For some time now, the Air Force has been openly discussing plans to retire its most potent air superiority fighter, the F-22 Raptor, in favor of its next fighter in development. And while the exact timeline remains somewhat murky, the fact of the matter remains: The reign of the Raptor is coming to an end
When the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor first rolled onto the flight line in 1997, it was an aircraft so unlike anything in service that it would soon be embraced as the basis from which a new generation of fighters would emerge what most of us know as the 5th generation. Now, a full quarter-century later, only three more tactical jets have found their way into service with sufficiently advanced capabilities to earn that coveted 5th-gen designation. And despite these jets being newer than (and often based in some part on) the F-22, the venerable Raptor is still widely considered to be the most potent air-to-air fighter on the planet.
Independent analysis of the F-22’s stealth and combat capabilities, especially as compared to Chinese and Russian fighters that are widely considered to be less stealthy, remains favorable. And with far older platforms like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 not only still in service, but still receiving upgrades, many have come to ask…
Why on earth would the U.S. want to retire the F-22 Raptor?
BLUFF – BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT
The F-22 Raptor is still widely considered to be the most capable air superiority fighter on the planet, but it’s slated for retirement in the 2030s. Here’s why:
The F-22 was canceled after just 186 airframes were delivered and large portions of its production line were then used for the F-35, making building new Raptors all but impossible.
The F-22’s design and avionics are increasingly dated. The cost of modernizing it for the decades to come would be untenable (and still wouldn’t solve all of its problems).
The F-22 will be replaced by a new fighter being developed in the Next Generation Air Dominance Program.
The F-22 is being retired sooner than older jets because of its small numbers and high cost of operation.
THE RAPTOR HAS BEEN AN ENDANGERED SPECIES FROM THE START
The F-22 was born out of the Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter program, an effort that really began all the way back in 1981, when the Air Force first developed and established its list of requirements for a next-generation air superiority fighter meant to replace the already-legendary F-15 Eagle. In 1981, the Cold War was still very much alive and well, and while the F-15 was designed as an answer to what America thought the MiG-25 was capable of, the Air Force believed that it would only be a matter of time before the Soviets fielded their own next-generation fighter meant to counter the F-15.
So, in order to maintain America’s competitive edge, there was no time to rest on the F-15’s laurels. By 1985, the Air Force was sending out requests for proposals, and by as early as 1991, the YF-22 was not only already flying, it had won the competition to move into production. Six years later, in 1997, the first production F-22 took flight, and eight years after that, it was in service.
But the same year Lockheed Martin won the contract to build the F-22, the Soviet Union collapsed. America had won the Cold War. By the time the F-22 went into service, the U.S. was no longer trying to deter a mighty nation-level opponent. Instead, it was waging war in multiple theaters against terrorist groups with no appreciable air defenses or fighters for the F-22 to contend with.
And so, in 2009, America’s standing order for 750 Raptors was slashed to just 186, with only 150 or so combat-coded jets. The F-22, which was expected to replace F-15s across the fleet, suddenly became an endangered species. With the multi-role F-35 following closely behind, much of the F-22’s production line was cannibalized in favor of the new jet. This decision meant any effort to restart F-22 production in the future would be immensely—maybe even prohibitively—expensive.
It also meant that the world would never have more than 186 Raptors. The figure could only go down from there.
This decision led to a skyrocketing per-unit price for America’s Raptors and created immediate concerns about the availability of airframes in a large-scale fight. It also drove up the cost of parts. With the aircraft’s production lines halted, some components simply can’t be replaced, while others that would have been less expensive in large volume for a 750-Raptor fleet, are much pricier in small batches for 150 combat jets. After all, the Air Force had intended to retire all of its F-15s in favor of F-22s, but today has to pay to maintain, update, and grow its F-15 fleets while also supporting the relatively few (though pricey) Raptors in its nest.
THE THREAT ENVIRONMENT IS ADVANCING FASTER THAN THE F-22’S COMPETITION
The F-22 is, in many ways, a bridge between two very different air combat philosophies. Its high degree of maneuverability, born in large part out of its thrust-vector control, combined with its high thrust-to-weight ratio and the Raptor’s M61A2 20mm Gatling gun make it an adept dogfighter on par with some of the most capable 4th generation air superiority platforms in the world (even before considering stealth). However, the Raptor also boasts the smallest radar cross-section of any 5th-generation fighter, alongside a high degree of sensor fusion and situational awareness, allowing its pilots to engage enemy fighters from beyond visual range, often before the opponent even knows that the F-22 is there.
So, in a world where most fighters tend to either prioritize close-in boxing like the Su-35 or long-distance sniping like the F-35, the F-22 offers an extremely competent combination of the two. There are certainly more aerobatic fighters in the world, and the F-35’s sensor fusion and data management capabilities are a huge improvement over the F-22s, but there’s no jet on the map that manages both to such a high degree.
But, like all forms of technology, the value of the F-22’s extreme capability set does have an expiration date — and the Air Force believes that this date quickly approaching. While the Raptor may have been designed specifically to dominate air-to-air combat, the more potent threat it could face in a 21st-century conflict likely comes from rapidly advancing air defenses leveraging a variety of new or improved detection and targeting methodologies.
In other words, the F-22 may still be the favorite in an air-to-air bout with just about any other fighter, but that’s no guarantee of survival against the latest and greatest surface-to-air missiles.
By about the 2030 timeframe, you’re talking about a 40-year-old platform [in the F-22], and it’s just not going to be the right tool for the job, especially when we’re talking about defending our friends like Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines against a Chinese threat that grows and grows. – Lt. Gen. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, told Defense News in May.
THE F-22’S ONGOING UPGRADES HAVE LIMITS
The U.S. Air Force is currently working on a series of updates for its Raptor fleet, which include new stealthier external fuel tanks and pylons, new beyond-visual-range air-to-air weapons like the AIM-260, and seemingly an infrared search-and-track (IRST) capability, new electronic warfare suite, or potentially both.
But for all of these impressive upgrades, the avionics suite in the Raptor remains quite dated, which hints at a severe limitation when it comes to improving its systems. The Raptor, like many fighters before it, wasn’t developed with modularity in mind, meaning its dated hardware and software are to a larger extent than newer fighters married. To make matters worse, these systems were designed at a time when the Air Force anticipated a large Raptor fleet focused on communicating among itself, not with other jets.
So, rather than being able to simply update the Raptor’s software, the jet would need to have elements of its computer hardware replaced entirely in order to bring it up to speed with the more advanced avionics of platforms like the F-35. In fact, the F-22’s aging hardware won’t even allow it to communicate directly with its sister fighter via direct datalink, requiring another platform to serve as a translating intermediary between the Raptor and F-35.
But dated avionics aren’t the only thing limiting the Raptor’s future performance. As pictures that surface on the internet every so often have frequently shown, the F-22’s radar-absorbent coating is highly susceptible to damage caused by high-speed flight. It’s also extremely expensive and time-consuming to repair.
Of course, this is an issue for the F-35 as well, but the Joint Strike Fighter built off of Lockheed Martin’s experiences with the Raptor. This led to a simpler and more effective RAM coating on the F-35, as well as the incorporation of RAM into its polymer construction itself.
Considering that the current slew of upgrades going into the Raptor is already expected to cost nearly $11 billion, completely revamping the jet to keep pace with rivals for decades to come would likely cost a good portion of simply developing a new, more advanced fighter to replace it.
So, while the Raptor may still be the best pound-for-pound dogfighter around, it would take a massive investment into the platform to bring its avionics into the 21st century and to bring down its immense cost of operation… But even if the Air Force did so, there would still be only 150 or so combat-capable Raptors in existence, with replacement parts still hard to come by and no way to replace airframes that age out of service, are damaged in accidents, or worst of all, shot down in combat.
Despite the Raptor’s incredible capabilities, losing some airframes in a fight with a near-peer like China would be a near certainty. And the fact of the matter is that having the best dogfighter in the world doesn’t help much if you can’t afford to lose any in a fight.
THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING
To be clear, the F-22 will almost certainly continue flying for longer than the Air Force is currently letting on, and it will likely remain a fixture of America’s air superiority strategy well into the 2030s. However, in terms of the long timelines of fighter development, the Raptor’s tenure as king of the skies is already in its twilight, with America’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program closing fast on the title.
The NGAD fighter, which will get a different name and designation as it approaches service, is expected to become the basis for a new generation of fighters, just like the F-22 before it. What exactly NGAD will bring to bear to earn that distinction, however, remains somewhat unclear.
We know for sure that NGAD will fly alongside a constellation of drone wingmen meant to extend sensor range, engage targets, and potentially even sacrifice themselves on behalf of the crewed fighter. Although a technology demonstrator tied to the NGAD program has already flown (and reportedly broken some sort of record), the general public remains uncertain about what it may even look like, but most official renders show a delta-winged platform with no vertical tail surfaces.
This suggests that NGAD may not only be stealth against high-frequency targeting arrays like the Raptor, but may even be the first stealth fighter that’s also designed to defeat detection against low-frequency arrays that can currently spot most stealth fighters, if not actually provide a target-grade lock. It’s also all but certain that the new fighter will boast a significant increase in range over the F-22, in order to better manage the vast expanses of the Pacific.
