clarify for Laymen that 'Attsck' typically means 'Attack Ground' so they should add an 'AG' designation instead on future aircraft, especially the new F35's.
Or since it's a prototype idea maybe future 'Ground Attack' aircraft, like any future Warthog variants, could get an additional 'Y' designation.
😏
I see what you did there
There was originally supposed to be an F-18 Hornet fighter aircraft and a separate A-18 Hornet dedicated ground attack aircraft; the term "F/A-18 Hornet" was originally coined as an informal version to refer to both versions together. When the F-18 and A-18 were ultimately merged into a single multirole aircraft design, the manufacturer sought to highlight this versatility by seeking "F/A-18 Hornet" as the official designation, even though such a designation violates the tri-service designation rules and is completely unnecessary; the rules already explicitly state that multirole fighters are included under the designation "F".
Note that for a while, the F-22 Raptor was informally referred to as the F/A-22; it is not clear whether this refers to an A-18 style separate ground attack variant, or potential revision of the design from a pure "air dominance" fighter to a multirole aircraft. In any case, the Raptor ultimately remained a pure air-to-air bird with only the most rudimentary ground attack capacity, and was officially designated as "F-22".
bintananth
behind a desk
Tri-service designations are pretty much bullshit.
Heck, the P-51 and A-36 were the same goddamn fucking airplane assigned to different roles.
That was before the US tried to make things somewhat rational.
I have no idea why you think citing pre-tri-service aircraft designations is a valid criticism of the tri-service designation system.
bintananth
behind a desk
The tri-service designations are an attempt to make the "oh, dear gods, what is that and what is it capable of?" nonsense which used to exist and still failed because ... politics.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
I wonder how much money is going to get dumped into the 6th generation program that's suppose to replace the F-22. They should just call the plane that comes out of that Mk 12 death machine.
F-22 took over 20 years to develop. Most of that was funding just down the drain for minimal advances. The Bird should have been in service years prior to 2005.
Yes. To expand on this a little, the Air Force officially confirmed that a full scale prototype of the Next Generation Air Dominance program has flown, but most details remain classified. One of the few details released is that the NGAD program isn't supposed to be just a fighter aircraft, but a "family of systems" with the manned fighter as the centerpiece. This is generally taken to mean that NGAD will integrate some kind of loyal wingman type escort drone in addition to the core manned fighter.
NGAD is intended to replace the F-22, but even without any delays it's not scheduled to field until the 2030s. Even assuming the F-22 is quickly retired once NGAD enters service, that gives the Raptor a very solid ~30 year run as top dog. The F-15 has of course served for longer, but she was only top dog until Raptor fielded, so that's a 30 year run as well.