Raptor
You can’t swing a dead cat in the milblogosphere without hitting some snark about the Air Force and its toys. But the film I posted yesterday made me think, “These guys probably won’t ever get it.”
Watching the Raptor is to watch the next quantum leap in military aviation technology. Moreover, it would be a serious mistake to think that the mind-boggling maneuverability of this thing is its greatest asset.
It is not.
This thing is a platform for a host of capabilities that few people appreciate just watching it fly up its own moveable burner cans. Take note of this word: sensors.
Aside from having a natural talent and set of skills in the cockpit, the reason Chuck Yeager (and I’ll wager most fighter aces) was so successful was his sensor package—20/12 eyeballs that saw the adversary before the adversary saw him. First sight usually puts you in a position, literally, to win the fight. Lose sight, and your chances of losing said contest increase astronomically. So, detecting threats—airborne or otherwise—and positioning oneself to avoid, neutralize, or destroy them is something the Raptor does to a degree most of us cannot fully appreciate.
I’ve heard that the Raptor’s radar is its least capable sensor.
Think about that.
What the helk else does it have? How is that integrated into the situational display systems? The fire control system? The overall interface between man and machine? The answers to these questions are both classified and impressive, even to the layman I’ll wager. Then there’re its IT capabilities. This thing is a flying server. It takes in information, not just data, and shoots it to less capable assets, in effect improving the capabilities of those with which it fights. When a Raptor pilot is out of missiles, his job isn’t necessarily over. I’ll leave it at that.
There is a standing joke about the Raptor guy who slips a note under the briefing room door of his adversaries for the next Red Flag mission. It’s just says, “You’re all dead.” The point being he can see, shoot and scoot before the “bad” guys can even get their guns out of their holsters. This is a good thing. Of course its not a magic jet, but it’s going to change the way we fight.
Nor is this thing necessarily going to be the star of any show any time soon. Fine. But smart strategists plan for the next war, not this one. Is it an anachronism already, i.e., a manned platform doomed to be replaced by a UAV? Perhaps. But not yet. It’s one thing to drill around as a recce drone or even as a kamikaze SEAD asset. It’s another to think, maneuver, defend, attack, watch, analyze, communicate, direct and otherwise do innately human stuff with a relatively inexpensive (and very cheap to manufacture) human in the seat. Will we be there someday? Maybe. Probably about the same time the infantryman is replaced by a more controllable version if the T-101 that isn’t as hostile to its creators.
As far as airplane things go, there was a lot of engineering conundrums tackled by LockMart, Boeing and PW.
Anybody can fly straight up these days, but doing it slowly is impressive. Anybody can go supersonic these days but doing it in a fuel-efficient way is impressive. Anybody can turn tightly these days, but rotating about the z-axis in a fixed-wing airplane is, well, just freakin’ weird when you first see it. When he can point his nose at you from damn near a hover in a supersonic-capable fighter loaded to the gunwales with “I-wish-you-were-dead” missiles, you’re in trouble.
These guys have solved:
- Sustained supersonic flight problems
- Keeping enough air flowing through the engines at high and low speeds
- Doing the above when the air isn’t coming straight into the intakes
- Keeping an air-to-air fighter stealthy despite weapon and sensor needs
- Man-machine interface issues with a machine that takes in gigabytes (terabytes?) of data
- Other stuff that you and I don’t have a need to know about
Note: one of the comments speculated that the jet would have a hard time in a close in fight. Um, no. That said, we are having some difficulty finding ranges big enough for the Raptor. It has zero to do with speed or turning-and-burning capabilities. The problem is one of not being able to exercise its true capabilities in detecting, sorting, engaging and destroying, and train pilots in how to maximize/fully exploit those capabilities, in training areas designed for the last generation of fighters.
In short, I’m impressed. And I’m sure I’ll get, “…’owls of derisive laughter, Bruce!” when I say I think we got a bargain.
Laugh all ya want.
“You’re dead.”
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