However, there’s little indication that this new fighter will bridge combat philosophies quite like the Raptor, likely leaning further into the idea of using sensor fusion, stealth, and advanced beyond-visual-range weapons to take out opponents from greater distances than ever. It’s also entirely likely that this new fighter won’t match the F-22’s aerobatic performance, opting to lean on technology more than brain-mashing dogfighting maneuvers to dominate the skies.
Whether or not that will be the case remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the Raptor’s reign may be coming to an end, but the United States has no intention of giving up its crown.
The sleek, delta-wing bomber lands in the ocean, then slowly sinks to the bottom — part of a plan by a menacing villain intent on recovering the stolen aircraft’s nuclear weapons.
The premise of the 1965 James Bond film “Thunderball” might seem far-fetched, but the starring plane played a very real role in the Royal Air Force during its more than quarter-century of operational service. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Avro Vulcan, which was designed at the height of the Cold War as a nuclear deterrent, is that in the only conflict in which the “Tin Triangle” saw service, it carried conventional weapons.
FORGING THE VULCAN
In January 1947, the British Air Ministry took the first step toward developing the Vulcan when it directed the Ministry of Supply to issue specification B.35/46 for an aircraft weighing no more than 100,000 pounds and capable of carrying a 10,000-pound bombload for 3,350 nautical miles while cruising at 50,000 feet at 500 knots. Since the RAF’s primary bombers at the time were the piston-engine Avro Lancaster and its descendent, the Lincoln, that was a pretty tall order. Three of the seven companies that submitted proposals for the new bomber received the go-ahead to develop prototypes: Vickers, Handley Page and A.V. Roe (Avro).
Vickers’ Type 660 was viewed as an insurance program, since its design was much less radical than Handley Page’s or Avro’s proposals. Considering the state of large jet aircraft design and construction in the United Kingdom, that wasn’t a bad idea. The first flight by a Valiant, as the Vickers bomber was named, took place in 1951. It entered operational service in 1954, proving the worth of big jets to RAF bomber personnel.
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A Valiant dropped the first British-designed atomic bomb in a 1956 test. Valiants also saw action that same year as conventionally armed bombers during the Suez Crisis, striking Egyptian airfields. By 1960, however, the Valiant was largely obsolete as a bomber, though it served as a tanker until 1965.
The second competition entry, Handley Page’s HP.80 Victor, first flew in 1952. Featuring swept wings that incorporated four turbojet engines in the roots and a large T-tail configuration, the Victor had the largest payload capacity of any of the three designs. It was introduced to squadron service in 1956 and turned out to be a fine performer in its intended role: as a high-altitude bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
POTENTIAL THREATS
However, the Soviet Union’s increasingly effective air defense system, particularly its high-flying surface-to-air missile capability, forced a change in tactics so that 1960s aircrews would have a reasonable chance of hitting their targets. Instead of flying at high altitude, RAF bombers—like their American counterpart in Strategic Air Command, the Boeing B-52 — were switched to low-level, high-speed ingress routes. The theory was that if the Soviets couldn’t see the bombers on radar, then no matter how good the SAMs were, the bombers could get through.
Unfortunately, the Victor’s thin wing couldn’t take the sustained pounding inherent in flying fast and low. After several aircraft and crews were lost due to structural failures, Victors were converted to aerial tankers, a role they continued into the 1990s.
The straight-wing VX770 Vulcan prototype first flew in August 1952. (Courtesy of BAE Systems)
A.V. Roe and Company put forth the third and most radical of the jet bomber designs. Using newly acquired research from the Germans, Avro’s designers took an unusual approach. High-speed operations required a sweptwing design, but the desired specs for wing loading translated into a prohibitively long and structurally complex wing. The designers eventually hit upon the idea of increasing wing area by filling in the area between the trailing edge of the swept wings and the fuselage. This design soon became a flying wing, eliminating the need for a conventional tail. Control surfaces in the wing’s trailing edge, called elevons, served as both elevators and ailerons. Thus the Type 698 was born, soon to be christened the Vulcan.
Britain’s triumvirate of bombers came to be called the V-Force. It was the UK equivalent of America’s SAC while it operated. At its peak in 1962, the V-Force had 22 operational squadrons. A portion of each squadron, sometimes as many as four aircraft, sat on nuclear-armed alert at RAF bases, waiting for an order that no one wanted to hear.
TESTING THE VULCAN
Given the Vulcan’s radical design, Avro opted to build several single-seat concept demonstrators, dubbed the Type 707, which used a single turbojet and as many off-the-shelf components as possible to reduce costs. For example, they used the nosewheel and cockpit canopy from the Gloster Meteor fighter. Completed in 1949, the first 707 flew well with no real vices save one: At high speeds, the wing’s straight leading edge caused an alarming vibration. Designers added a “kink” to the outboard third of the wing, curing the problem. The kink would also be used on the full-size production Vulcan.
As the 707 tests progressed, initial construction continued on the Vulcan prototype. The first one was rolled out in August 1952. Serial number VX770 was far from an operational bomber, but it did yeoman service as an aerodynamic demonstrator, flying low- and high-speed tests plus high-altitude and handling-quality checks. Initially fitted with one pilot’s seat, toward the end of the year this first Vulcan had a second pilot’s ejection seat crammed into it. The resulting extremely cramped flight deck would be a constant complaint of Vulcan crews.
Once they had wormed their way into their seats, the pilots used fighter-type joysticks to maneuver the surprisingly nimble aircraft. The throttles for the B.2 model’s four Rolls-Royce Olympus201 (later 301) turbojets were located on a pedestal between the two pilots. Despite the B.2’s huge wingspan of more than 100 feet, the Vulcan was often rolled at airshows, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
John Reeve, an RAF Vulcan pilot with many hours in the cockpit, recalled: “At high altitude, it was a delight to fly. She needed strange handling techniques—lots of rudder and very little aileron—but with a low wing loading she could outturn all the current UK fighters if you could determine when to turn by using our radar threat receivers.”
In the Vulcan as well as the other two V bombers, only the pilots’ positions were ever fitted with ejection seats. The remaining three Vulcan crew members, who sat about three feet behind the pilots’ seats facing aft, were supposed to bail out via the same nose hatch that they used to enter the bomber.
Looking aft from the nose, the leftmost crewman was the navigator-radar, who also served as the bombardier. He planned the target attack details and primary radar fix points, and took celestial shots when necessary for navigating. In the center sat the navigator-plotter, who worked in conjunction with the nav-radar to get the bomber to its target on time. On the right was the air electronics officer, or AEO, responsible for the Vulcan’s complex electrical system. The AEO also took on the role of electronic warfare officer as the Vulcan’s electronic countermeasures (ECM) suite was developed and improved throughout the jet’s career.
THE DOWNSIDES
Roy Brocklebank, a long-serving nav-radar, shared a “revealing” anecdote about the jet’s cramped interior: “To take a pee, the pilots had to unstrap from their parachute and ‘bang’ seat, fiddle around under g-pants, fish inside long johns and underwear and extract one’s equipment. Then, in a sitting position, open the chrome top of the pee-tube, and right next to the other pilot, let fly. After checking, of course, that the pee-tube was plugged in tightly at the base of the cockpit. For the rear crew, at least we could stand up.”
One problem all Vulcan crew members shared was atrocious visibility. The pilots had only narrow, sloping windows to the front that left them essentially blind for 30 yards directly ahead, in addition to a circular window on each side, configured so that unless they contorted themselves like a tortoise with its head forward, they couldn’t even see their own wingtips. The rear-facing crewmen had no view at all save that gained from a periscope the AEO could use to scan the jet’s underside. As Reeve said, “Flying the Vulcan has been compared to flying a post box by looking through the letter slit.”
When the aircraft was first envisioned, its 50,000-foot-plus ceiling was thought to be the perfect defense against Soviet interceptors. “The Vulcan was a superb aircraft and weapons system for the late 1950s and 1960s,” Reeve pointed out. “It could fly above the heights that Soviet aircraft could reach. We expected to be at about 54,000, and the MiG-19 stopped well before that. The addition of goodish ECM also helped, and what the kit lacked in subtlety — no range gates stealing for us [a method of tricking the search radar via subtle desensitizing of the radar’s receiver], just noise jamming — it made up for in sheer electrical power output. We could fry target radars.”
Confidence in the Vulcan’s invulnerability at high altitudes declined over time, however. The downing of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers’ Lockheed U-2 by a Soviet SAM, from an altitude more than 20,000 feet higher than the Vulcan’s ceiling, came as a rude shock. RAF tacticians brought the Vulcan down from the stratosphere to the deck after that, and crew training changed accordingly.
Reeve remembered the transition: “We went low-level, which was fun, but the aircraft was never designed for this, and she was out of her element. Lots of basic things were now wrong, and there was never enough money to put them right.” For example, the lack of ejection seats for the rear crew was never remedied. The Martin-Baker Company developed a system that could have been retrofitted to the Vulcan, but the RAF decided against installing it, anticipating that the delta-wing bomber would be in service only a few more years. New bomber designs on the drawing board would correct the problem, so why bother? They never imagined that all those new projects would be canceled, leaving the Vulcan to soldier on alone.
