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Raptor Pr0n

By lex, on July 2nd, 2009

Taken by a Navy sonar technician, too.

Our guys? They’re multi-talented.

090622-N-7780S-014Sexy beast, that. Shame there will be so few of them.

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July 2nd, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Flying, Military

22 comments to Raptor Pr0n

  • Larry
    July 2, 2009 at 7:13 am

    I’ve noted the F-22 tends to leave very pronounced wing tip vortices when maneuvering. I’ve seen strong vortices on other aircraft before, like the F-16 and JA37, but they were not nearly so visible as these.

    Two questions – strake vortices serve a purpose on both aforementioned aircraft, helping lift at high AoA. I can’t see these wingtip vortices serving a purpose? Question 2 – although the Raptor is designed to fight at long range, doesn’t generating very visible vortices at low altitude serve as a pretty big disadvantage?

    Unless they are serving some purpose I can’t fathom, I guess they couldn’t be avoided.

  • Bill K.
    July 2, 2009 at 7:25 am

    Love Larry’s question. I was taught that in low Reynold’s number aerodynamics, wingtip vortices are always an energy-loser, but I’m talking gliders. So what do you fast-movers have to say?

    • Humble1310
      July 2, 2009 at 11:03 am

      Tip vortices are always an energy loser. But they can be useful in maneuvering flight, especially at high AoA. The trapezoidal wing, like the delta wing, makes vortices to energize the boundary layer and keep airflow attached and allow for better lift generation at slow speed/high AoA.

  • J.T. Wenting
    July 2, 2009 at 8:15 am

    The F-22 was designed like the F-4 and F-102, to be a long range missile platform.
    Dogfighting capability was very much an afterthought, though not to the degree it had been on the F-4 or F-102 (the latter especially was utterly unsuitable to anything but high speed missile passes at bomber formations).

    The idea is that a group of F-22s fires a barrage of AMRAAMs using targetting information from other aircraft (so they’re not exposed), closes in to Sidewinder range, fires a barrage of Sidewinders using their thermal sights to mop up, and turns for home as there’s nothing left to fight with.

    Of course we all know how that turned out when the F-4 was designed for the exact same purpose, and as a concession to that a gun was fitted (though not originally included in the design, another afterthought).

    • Larry
      July 2, 2009 at 6:51 pm

      I’m just going to hazard a guess that you’ve read alot of Pierre Sprey and/or Chuck Riccione.

      By saying there is nothing left to fight with after exhausting AAMs, I guess you believe that the F-22 has no gun. Not true. It has an M61A2 cannon.

      The F-22 is not a knife fighter like the F-16, but it’s not a slouch at the merge, either. F-22 operations are definitely focused on BVR combat, but it’s orders of magnitude better than the two types you mentioned WVR, and is equal to or superior to any aircraft in service today in that regime, too.

  • Jim Howard
    July 2, 2009 at 9:40 am

    ‘Dogfighting capability was very much an afterthought’

    Err, so those vectored thrust nozzles were an afterthought?

    I’m still bitter about all the combat capability we gave up to have the Raptor, but I promise you it can beat the crap out of any other airplane in the unlikely event it ever gets in a close engagement.

  • Malderi
    July 2, 2009 at 9:44 am

    “Dogfighting capability was very much an afterthought”

    I was under the impression that the F-22′s turning capabilities (and T/W) made it a pretty damn good dogfighter, too. Not to mention the post-stall thrust vectoring, should it ever come to that. If that’s their kind of afterthought, I’d love to see what they could come up with if they were concentrating on it.

    • lex
      July 4, 2009 at 8:33 am

      Have to agree, from the videos I’ve seen, the jet is a maneuvering beast. And let’s not forget those perhaps unfortunate comparisons given by a USAF FWS instructor against the Indian Air Force’s SU-30MKs.

      If she wasn’t built to turn, I’d hate to see what a focus on maneuvering would have looked like.

      • Bou
        July 4, 2009 at 8:25 pm

        She was built to turn. I’m at a loss to those who think she wasn’t. Her turning was all we frickin’ talked about during development. Please.

  • Kris, in New England
    July 2, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    I took a similar photo at an airshow a couple of years ago. Not nearly as dramatic as this F22 – great shot. But in my pic it’s a Hornet…

  • BeachBum
    July 2, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    Article about this picture at LiveScience: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090630-sound-barrier-prandtl-glauert.html.

    Saw a supersonic Hornet back in March, shock cone was not nearly as dramatic as this one. Then again, being boomed in person is a far, far better thing than looking at pix of it.

  • SJBill
    July 2, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    When, since CVS platforms and CV66, have STGs inhabited birdfarms? Thought they have been long gone!

    Nice pic, and taken while Gov Palin was aboard.

  • Curtis
    July 2, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Concur, a nice picture!

    I recall a rather sullen STGCM at a Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Improvement Program conference in 2002 describe Sonar Techs as the best machine gun watch standers in the world since that’s all that they ever did anymore on surface ships. I guess all that time manning the guns gave them time for practical things like learning photography. :)

  • Raptors In The Sky | simFlight.COM Flight Simulation News Source
    July 3, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    [...] you stumble on a WordPress Blog that is just that little bit more interesting than the average. Neptunus Lex is one of those. Today’s blog post shows a wonderful photo of a Raptor, taken by a Navy sonar [...]

  • ekmf
    July 4, 2009 at 8:24 am

    “Dogfighting capability was very much an afterthought”

    The notion that the F-22 was designed simply as a missile platform is false. F-22 structure was designed for usage comparable to that experienced by Israeli F-16s. (The IAF is relatively small and therefore they cannot rotate A/C in and out of training units where fatigue damage accumulation is most severe. IAF S-N curves are an order of magnitude greater than those for USAF F-16s). Back in 1993-94 when weight problems threatened the F-22 program, there was a push to limit usage to 7.5g’s. USAF rejected that notion in high dudgeon. 9.0 or bust. I don’t know anything about knife fighting, but I do know F-22 matches F-16 in roll rate, and exceeds it in pitch rate, acceleration, top end speed, altitude, and a bunch of other areas. As an indication of F-22 design intent, consider the wing-to-body joint. F-22 has an F-15-style WJNT, however wing loads are reacted at 7 points on F-22 vs 5 points on F-15. Furthermore, the F-22 WJNT is titanium; whereas the F-15 WJNT is aluminum. (Ti has much greater crack growth resistance to repeated loads.) F-22 structure was designed for severe usage. As no other aircraft can match it in performance, none can match it in durability either (save for those that were manufactured with improperly heat-treated aft booms).
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