Warbirds Thread

Spartan303

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Technically impossible. Navalized planes always have some design compromises related to this that Air Force would prefer not to deal with, usually related to structural weight\payload. There is a reason why F-35, despite being newer, is not as stealthy as F-22. The surface coating maintenance for F-22 is ridiculous, and doing it in the limited and more challenging conditions of carrier operations is practically impossible. Basically you could have had a stealth F-22 or naval F-22, but not a stealth naval F-22.


I was aware of some problems which would force Naval squadrons to rotate out for ground side maintenance but since they did that anyway, I just figured it would have been an additional maintenance duty they would have performed once they were shoreside.
 

Knowledgeispower

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You'd need a lot more aircraft than what Congress would be willing to pay for to make that practical without massively effecting the power and size of each airwing
 

Marduk

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I was aware of some problems which would force Naval squadrons to rotate out for ground side maintenance but since they did that anyway, I just figured it would have been an additional maintenance duty they would have performed once they were shoreside.
The coating of F-22 is a huge pain even in their normal use and cuts into readiness already.
I imagine adding salt spray to the equation would not be good.
 

Spartan303

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The coating of F-22 is a huge pain even in their normal use and cuts into readiness already.
I imagine adding salt spray to the equation would not be good.

Yeah, given that I wasn't aware how bad and this emphasizes how bad, I amend my statement. Still, a non stealth naval F-22 would have been better than the Super Hornet IMO.
 

Marduk

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Yeah, given that I wasn't aware how bad and this emphasizes how bad, I amend my statement. Still, a non stealth naval F-22 would have been better than the Super Hornet IMO.
Then you still have the carriers stuffed with planes about 2x the size, weight and fuel use of Super Hornets, without anything near proportional 2x increase in capability, if possible at all.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Yeah, given that I wasn't aware how bad and this emphasizes how bad, I amend my statement. Still, a non stealth naval F-22 would have been better than the Super Hornet IMO.
The Super Hornet or for that matter the Super Tomcat would have been fine....if so many compromises hadn't been required to make them look like their namesakes when they should be have been blank sheet designs. Even still the Super Hornet is a good bird
 
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Spartan303

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Then you still have the carriers stuffed with planes about 2x the size, weight and fuel use of Super Hornets, without anything near proportional 2x increase in capability, if possible at all.


The F-22 is just awesome all around. I firmly stand by this. Its a much better plan the Hornet can be.
 

Spartan303

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The Super Hornet or for that matter the Super Tomcat would have been fine....if so many compromises hadn't been required to make them look like their namesakes when they should be have been blank sheet designs


Yeah. Some of the concept art I've seen of it is quite beautiful. Though I'm almost certain isn't what it would have actually looked like.

steven-dahan-chiasma-spirit-f14s-1.jpg
 

Knowledgeispower

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Yeah. Some of the concept art I've seen of it is quite beautiful. Though I'm almost certain isn't what it would have actually looked like.

steven-dahan-chiasma-spirit-f14s-1.jpg
The idea of a swing wing bird was a good one for its time but not really suited for the modern era given how maintenance heavy it is and how it prevents the addition of a lot of hardpoints
 

ShadowArxxy

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The idea of a swing wing bird was a good one for its time but not really suited for the modern era given how maintenance heavy it is and how it prevents the addition of a lot of hardpoints

Yeah, as pretty as that is, it's just an artistic composite of the F-14 and the F-22. The 1988 NATF program was only an evaluation and never really got very far, as it was very quickly realized that even if everything went perfectly it was going to be too expensive for the Navy budget, and there were serious concerns about a navalized F-22 being too heavy for the Navy's existing carriers.

With a maximum takeoff weight of 83,500 pounds, the F-22 is already substantially heavier than the heaviest-ever carrier aircraft, the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior with an MTOW of 82,000 pounds.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Yeah, as pretty as that is, it's just an artistic composite of the F-14 and the F-22. The 1988 NATF program was only an evaluation and never really got very far, as it was very quickly realized that even if everything went perfectly it was going to be too expensive for the Navy budget, and there were serious concerns about a navalized F-22 being too heavy for the Navy's existing carriers.

With a maximum takeoff weight of 83,500 pounds, the F-22 is already substantially heavier than the heaviest-ever carrier aircraft, the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior with an MTOW of 82,000 pounds.
to be fair in theory the carriers are designed to handle aircraft of up to 50 tons in their elevators, catapults, and arrestor system and crash barriers and have been since forrestal . of course they've never built something quite that big yet
 

ShadowArxxy

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to be fair in theory the carriers are designed to handle aircraft of up to 50 tons in their elevators, catapults, and arrestor system and crash barriers and have been since forrestal . of course they've never built something quite that big yet

It’s commonly estimated that a navalized version of an aircraft runs about a 20-30% weight premium over the land based original, which when applied to the Raptor’s tonnage runs over that theoretical limit.
 

Spartan303

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It’s commonly estimated that a navalized version of an aircraft runs about a 20-30% weight premium over the land based original, which when applied to the Raptor’s tonnage runs over that theoretical limit.

Wow, I had no idea it was that heavy.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
As KnowledgeIsPower said, the Navy standardized on a theoretical limit of 50 tons for carrier aircraft. That’s 100,000 pounds,"only” a 19.7% increase over the land Raptor’s existing MTOW.
And getting a carrier to handle significantly bigger than 50 tons basically means it needs to be at least a couple hundred feet longer and probably decently wider...which uhhh yeah that would be fun to have the USN get the drydocks for
 

Sailor.X

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We need a High Low mix of Fight Aircraft now. The numbers of F-35s the DOD wants to buy is literally too much. Stealth Fighters should only make up maybe 30 to 40 percent of the fighter force with the rest being non stealth aircraft. The Airforce should really push for a F-15 EX version of the F-16. The F-16 is a great fighter and an updated version would serve us well into the mid to late 21st Century. After the FAXX comes online the Superhornet can be the secondary fighter for the Navy.
 

ShadowArxxy

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We need a High Low mix of Fight Aircraft now. The numbers of F-35s the DOD wants to buy is literally too much. Stealth Fighters should only make up maybe 30 to 40 percent of the fighter force with the rest being non stealth aircraft. The Airforce should really push for a F-15 EX version of the F-16. The F-16 is a great fighter and an updated version would serve us well into the mid to late 21st Century. After the FAXX comes online the Superhornet can be the secondary fighter for the Navy.

Given the full multi role capabilities of the F-15EX, I don’t see any useful role for a modernized F-16. Every legacy land based fighter *not* being upgraded to F-35 should be replaced by F-15 EX.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
To be blunt given what we've seen in Ukraine modern Air Defenses aren't exactly nice to non stealthy aircraft if well operated and thus more stealth aircraft vs non stealth aircraft especially for active frontline Squadrons and not national guard units is a good idea
 
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