When it came to handling the Tin Triangle down on the deck, Reeve said: “I first saw the inside of a Vulcan in 1969 when I joined 27 Squadron at RAF Scampton. They had just got rid of the Blue Steel standoff nuclear missile and reverted to the free-fall role with both nuclear and conventional weapons. Training consisted of about six trips a month, each about 4½ hours. We had a problem because we had to do about 25 hours a month to meet the NATO target for operational proficiency, but the aircraft suffered terribly from metal fatigue at low level—hardly surprising, as it had not been designed for this.
“As strong as the Vulcan’s delta wing was,” Reeve continued, “there were limits. As a result, we could only do about 30 minutes over land at low level, and low level for us was 500 feet. Even worse, being designed for high level, where the IAS [indicated airspeed] is low, the Vulcan had a low IAS limit, and we flew low level at 240 knots. Basic training aircraft with low-hours solo students would overtake us. For war we flew 375 knots with a one-off speed of 415 knots, which was the ‘guesstimated’ speed a Vulcan was doing when it broke up at an air display.
“We thus had to find another four hours of low-fatigue flying to meet the NATO requirement, so we spent the first three hours at 43,000 feet doing navigation practice. This was totally valueless for the pilots, and the navigators could have gotten better practice in the simulator. Add in some 30 minutes circuit pounding and 15 minutes taxi time, and you had a typical Vulcan sortie. But we met the NATO standard.”
THE CREW
Although the SAC crews spent a week at a time on alert, waiting for the klaxon to sound, RAF bomber crews did it a bit differently. Roy Brocklebank recalled that most of the RAF bomber squadrons had one crew on alert for each 24-hour period. His unit, No. 12 (B) Squadron, held a crew on alert for 48 hours from Monday through Thursday, and another crew drew a longer 72-hour alert from Friday through Sunday.
“During QRA [quick reaction alert],” Brocklebank remembered, “during the day we studied our wartime targets, or we might be preparing for an overseas deployment or a training sortie after release from alert. Or we might just be at the squadron waiting. We played hours upon hours of uckers, Risk or cards.
“Unlike SAC’s scramble from a cold start, where the alert crews could be unaware of an impending exercise, we didn’t launch the QRA crew unless it was an actual mission. Instead, we had constant exercise EDOM alerts [scrambling the crew to the jet without actually launching] about every 36 hours. If one had not been called during the previous crew’s time, we stayed ready because we knew it would happen during our shift.
An underside view shows the cavernous bomb bay with doors open. (MoD Crown Copyright)
“For EDOMs, the crew was brought to varying states of readiness. We maintained a 15-minute state, which meant we were to be airborne within that time should the launch order be given. We could then be called to 05 [cockpit readiness], 02 [taxi to the runway] or start engines.
“We made it a point of professional pride to beat these times, and many incidents occurred as a result. The exercise would begin thusly over the tannoy, ‘Attention, attention, exercise EDOM,’ and that was usually all the crew ever heard because we would have run like hell to the staff car to get to the aircraft. The tower would fire a flare, which told us what the alert state was. Usually the pilot drove as we hurtled down the taxiway. One crew I was on opened the inside rear door, and the right-hand and center occupants leaned out, held by the left-hand occupant. The open door and displaced weight acted as an airbrake as the driver whirled the car through a 180 turn to head toward the aircraft at about 85 miles an hour.
“In the dispersal, it was slammed to a halt near, but usually not in, the assigned parking bay. The RAF police security guard simply let the crew through, no time for the SAC-style indoctrination identification protocol. The policeman then parked the car. One time the crew drove to its assigned parking bay, but the spot was already filled by a large fire extinguisher. Both car and extinguisher were write-offs, but we made the alert time.
“Even though we knew an alert would be called during our QRA, we still had to attend to ordinary functions like showering and the like. It was not that uncommon to see a naked copilot racing down the corridor, holding a flying suit and covered in soapsuds.
“Another incident occurred when our AEO’s wife was pregnant. He couldn’t sleep, so he left the caravan and went into the ops block to shower. Naturally, we got the alarm and reacted but couldn’t find the AEO. At the aircraft, we grabbed the startled crew chief and sat him in the AEO’s seat. If it had been an actual launch, he’d have gotten a crash course in wartime SOPs!”
FRONT DOOR
Another difference between America’s SAC bombers and the V-Force was their ingress routes. The majority of SAC’s aircraft were based in the continental United States and would fly over the North Pole on their way to Soviet targets. RAF crews instead would penetrate from the European side of the Soviet Union. Most of the V-Force planned to enter via Norway or Sweden, where the Soviet air defense system was considered weaker. As time went on, however, even this area became a crapshoot for survival.
“When I joined the V-Force in the 1960s,” Reeve said, “the red line on our charts was solid down the Baltic, but at least it was a thin line. The last look I had during the 1980s, it looked like somebody had had a nosebleed over the East German and Baltic coastlines. Whatever else the V-Force was, it was a marvelous economic weapon against the Soviet Union, because all of this was largely for our benefit; bombers coming from the U.S. would come over the Pole, not the Baltic.
“The first line of their defense would be elements of the Soviet fleet thrown forward in the Baltic to provide an early warning line. They would have to operate their radars to be of any use, and we hoped to detect their emissions and aim between the gaps. Of course, if they spotted us visually, there wasn’t much we could do during the day to prevent them seeing a large triangular aircraft trailing a long line of black smoke, so we hoped to fly by night. The main line of defense was at the coast, mainly their search and height-finding radars. Although we could try and jam them, we probably would have given ourselves away by our active transmissions, so we felt we had a better chance of getting through if we maintained EMCON [emission control].
“If a fighter did find us, we did have a chance of evading, but it was always a near thing. In practice against our own fighters, remember I couldn’t see him to judge the avoiding turn — I had to rely on my crew and our antique tail radar warning receiver and ECM gear to judge the turn. If it was daylight and he could see us, we would eventually be dead meat, but at night we might have gotten away with it.”
Both Reeve and Brocklebank related stories about simulated bomber-versus-fighter encounters in which Vulcan crews relied on ingenuity to defeat the hunter. Brocklebank recalled two such incidents: “We were flying out of RAF Akroteri [on Cyprus]. We were to go to low level and try to simulate an attack on the base, and the [English Electric] Lightnings were to stop us. We ran in at low level from the Cairo FIR [flight identification region] and heard a threat call being made to the patrolling fighter on the intercept frequency. We turned. The target turned according to the GCI [ground controlled intercept] controller. He had spotted us on his radar and was directing the fighter on to us.
“The intercept patter continued until we assessed the fighter had to be close-ish. Then our AEO transmitted, ‘Judy, Judy’ [a call from a fighter to a GCI controller that means ‘I’ve got it’]. Naturally, the controller is expecting this call, so he shuts up. The fighter jock would normally make the call, and he was not expecting it. In the confusion, we pressed in. By the time they’d sorted themselves out, the fighter was bingo fuel and had to either land or face a ditching.
Ground crewmen prepare the RAF display team B.2 at the 1985 airshow. (U.S. Department of Defense)
“On another flight, again in the Mediterranean, we were caught between two Fleet Air Arm Sea Vixen fighters. They had us sandwiched between them on radar and would take turns closing in, for as we approached one, the other would fly closer to our tail. If we turned into the second chap, the first would close. It was only a matter of time until they were close enough to employ [simulated] weapons at us. Fortunately for us, their R/T was crap. Instead of call signs, they used each other’s first names. As we weaved towards them, they casually swapped eyeball and shooter roles back and forth.
“At the critical moment, the AEO transmitted in a lazy drawl, ‘No, Claude, I’ve got it.’ We weaved merrily on our way while the Sea Vixens each broke off, thinking the other was administering the coup de grâce.”
‘HE NEVER GOT CLOSE’
Reeve admitted that in daylight the Vulcan’s size and smoky engines made it vulnerable, but he recalled one night training sortie against a McDonnell Douglas F-4 where the Vulcan gave a modern fighter the slip: “During 40 minutes, he never got close. We probably weighed about 130,000 pounds, but our Olympus engines had some 80,000 pounds of thrust, and many fighters of the day couldn’t boast that kind of power-to-weight ratio. Starting at 1,000 feet at 375 knots, I could be at 20,000 feet in less than one minute — admittedly trading speed for altitude. I’d only be at 200 knots, but the fighter could just not follow us on his radar. We did this three times, and he never got a lock on us.”
Throughout the Vulcan’s career, it was always supposed to be replaced by something better and newer. It never was. Fortunately, it also was never called upon to carry out its doomsday mission, but it did see combat long after its designers would have consigned it to a museum.
THE FALKLAND ISLANDS WAR
In April 1982, Argentina invaded the remote Falkland Islands, an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom lying some 300 miles off Argentina’s coast. Britain dispatched an amphibious task force nearly 8,000 miles to retake the isles. As part of their military campaign, the British launched several conventional bombing missions, code-named “Black Buck,” from Ascension Island, the nearest British territory that was suitable for Vulcan operations.
In a series of attacks — as much a political statement as a militarily significant move — the Black Buck raids struck radar and communication sites as well as the Port Stanley airfield, where the Argentine air force based some of its fixed-wing ground attack aircraft. The extremely long-distance raids required 11 Victor tankers to refuel just one Vulcan bomber, but given that it was an eight-hour flight to the Falklands, this complex plan was the only option. Thanks to brave and ingenious crews, the nearly 8,000-mile round-trip raids were successful, and no aircraft were lost. More important, the damage one Vulcan inflicted in the middle of Port Stanley’s runway forced Argentine jets to attack the British task force from bases on the mainland, with the consequent disadvantages of operating at maximum range.
Even before the Falklands conflict, the Vulcan and Britain’s airborne nuclear arsenal were being phased out in favor of nuclear-armed submarines. The Vulcan entered its last phase of service when it was converted to the K.2 tanker. But even this role lasted barely two years. The last operational Vulcan squadron was disbanded in 1984.
An RAF display team flew the last Vulcan in service, XH558, until 1993, when it was sold to C. Walton Ltd., a private family firm that purchased the aircraft in hopes it would one day be returned to flying status. With the help of the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, after 14 years and an expenditure of more than £7 million, XH558 took to the air once again on October 18, 2007. Today the last surviving Vulcan still thrills crowds at airshows throughout Great Britain.
In 1991, Boeing–Sikorsky won a contract, and the rest is helicopter history.
Here’s What You Need to Remember: The RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter may have been a bit too forward reaching for its time, but the lessons learned throughout its development and testing have clearly found new life in other advanced programs. With defense officials increasingly touting the value of stealth to increase combat aircraft survivability, it seems certain that we’ll see another stealth helicopter enter service at some point; And when we do, it will almost certainly have benefitted from the failures and successes of the Comanche.
The U.S. has long led the world in stealth technologies, and for a time, it looked as though America’s love for all things low-observable would extend all the way into rotorcraft like the RAH-66 Comanche Helicopter.
Despite being only a decade away from ruin, the Soviet Union remained a palpable threat to the security and interests of the United States at the beginning of the 1980s. However, elements of America’s defense apparatus were beginning to look a bit long in the tooth after decades of posturing, deterrence, and the occasional proxy war.
With the Soviet Union was believed to still be funneling a great deal of money into their own advanced military projects, the U.S. Army set to work on finding a viable replacement for their fleets of Vietnam-era light attack and reconnaissance helicopters in its forward-looking Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX) program. The program’s intended aim was fairly simple despite the complexity of the effort: To field a single rotorcraft that could replace the UH-1, AH-1, OH-6, and OH-58 helicopters currently parked in Army hangars.
By the end of the decade, the Army announced that two teams, Boeing–Sikorsky and Bell–McDonnell Douglas, had met the requirements for their proposal, and they were given contracts to develop their designs further. In 1991, Boeing–Sikorsky won out over its competition and was awarded $2.8 billion to begin production on six prototype helicopters.
The Need for a Stealth Helicopter
The Boeing–Sikorsky helicopter, dubbed the RAH-66 Comanche, was intended to serve as a reconnaissance and light attack platform. Its mission sets would include flying behind enemy lines in contested airspace to identify targets for more powerful attack helicopters or ground units, but the RAH-66 wouldn’t have to back away from a fight.
In order to meet the Army’s demands, the Comanche would need to be able to engage lightly armored targets as well as identify tougher ones for engagement from more powerful AH-64 Apaches.
Most importantly, the RAH-66 needed to be more survivable than the Army’s existing scout helicopters in highly contested airspace, which meant the new Comanche helicopter would need to borrow design elements from existing fixed-wing stealth platforms like the F-117 Nighthawk to defeat air defense systems and missiles fired from other helicopters.
The Boeing–Sikorsky team quickly set about building the program’s first two prototypes, leveraging the sort of angular radar-reflecting surfaces that gave the Nighthawk its enigmatic visual profile. Those surfaces themselves were made out of radar-absorbing composite materials to further reduce the RAH-66’s radar signature. The stealth helicopter also managed engine exhaust by funneling it through its shrouded tail section, reducing its infrared (or heat) signature to further limit detection.
Its specially designed rotor blades were canted downward to reduce the amount of noise the helicopter made in flight. Finally, a full suite of radar warning systems, electronic warfare systems, and chaff and flare dispensers would help keep the RAH-66’s crew safe while they rode behind Kevlar and graphite armor plating that could withstand direct hits from heavy machine gunfire.
The result of all this technology was a stealth helicopter said to have a radar cross-section that was 250 times smaller than the OH-58 Kiowa helicopter it would replace, along with an infrared signature reduced by a whopping 75%. It wasn’t just tough to spot on radar or hit with heat-seeking missiles either. The Comanche helicopter was also said to produce just half the noise of a traditional helicopter. While the rotorcraft could still be heard as it approached, that reduced signature would mean enemy combatants would have less time to prepare before the Comanche closed in on them.
The Rah-66 Was About More than Stealth
With the Comanche’s stealth technology spoken for, next came the armament. The stealth helicopter was expected to engage both ground and air targets in a combat zone, and its munitions reflected that goal. Like the stealth fighters to come, the Comanche limited its radar cross-section by carrying its weapons internally, including a retractable 20-millimeter XM301 Gatling cannon and space inside the weapons bays for six Hellfire missiles. If air superiority had been established and stealth was no longer a pressing concern, additional external pylons could carry eight more Hellfires.
However, if the Comanche was sent out to hunt for other attack and reconnaissance helicopters behind enemy lines, it could wreak havoc with 12 AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles. Again, with air superiority established, an additional 16 Stinger missiles could be mounted on external pylons.
The pilot and weapons officer onboard would have utilized a combination of cockpit displays and helmet-mounted systems similar to the more advanced heads up and augmented reality displays found in today’s advanced stealth aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It was equipped with a long-range Forward-Looking Infrared Sensor to help spot targets, as well as an optional Longbow radar that could be mounted above the rotors to allow the pilot to peak just the radar over hills or buildings–giving the crew important situational awareness of the battlefield ahead while limiting exposure of the rotorcraft itself. Once the Comanche spotted a target, a laser could be used to lock on for its onboard weapons systems.
The RAH-66 Comanche’s air-to-air credibility was further bolstered by the platform’s speed and agility. With a top speed just shy of 200 miles per hour and enough acrobatic prowess to nearly pull off loop-de-loops, the Comanche was fast, agile, and powerful… but by the time the first two Comanche prototypes were flying, it was also widely seen as unnecessary.
A Warrior Without a War
The first Comanche prototype took to the skies in January of 1996, five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The stealth helicopter had been envisioned as a necessary weapon amid the constant defense posturing of the Cold War, but without the looming threat of a technologically capable geopolitical boogeyman, the Comanche began to look more like a pile of problems, rather than solutions.
The Comanche was truly forward-reaching in its capabilities, but as is so often the case with first-of-its-kind platforms, that reach came with a long list of cost overruns and technological setbacks. The helicopter had proven to be far heavier than anticipated; So heavy, in fact, that some wondered if the stealth helicopter would even get off the ground with its intended weapons payload. And its weight was just the beginning of the Comanche’s headaches.
Just about every system intended for use aboard the RAH-66 met with setback after setback. Bugs in the software meant to manage the helicopter’s operation proved difficult–and expensive–to root out, the 3-barrel cannon wasn’t as accurate as intended, the target detection system failed to meet expectations, and efforts to both reduce weight and pull more power of the Comanche’s intended T800 turboshaft engines were both slow going.
Each of these issues could have been resolved with enough time and money, but the U.S. Army was already getting tired of waiting for the Comanche to live up to its hype. Then, September 11, 2001 shifted America’s defense priorities for decades to come. A year after the terror attack that would prompt a shift toward anti-terror campaigns, the Army reduced their order for Comanches by almost half, and just two years later, the program itself was canceled.
After decades of development and nearly $7 billion spent on the Comanche program, it came to a close with just two operational prototypes ever reaching the sky.
The Comanche’s Life After Death
While originally slated for a production run of 1,213 RAH-66 Comanche helicopters, the U.S. Army only ever took possession of the original two prototypes… but that doesn’t mean the program was a complete loss. In fact, among Defense Department insiders, the RAH-66 Comanche program is still seen in a fairly positive light. The difference in perception of the Comanche’s success or lack thereof could potentially be attributed to elements of other classified programs the American public isn’t privy to.
In 2011, Deputy Undersecretary of the Army Thomas Hawley was asked a question by a journalist about the “failed Comanche program.”
“I wouldn’t say Comanche was necessarily a failure of procurement… Comanche was a good program.”
-Deputy Undersecretary of the Army Thomas Hawley
A similar sentiment was also registered by (now former) Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker:
“Much of what we’ve gained out of Comanche we can push forward into the tech base for future joint rotor-craft kinds of capabilities.”
-Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker
These assertions make some sense, but are also easily dismissed thanks to the noticeable lack of stealth rotorcraft in America’s arsenal. How could lessons from the Comanche really be used if the premise itself doesn’t carry over into further programs?
One high-profile possibility came in the form of images that emerged following the raid on Osama Bid Laden’s compound that resulted in the death of the terrorist leader… As well as the loss of one highly specialized Blackhawk helicopter. Immediately following the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, images began to surface online of a very unusual tail section that remained intact after American special operators destroyed the downed helicopter to ensure its technology couldn’t fall into enemy hands.
The tail is clearly not the same as the tail sections of most Blackhawk helicopters, and its angular design certainly suggests that it must have come from a helicopter that was intended to limit its radar return. Eventually, stories about America’s Special Operations Stealth Blackhawks, or Stealth Hawks, started making the rounds on the internet, and recently, the team over at The Warzone even managed to dig up a shot of just such a stealthy Blackhawk–likely a predecessor to the helicopters used in the historic raid.
While these modified stealth helicopters are not Comanches, the modifications these Blackhawks saw were almost certainly informed by lessons learned in the RAH-66 program. Reports from the scene of the raid also indicate how quiet the helicopters were as the American special operations team closed with their target. Clearly, efforts made to reduce the helicopters’ radar cross section, infrared signature, and noise level were all in play during the Bin Laden raid, just as they were within the Comanche prototypes.
And then there’s Sikorsky’s latest light tactical helicopter, the S-97 Raider. Its visual cues are certainly reminiscent of the company’s efforts in developing the RAH-66, and its performance is too. The S-97 Raider has been clocked at speeds in excess of 250 miles per hour–faster even than the proposed Comanche’s top speed–and like the Comanche, the Raider is nimble to boot.
The RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter may have been a bit too forward reaching for its time, but the lessons learned throughout its development and testing have clearly found new life in other advanced programs. With defense officials increasingly touting the value of stealth to increase combat aircraft survivability, it seems certain that we’ll see another stealth helicopter enter service at some point; And when we do, it will almost certainly have benefitted from the failures and successes of the Comanche.
The art of warfare has evolved. For context, in the Middle Ages, countries fought wars using ranged and hand-held weapons like bow, sling, Javelin, war hammer, battleaxe, and the likes, in a guerrilla-style fighting. As a warrior, you have to be physically strong and highly skilled with weapons to ensure you make it back home alive.
Now, the game has changed. While you still have to be fit physically, fitness and human strength doesn’t necessary guarantee survival at war anymore. And from ranged and hand-held weapons, the world militaries have now become extremely sophisticated and deadly through the use of advanced modern weapons that include tanks, submarines, military aircraft, rockets, nuclear weapons, and the likes.
Backed by huge defense budgets, the world’s militaries now possess extremely deadly capabilities through fear-inducing military apparatus. Take aerial warfare for example, since air supremacy has become almost a necessity in order to win wars, air power has thus increasingly become an extremely important element of military campaigns. While there are several components of aerial warfare, possessing and deploying the best and the most superior fighter jets during battles often ensure victory. Hence, buoyed by incredibly huge military budgets, these are the most expensive fighter jet currently in service.
10. Sukhoi Su-57: $40 Million
The Sukhoi Su-57 might not be highly revered among the world’s stealth fighter jets, but being one of the most affordable jets currently in service is an added advantage. Developed by Sukhoi and adopted primarily by the Russian Aerospace Forces, the Sukhoi Su-57 is a twin-engine stealth multirole fighter jet, and it’s also the Russian military’s first aircraft fitted with stealth technology. According to reports, Russia has embarked on an intense marketing campaign for the Sukhoi Su-57 through public messages, compelling promotional clips, and high-level diplomatic meetings. With these, the Chinese expects the Su-57 to receive considerable patronage from other nations due to its combat prowess and relative affordability. Currently, the Russian fighter jet’s value is about $40 million per unit.
9. Sukhoi Su-35: $85 Million
The Sukhoi Su-35 is a single-seat, twin-engine, supermaneuverable fighter jet. Developed by Sukhoi for the Russians, the Su-35 is so incredibly potent that China had to order it. Basically an upgraded Sukhoi Su-27, the Sukhoi Su-35 has multirole capabilities, and it has received several upgrades and modernization efforts to emerge as a truly powerful air superiority fighter jet. According to reports from various media outlets, other interested nations that might acquire the Sukhoi Su-35 in the near future include Algeria, India, Iran, and Turkey. Notably, the estimate of a unit of the Sukhoi Su-35 is about $85 million.
8. McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Super Hornet: $100 Million
True to its name, the F/A-18 Hornet has stung several enemy nations. Deployed to Libya in 1986 for its first taste of action, the Hornet also saw action both in the Gulf War and the Iraq war. The F/A-18 Hornet is a relatively affordable and highly capable tactical aircraft, that can operate both as a fighter and attack aircraft. Built primarily for the U.S. Navy, air forces of other nations including the Finnish and the Spanish Air Forces have also adopted the Hornet. Since its introduction, the Hornet has seen vast improvement, and its most recent upgrade is the Block III configuration. The Hornet’s expensive variant costs as much as $100 million.
7. Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon: $110 Million
A primary contender to the F-22 Raptor, the Chengdu J-20 affirms China’s incredible aerial supremacy battle readiness. It also shows the county’s military evolution and a mark of the beginning of the end to it reliance on Russians for aircraft technology. Developed for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force by China’s Chengdu Aerospace Corporation, the Chengdu J-20 is a twinjet stealth fighter with impressive air superiority and precision strike capability. Also, the Chengdu J-20 is China’s fastest most advanced stealth fighter jet and the whole program costs the country about $4.4 billion. Deducing from the total cost of the program and production number, the value of one unit of the Chengdu J-20 is approximately $110 million.
6. McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle: $110 Million
With its array of avionics and electronics systems, the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle is able to function as a dual-role fighter capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. An all-weather multirole strike fighter, the Strike Eagle had its first flight in 1986, and it has been in service since 1988. Having been around for that long, the Strike Eagle has featured in numerous military operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, and the likes. Notably, the Strike Eagle has several variants and has received many upgrades. Besides the Americans, some of its primary operators include the Royal Saudi Air Force, Israeli Air Force, and Republic of Korea Air Force and according to estimates from the defense department, a unit of the F-15EX (a variant of the F-15E) costs about $110 million, which could rise to about $136.7 million when ordered with the necessary combat gears.
5. Dassault Rafale: $115 Million
The French have several fighter jets that epitomize the country’s lethal aerial dominance capabilities to any emerging threat, and the Dassault Rafale represent one of the most expensive of them all. The Rafale is so versatile that Dassault refers to it as an ‘omnirole’ aircraft, since it can perform all combat aviation missions. Currently, the Dassault Rafale cost about $115 million per unit, and this obviously excludes its maintenance cost. The fighter jet has seen combat action in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, and it has also been adopted by several Air Forces of different nations that include Greece, Croatia, Indonesia, and Qatar.
4. Eurofighter Typhoon: $124 Million
A multinational, multirole, air superiority fighter, the Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter jet developed through a genuine European collaboration. The Eurofighter Typhoon is easily the world’s most advanced swing-role combat aircraft with wide-ranging capabilities, and it’s currently adopted by nine air forces all around the world. Built through the partnership of four European nations of UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy, the Eurofighter Typhoon’s production is however being undertaken by a conglomerate of Airbus, BAE Systems, and Leonardo. While it’s highly discounted for European countries, the Eurofighter Typhoon cost about $124 million each for countries outside the European Union.
3. Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II: $135 Million
In terms of its scope of duty, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is colossal. Primarily an all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II however is also able to undertake reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance, and electronic warfare, while also being able to perform air superiority and strike missions. For a fighter jet capable of all these, the F-35 Lightning II surely has to be expensive. From a budget document made available by the U.S. government, the F-35 Lightning has a unit cost of about $135.8 million for the most expensive variant, the F-35B. Also, the aircraft has an expected life cycle of 66 years with an estimated running cost of about $1.3 trillion.
2. Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor: $360 Million
Lockheed Martin, alongside Boeing, built the F-22 Raptor for the United States of America. It took the team a total of six years to develop the F-22 Raptor before the all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft took its first flight in Georgia in 1977. The F-22 Raptor entered into service in 1995, and it has remained in service ever since, while the last unit got delivered in 2012. Although the F-22 Raptor remains a critical component of America’s aerial warfare, its relatively high production cost and the lack of air-to-air missions at the time of its production led to a drastic reduction of its production volume. At the end of production, Lockheed Martin had spent about $67.3 billion on the program, running to a unit cost of about $360 for each F-22 Raptor.
1. Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit: $2.1 Billion
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is a stealth bomber. America’s premier long-range strike bomber, the legendary B-2 Spirit has been in the skies for more than 30 years, and it’s been a constant feature in America’s air superiority campaigns. Arguably the most survivable aircraft in the world, the B-2 Spirit holds the record as the aircraft to have undergone the longest air combat mission in history, doing a 70 consecutive hours’ operation in Afghanistan (and back to Missouri) in 2001. The B-2 Spirit’s wingspan is half the length of a football pitch. Notably, the average cost of the stealth bomber rose sharply during production to more than $2.1 billion, prompting the American government to reduce its planned purchase from 132 to a mere 21 units.
The A-10 Thunderbolt, also known as the Warthog, has made quite a name for itself since it was put into use by the United States Airforce.
Here’s What You Need to Remember: Despite its cult following, many defense leaders are looking to replace the aging A-10 with the highly-advanced F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet. This appears to be the plan, even though each F-35 quite a bit more expensive than the A-10.
You’re probably familiar with the A-10 warplane’s signature sound: a loud, buzzing burst of machine-gun fire from the skies. It’s as American as apple pie and has been a sight for sore eyes in countless military operations. The A-10 Thunderbolt, also known as the Warthog, has made quite a name for itself since it was put into use by the United States Airforce. Like a slew of other kinds of military tech, the A-10 has become somewhat of a staple in movies and videogames.
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II began development during the Vietnam War when U.S. Air Force losses called for a new warplane to help attack enemy ground forces. The problem was that after World War Two, the military began to focus on nuclear devices and aircraft capable of delivering those weapons. As a result, planes with conventional weaponry fell to the wayside until after the Vietnam War. Air Force requests for an aircraft with low-speed maneuverability, vicious firepower, and ruggedness began in 1966. After modified requests specified that a 30mm cannon should be attached as well as other specifications like speed and takeoff distance, the A-10 finally took its first flight in 1972. Five years later the A-10 was officially picked for use by the United States Airforce.
The A-10 fit the bill for the mission boasting superior maneuvering at low speeds and a short takeoff. This was possible because of its expansive wing area and ailerons (a hinged flight control surface). A-10s aren’t just for daytime operations either, each craft is outfitted with night vision for strafes in the dark. Continuous upgrades since its inception, like modern navigational systems, have kept this warplane a favorite of the military and citizens alike. It’s also pretty easy to repair because parts are trivial to swap out. These mechanisms and abilities made the Warthog ideal for close air support whether the targets were personnel or vehicles.
In addition, the A-10 came with a satisfying and brutally effective weapons system. The most famous armament would be the 30mm GAU-8 cannon. The iconic sound many think of when talking about this plane is the result of this weapon. The GAU-8 has a range of over 12,000 feet and fires at an astounding 3,900 rounds per minute. This cannon has such a high velocity that targets never even hear the gunfire even though the gun can put basketball-sized holes in vehicles after a strafe. The A-10 also comes equipped with MK-82 bombs that are dropped right on top of targets. Finally, the Warthog can also be equipped with incendiary devices, mine-dropping capabilities, and a myriad of other conventional munitions.
Despite its cult following, many defense leaders are looking to replace the aging A-10 with the highly-advanced F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet. This appears to be the plan, even though each F-35 quite a bit more expensive than the A-10. For now, the Airforce expects the powerful, but old A-10 Thunderbolt II to be in service until 2028. Other aircraft, such as drones, were proposed to replace the A-10, but neither the F-35 nor the Reaper drone can match the Warthog’s firepower. As it stands, the A-10 will remain the close-air-support aircraft of choice for the United States at least for now in the short-run.
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Rumours persist that a classified strike variant of the YF-23 was developed to fulfil a role similar to that of the F-111
During the late 1970s, a new generation of Soviet fighters and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) prompted the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to find a replacement for the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter.
For this reason in 1986, the USAF awarded demonstration contracts to two competing industry teams, the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics (whose proposal was the YF-22A) and the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas (whose proposal was the YF-23A), which would have competed one versus the other in the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program.
The Northrop YF-23A was designed to meet USAF needs for survivability, ease of maintenance and supercruise. To satisfy the latter requirement two different engines (the Pratt & Whitney YF119-PW-100L and the General Electric YF120) were competing one versus the other too. Called Augmented Turbofans, these new engines would have allowed both the YF-22 and the YF-23 to fly supersonic without using the afterburner, resulting in fuel savings and increased combat radius and effectiveness.
Northrop built two YF-23A prototypes: the first YF-23 (serial number 87-0800), Prototype Air Vehicle 1 (PAV-1), was rolled out on 22 Jun. 1990 and took its 50-minute maiden flight on Aug. 27 with Alfred “Paul” Metz at the controls while the second YF-23 (serial number 87-0801, PAV-2) made its first flight on Oct. 26, piloted by Jim Sandberg. The first aircraft was painted charcoal gray and was unofficially nicknamed “Spider” and “Black Widow II”, the latter after the Northrop P-61 Black Widow of World War II because it featured a red hourglass marking resembling the marking on the underside of the black widow spider before Northrop management had it removed. The second prototype, which was powered by General Electric YF120 engines, was painted in two shades of gray and nicknamed “Gray Ghost”.
The YF-23 emphasized stealth characteristics: in fact to lessen weight and increase stealth, Northrop decided against using thrust vectoring for aerodynamic control as was used on the Lockheed YF-22A.
The first YF-23, with Pratt & Whitney engines, supercruised at Mach 1.43 on Sep. 18, 1990, while the second, with General Electric engines, reached Mach 1.6 on Nov. 29, 1990. By comparison, the YF-22 achieved Mach 1.58 in supercruise. The YF-23 was tested to a top speed of Mach 1.8 with afterburners and achieved a maximum angle-of-attack of 25°. The maximum speed is classified, though sources state a maximum speed greater than Mach 2 at altitude and a supercruise speed greater than Mach 1.6.
The aircraft’s weapons bay was configured for weapons launch, and used for testing weapons bay acoustics, but no missiles were fired; instead Lockheed fired AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles successfully from its YF-22 demonstration aircraft.
PAV-1 performed a fast-paced combat demonstration with six flights over a 10-hour period on Nov. 30 1990. Flight testing continued into December, and saw the two YF-23s flying 50 times for a total of 65.2 hours. The tests demonstrated Northrop’s predicted performance values for the YF-23: the YF-23 was stealthier and faster, but the YF-22 was more agile.
The two contractor teams submitted evaluation results with their proposals in Dec. 1990 and on Apr. 23, 1991, Secretary of the Air Force Donald Rice announced that the YF-22 was the winner, while the YF119 was chosen over the YF120 to power the F-22. The Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney designs were rated higher on technical aspects, were considered lower risks, and were considered to have more effective program management.
Following the competition, both YF-23s, without their engines, were transferred to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, California, where NASA planned to use one of the aircraft to study techniques for the calibration of predicted loads to measured flight results, but this did not take place.
Both YF-23 airframes remained in storage until mid-1996, when the aircraft were transferred to museums.
Noteworthy in 2004, Northrop Grumman proposed a YF-23-based bomber to meet a USAF requirement for an interim bomber, for which the FB-22 and B-1R were also competing. Northrop modified aircraft PAV-2 to serve as a display model for its proposal, but the chance for the YF-23 to serve in this role ended in 2006, when Quadrennial Defense Review favored a long-range bomber with much greater range, that evoleved in the Next-Generation Bomber program and then in the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) heavy bomber program. Eventually the LRS-B competition was won by Northrop-Grumman with its B-21 Raider.
Today the YF-23A PAV-1, Air Force serial number 87-0800, is on display in the Research and Development hangar of the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio, while the YF-23A PAV-2, AF ser. no. 87-0801, is on exhibit at the Western Museum of Flight, at Torrance Airport, Torrance, California.
However as explained by Air Forces Monthly Publication Stealth Operation Declassified, rumours persist that despite the two prototypes being retired, a classified strike variant of the YF-23 was developed to fulfil a role similar to that of the F-111.
This was the fighter that “Ghost of Kyiv” was flying during the aerial conflicts of the war.
MiG-29 was developed to cover the needs of the Soviet air force for a light multi-role fighter. Essentially, the military aircraft was the Soviet response to the successful US F-16 jet. With its incredible agility, MiG-29 basically resurrected the fallen reputation of the Soviet Union for producing capable aircraft. In the West, MiG-29 is known as ‘Fulcrum’. The fighter jet was produced in massive numbers, as at least 1,600 aircraft were made. Most of them (almost 900) were exported. After Russia, the country with the biggest active fleet of MiG-29s was Ukraine -at least before the start of the war. Other countries-operators are Belarus, Bulgaria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and more. All of these nations also own limited MiG-29UB units for training purposes. MiG-29s usually operate as anti-aircraft fighters.
‘The Ghost of Kyiv’
As you may already know, the Ukrainian legend about a skillful and brave pilot with the nickname ‘The Ghost of Kyiv’ used this Soviet-era fighter.
The aircraft was designed to have a sophisticated aerodynamic design and the N-019 pulse-Doppler radar as its main detecting sensor.
The 9-12 prototype made its first flight in 1977, while the aircraft entered service with the Soviet air force many years later, in 1986, replacing the older MiG-23. At that time, the Soviets used MiG-29 as air superiority and land attack aircraft. Some units of the Soviet air force had MiG-29 equipped with RN-40 nuclear bombs.
The original MiG-29 has proven its value in close combat dogfights. The pilot of the fighter has sights in their helmet that helps him launch missiles with accuracy. The very maneuverable R-73 missile is one of the most capable and powerful available air-to-air weapons in the aircraft. Although, the basic weapon of MiG-29, the R-27, is not very reliable for beyond visual range targets. Besides that, its RD-33 engines are really hard to maintain, and therefore the aircraft has limited range and durability. But, the Soviet Union didn’t give up and tried to overcome many of these issues by developing and producing newer versions of MiG-29. Many of those versions can be found on Russia’s and Ukraine’s weaponry.
Ukrainian Version Of The Fighter Jet
Via: MSGT PAT NUGENT
Recently, Ukraine developed its own upgraded version of the MiG-29 fighter. The new variant cost almost 3.6 million dollars and is called MiG-29MU2. The required time to upgrade an aircraft is nine months. Although, it’s still unknown how many units Ukrainians achieved to upgrade before the beginning of the ongoing war with Russia.
How Many Aircraft For Each Country?
Via: Vitaly V. Kuzmin
Some reports state that before the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian air force had 38 fully operational MiG-29. Eight of them were being used for training.
On the other side, Russia has almost 260 units with some of them participating in operations over Ukraine.
“We used a mix of GBU-31s, 38s and 54s as well as CBU-103s and 105s for a total of 30 bombs deployed in the exercise as well as 16 ALE-50 decoys,” White said.
From May 8 to 11 two B-1B strategic bombers from Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB) undertaken a weapons system evaluation at the Utah Test and Training Range, Nevada, where they deployed 30 inert precision-guided bombs, cluster bomb units, and decoys.
As told by Airman 1st Class Donald Knechtel, 28th Bomb Wing Public Affairs, in the article Ellsworth Airmen participate in Air-to-ground exercise: Combat Hammer, during that period in fact aircrews from the 34th Bomb Squadron and maintainers from the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron took part in Combat Hammer, the air-to-ground Weapons System Evaluation Program, to validate B-1 operational capabilities.
“In this exercise, we tested the B-1 capabilities to ensure the parameters of weapons are met,” pointed out Maj. Nathan White, lead evaluator for Combat Hammer and assistant director of operations for the 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron (FWS) at Eglin AFB, Florida.
Actually Combat Hammer is responsible for the evaluation and assessment of precision-guided munitions and air-to-ground weapons to ensure they are reliable, maintainable, suitable, and accurate.
“The combatant commanders around the world have contingency plans built on certain weapons’ capabilities,” White continued. “We evaluate that the capabilities are accurate to the plans that they are building it on.”
During the weapons system evaluation Ellsworth aircrews conducted test operations over the Utah Test and Training Range, an area operated by Hill AFB, Utah, where there were more than 500 participants involved.
“We used a mix of GBU-31s, 38s and 54s as well as CBU-103s and 105s for a total of 30 bombs deployed in the exercise as well as 16 ALE-50 decoys,” White said. “We take operational jets that have capable combat mission-ready aircrews, and we create realistic environments where we can evaluate the overall performance of the deployed weapons.”
Since strategic deterrence is vitally important to both the nation’s defense, and its allies, thanks to the visceral action of the strategic weapons tests provided by B-1 aircrews and maintainers, Ellsworth demonstrated its capability and readiness.
“In exercises like this, munitions and maintainers get practice generating these aircraft and ordnances that they don’t usually get to see, like loading GPS and high-tech ground munitions,” said Staff Sgt. Brian Dunn, weapons evaluator assigned to the 86th FWS.
According to Dunn the training mostly focused on the aircrews and weapons Airmen, most of whom haven’t deployed or never before worked on a CBU-103 or 105.
“It’s good training for everyone,” Dunn said. “It [encompasses everything] from storage to impact. Everyone’s job is important all the way up the chain.”
The B-1 bomber is a fundamental part of the U.S. Air Force’s combat airpower, and keeping the lethal piece of machinery combat-ready is vital in taking the fight across the globe.
With its sights set squarely on countering Chinese threats in the Pacific and Russian aggression in Europe, the U.S. now has at least five secretive new warplanes in development. These programs range from next-generation air superiority fighters that will fly amid a constellation of AI-driven support drones to dual-cycle scramjet-powered hypersonic strike drones very similar to the long-awaited SR-72 concept.
With new multi-static anti-stealth radar arrays and more advanced integrated air defense systems continuing to come online, the U.S. Air Force has stated that it believes even the mighty F-22 Raptor will no longer be survivable enough in near-peer contested airspace as soon as 2030. The Raptor is widely considered to be the stealthiest fighter ever to take to the skies, so the broader context one can glean from concerns about its survivability is clear: the U.S. needs a slew of new offensive and defensive warplanes it can rely on to dominate the skies over its opponents. These warplanes will also have to defend our own airspace against a sea of new stealth fighters and bombers being hurriedly developed by Russia and China.
In order to meet the combined threat of new air defenses and increasingly potent enemy warplanes, the U.S. now has two different but deeply connected stealth-bomber programs at some stage of development, alongside two similarly connected stealth-fighter programs. But perhaps the most secretive of all of these new programs is an Air Force Research Laboratory effort to field fully-functioning dual-cycle scramjet engine systems for a low-observable hypersonic drone designed to fly three different types of combat missions.
1) NGAD: THE US AIR FORCE’S NEXT AIR SUPERIORITY FIGHTER WILL COME WITH ITS OWN DRONE WINGMEN
The F-22 Raptor is widely seen as the most capable air-superiority fighter on the planet, but with fewer than 150 combat-ready airframes left in service, America’s apex predator of the skies is an endangered species. That’s where the U.S. Air Force’s NGAD program comes in.
Unlike other efforts to field new warplanes, NGAD isn’t aiming to develop a single jet, but rather a whole family of systems that can be spread across multiple airframes, including a bevy of support drones that will fly alongside the crewed fighter. This new family of systems will specialize in air combat with the stated aim of dominating enemy airspace. However, like all modern tactical aircraft, it will have multi-role capabilities that will allow for air-to-ground engagements as well.
NGAD is expected to lean further into current aviation trends of cockpit automation and data fusion, taking many of the more monotonous or complex flight control functions out of the pilots’ hands to allow them to focus on the fight, especially while directing support drones to engage air or surface targets on the fighter’s behalf. While not confirmed, it’s expected that the NGAD fighter will leverage now-in-development adaptive cycle engines for increased thrust, improved fuel economy, and a dramatic jump in thermal management (and as a byproduct of that, more energy production for advanced systems like directed energy weapons).
In 2020, it was announced that a full-sized technology demonstrator for the NGAD program had not only already been flown, but had even broken multiple records. While it’s important to note that a technology demonstrator is not the same thing as a flying prototype and may not even look like the new air dominance warplanes the U.S. will eventually field, it sounds as though the NGAD program is progressing at full speed.
The expected sticker price for America’s new NGAD fighters will likely begin at around $200 million per airframe. Its support drone costs are expected to range wildly from attritable low-cost platforms like the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, at around $1.3 million apiece, to fully-functioning unmanned stealth fighters at a per-unit cost of around $100 million which is greater than the F-35A’s per-unit cost. That may sound pretty steep, but it’s worth noting that America’s F-22 Raptor, which saw price increases due to the abrupt cancellation of the line, ended up ringing in at around $337 million per jet (when rolling development costs into production) in 2011 dollars. That’s a whopping $442 million today. The Air Force has stated that it does not intend to purchase NGAD fighters as 1:1 replacements for the F-22, so the total number of fighters this program will deliver remains uncertain.
2) B-21 RAIDER: THE US AIR FORCE’S NEXT STEALTH BOMBER WILL SNEAK PAST RADARS THAT CAN EVEN SPOT STEALTH FIGHTERS
Despite its sleek, futuristic aesthetic, Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has now been in service for more than a quarter-century. Now, as China and Russia continue developing their own B-2 competitors, the firm is looking to expand America’s lead in this field with the B-21 Raider that is currently in development.
The B-21 will draw heavily from the B-2’s successful flying-wing design that Northrop has long specialized in, yet will be a fair bit smaller, carrying an anticipated 30,000-pound payload into the fight, rather than the B-2’s impressive 60,000. Despite the shrinkage, the B-21 will still be rated to carry just about every nuclear and conventional munition we’ve come to expect out of America’s bomber fleets, while leveraging stealth technology said to be at least “two generations ahead” of the famously sneaky B-2.
Unlike stealth fighters, which are detectable (though not targettable) using low-frequency radar bands, the flying-wing design leveraged by both the B-2 and B-21 is said to be extremely stealthy against all radar frequencies. This makes these long-range bombers perfectly suited for strike operations in a heavily contested airspace in the initial days of conflict. If a war were to break out with China, for instance, it would almost certainly begin with U.S. stealth bomber fleets engaging anti-ship defenses on Chinese shores to allow aircraft carriers to close in.
Today, there are at least six B-21 Raider airframes in some stage of production, and unlike most clean-sheet builds for new warplanes in U.S. history, the Raider is expected to conduct its first test flights with all its mission systems already installed and operational. If all goes well, that will dramatically reduce the time between first flight and initial operating capability. The U.S. Air Force capped the per-unit price for its new stealth bomber at $550 million per airframe in 2010, which when adjusted for inflation, puts the Raider’s anticipated cost at around $729.25 million each. That figure might make your eye twitch, but the U.S. is said to have spent as much as $2 billion each on its original stealth bomber when rolling R&D costs into procurement.
3) F/A-XX: THE US NAVY’S NEW STEALTH FIGHTER WILL SHARE SYSTEMS WITH NGAD WHILE DELIVERING A HUGE JUMP IN RANGE
After decades of trying to force every fighter the U.S. has ever developed into carrier duty culminating in the acquisition nightmare that has been the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Navy’s next stealth fighter is being developed specifically to thrive on America’s flattops.
Being developed under the name F/A-XX, the “F/A” prefix indicates that this new aircraft will be expected to not only deliver multi-role capabilities like all modern fighters but will also be expected to excel at both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat operations. The U.S. Navy and Air Force have both indicated that the stealth fighter to emerge from the F/A-XX effort will share some common systems with the NGAD program, which will allow this new fighter to be fielded more rapidly. That will also mean the Navy’s next jet will benefit from the same modular software and hardware architecture intended to allow for frequent low-cost updates to these aircraft as technology matures around them.
Aside from the requisite boost in stealth and data fusion capabilities the U.S. prioritizes in new fighter programs, the Navy’s F/A-XX will also need to deliver a huge increase in fuel range over the Super Hornets and F-35Cs currently operating at sea. China’s area-denial bubble, or the area of the Pacific that falls within reach of China’s advanced hypersonic anti-ship missiles like the DF-ZF, now extends more than 1,000 miles from Chinese shores, while Navy jets like the F/A-18E and F-35C have a combat radius of only around 650 miles. That means American carriers cannot sail close enough to China to fly combat sorties without placing the carriers themselves at risk of being sunk.
The F/A-XX is expected to address this capability gap by leveraging both larger fuel stores and the aforementioned more-efficient adaptive cycle engines likely destined for the NGAD, while also benefitting from mid-air refueling provided by carrier-based MQ-29 drones. The Navy has not yet released cost estimates for this fighter, but it will likely ring in at a comparable price to the NGAD.
4) WINGMAN BOMBER: THE US AIR FORCE’S B-21 RAIDER WILL FLY WITH AN EXTREMELY ADVANCED DRONE STEALTH BOMBER
During a keynote speech delivered at the Air Force Association’s 2022 Warfare Symposium earlier this year, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall revealed that the United States is exploring the idea of an uncrewed stealth bomber platform that could fly missions ahead of the optionally-crewed B-21 Raider to expand upon America’s deep penetration strike capabilities in hotly contested airspace. This new bomber platform would be expected to have a “comparable range” to that of the new globe-spanning bomber, with payload capabilities to be determined in large part by price point… which is currently estimated to land somewhere near the incredible figure of $300 million or more per drone.
An unclassified Request for Information the Air Force has released to industry partners calls for this new drone stealth bomber to have at least a 4,000-pound payload capacity and a combat radius of 1,500 miles. Yet, as Aviation Week’s Steve Trimble has pointed out, it seems likely this aircraft will need to be able to match the B-21’s range in order to serve its purpose as a means of support on long-duration missions.
A substantially cheaper drone stealth bomber that can fly ahead of the B-21 Raider could offer a huge strategic value. Raider crews could use these uncrewed bombers to target anti-ship weapons that are too well defended to risk engaging crewed aircraft, or they could engage air defense systems to allow for a safer route to the objective. Of course, at half the cost of a B-21, we’re still talking about a drone stealth bomber that costs as much as three or more F-35s. Nevertheless, the F-35 very likely couldn’t reach these targets, to begin with, whereas these new drone stealth bombers will be able to.
With the B-21 expected to replace both the B-2 Spirit and the B-1B Lancer, it makes sense for the U.S. to consider fielding less-expensive drone stealth bombers as a supplement to its next-generation bomber fleets. This program is still in the early stages of development, with Air Force officials currently assessing which of the B-21’s systems should be migrated to the stealth drone and which can’t be due to cost limitations.
5) MAYHEM: THE HIGHLY SECRETIVE US AIR FORCE EFFORT TO FIELD A HYPERSONIC STEALTH DRONE COULD FINALLY BRING THE SR-72 TO FRUITION
Hidden within the long list of hypersonic weapon programs drawing funds from Pentagon coffers, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Mayhem Program appears to be developing a dual-cycle scramjet propulsion system for more than just missiles. The effort was originally tasked with fielding larger scramjet systems capable of propelling larger payloads further distances than unspecific “existing systems.”
Although Mayhem is regularly referred to as a missile program, a closer look at the branch’s issued Requests for Information (ROIs) suggests Mayhem is more likely aimed at fielding an uncrewed, reusable hypersonic drone platform capable of conducting two different specified mission sets: strike operations and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, missions.
As Joseph Trevithick over at The War Zone noted late last year, Mayhem’s formal name recently changedfrom “Expendable Hypersonic Multi-Mission Air-Breathing Demonstrator” to “Hypersonic Multi-mission ISR and Strike,” and the effort has also been referenced as a “Multi-Mission Cruiser.” This strongly suggests that we’re not talking about a missile you fire at a target and forget about. The removal of the word “expendable” in conjunction with the “multi-mission” moniker both suggest Mayhem aims to field a reusable, autonomous platform that leverages what will likely be the world’s first dual-mode or turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) hypersonic propulsion systems.
In other words, Mayhem aims to field a turbine-based scramjet system that can function at all airspeeds from subsonic to supersonic and then hypersonic. Today’s ramjet and scramjet systems don’t function reliably until they’re moving at extremely high speeds, which are currently achieved using rockets that fire before the propulsion systems come online.
This concept is tantalizingly similar to the longstanding discussion about Lockheed Martin’s planned successor to the Mach 3.5-capable SR-71 Blackbird, known as the SR-72. All the way back in 2018, Lockheed Vice President Jack O’Banion seemed to indicate that an SR-72 demonstrator may have already flown, and he stated clearly that a full-sized propulsion system had already been built and tested. “The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds,” O’Banion told a crowd at the 2018 SciTech Forum, “with reliable engine starts.”
A hypersonic strike and ISR platform would have far-reaching strategic ramifications: from the ability to deliver less-expensive non-hypersonic ordnance to targets at speeds above Mach 5 to rapid intelligence gathering even in places where satellite coverage is compromised. While the world worries about who is fielding new hypersonic missiles, it seems the Air Force is secretly planning to win the hypersonic aircraft race before the rest of the world even knows it’s begun.
Time for a stealth A-10 Warthog: Last year, this reporter happened to be outside on a warm and sunny early autumn day – when an unmistakable sound quickly grew louder. Immediately I recognized it, it was a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, the single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft that first entered service in 1976.
As the sound grew louder and seemed to echo, I realized it was more than one plane. While not deafening, it was loud enough that soon others on my street were poking their heads outside to take in the sight of the aircraft. As I live not too far from Selfridge Air National Guard Base (ANGB), Michigan, it isn’t that uncommon of a sound – yet rarely do I get a chance to see the aircraft flying so low overhead.
Yet, on that September afternoon last year, I was delighted by the sight of four of the aircraft banking low over my neighborhood and preparing to head over Lake St. Clair. As I saw the aircraft fly away, I could only imagine what America’s adversaries on the ground in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq must have thought when they heard the sound of the approaching aircraft.
This point is necessary to make as there has been a debate about whether the United States Air Force would have a need for a stealthier A-10. However, the argument misunderstands the role of the aircraft – officially designated Thunderbolt but known to its pilots and crews as the “Warthog.”
Simply put: the A-10 wasn’t designed to sneak up on an enemy.
Rather, its thunderous arrival is meant to send a clear and audible warning before it rains down hellfire. If you’re in an armored vehicle and an A-10 is heard approaching, you might want to take your chances in the open.
Low-Speed A-10 Warbird
The A-10 was designed to offer excellent maneuverability at low airspeeds and altitude while maintaining a highly accurate weapons-delivery platform. The aircraft can loiter near battle areas for extended periods of time, and it is capable of austere landings and operating under 1,000-foot ceilings (303.3 meters) with 1.5-mile (2.4 kilometers) visibility. The Warthog’s wide combat radius and short takeoff and landing capability permit operations in and out of locations near the front lines. In addition, with night vision goggles, A-10C pilots can conduct their missions during near-complete darkness.
It was specifically developed as a ground support aircraft, which explains why it remains in service nearly five decades since it first took flight.
Could Stealth Improve the A-10?
Sometime back, conceptual images by aviation artist Rodrigo Avella of an entirely hypothetical A-14 Wild Wolf made the rounds online. His impressive faux fighter took some of the attributes of the A-10 Warhog and integrated more modern capabilities, including the stealth mentioned above.
It would seem to make a great aircraft even better, allowing the A-10 to operate in contested skies and strike ground targets in low-altitude attacks.
The images certainly are impressive, but they completely missed the point of the A-10. More importantly, it also missed that the A-10 has a worthy successor.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II was developed to take on several roles, including ground attack. However, even as the F-35 can be used against ground targets, it would never operate in the same way as the A-10. This isn’t a criticism of the F-35 but rather a fact that aerial combat operations have evolved. The United States Navy isn’t looking to create a stealth dive bomber to target enemy aircraft carriers, so why should the Air Force develop a stealth ground-attack aircraft?
The answer is they shouldn’t and won’t.
The A-10 was designed for a role before developing advanced anti-aircraft systems like Russia’s S-400 Triumf. Likewise, modern aircraft, including the F-35, aren’t ever going to be taking off from a country road transformed into an austere airbase, and there is little reason to believe the hypothetical A-14 could either.
Finally, the A-10 has proven to be a great aircraft – but there is a lot of hype about its abilities. A common myth is that it destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks during the 1991 Gulf War. Later it was determined the actual figure was closer to 300 tanks. It is still an impressive number, but Ukrainian fighters have successfully taken out Russian tanks with man-portable anti-tank missiles and drones.
No Need for Stealth A-10
In other words, there is no need for an aircraft such as A-14 in future wars. The images may make for good “aviation fun,” and such an aircraft might be fun to fly in a video game. Still, the Air Force should be concentrating on combat aircraft for the future, not trying to improve upon an aircraft that was able to operate where control of the skies was never contested in the first place.
