no idea.
but its also the Scorpion HMD thats also on the Rafale. American design which is a bit abnormal for the French
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I propose: Take away the Rafale’s HMD, +2 MICAs, the extra CMs, and then leave the F-22 without HMD :D
In terms of flight performance, how would it be worse?
Weighing in at 19,700kg empty, and needing more fuel mass than its contemporaries.
8200kg of fuel + 19,700kg empty, add in 400kg of misc weight.
And you’re sitting at 28300kg for ~7 minutes of fuel at 0kph.
The Rafale is sitting at 12550kg with ~7 minutes of fuel at 0kph.
IDK what the in-flight TWR will be as I don’t have in-flight installed thrust amounts for the engines it uses, let alone thrust losses when the thrust vectoring is doing its thing.
Before i began i would like to apologize if i say anything wrong as i am new to these thing and i am still learning about these things.
The F-22 is sometimes referred to as the jet Having most T/W ratio
F-22 can supercruise cruse at MACH 1.5+ as claimed by US air force any many other sources and has good maneuverability as claimed by Lockheed Martin
Now thrust to weight ration would obviously will depend on different factors
Image-1
Image-2
Now the Image 1 is for F-22 and let start with F-22
As we can see the max thrust thrust each F119-PW-100 (engine used by F-22) can produce 155.7kN or 35,000 lbst of thrust with full after burner hence the total combined thrust 70,000 with after burner. Without after burner each engine can produce 97.9kN or 22,000lbst of thrust hence total output of 44,000 lbst
Now MTOW for F-22 is 83,500 lbs. Now we can calculate its thrust to weight ratio at this weight
With after burner
70,000/83,500 = 0.8383 ≈ 0.84
Without after burner
44,000/83,500 = 0.5269 ≈ 0.53
Now lets calculate the theoretical maximum thrust to weight ratio ( Only empty weight and nothing else). Its empty weight is 43,340 lbs
70,000/43,340 = 1.615
This is just the theoretical maximum T/W ratio of the F-22 which is of no use but i still wanted it include it anyways
Now lets calculate its thrust to weight ratio at 50% fuel with full air to air loadout with a pilot
In full air to air loadout it can carry 6 AMRAAMS and 2 AIM-9X so the weight would be around 2,318 and lets approximate it to 2,350 for the pilot as well
The F-22 can carry 18,000 lbs of fuel and 50% for it would be 9,000 so the total misc. weight would be 11,350. So the total weight of the F-22 would be 54,690. Now lets calculate thrust to weight ratio
With after burner
70,000/54,690 = 1.27
Without after burner
44,000/54,690 = 0.804
This gives us a range for thrust to weight ratio at minimum of 50% fuel to be 1.27 to 0.8. As the payload increase the weight would also increase and hence decreasing the Thrust to weight ratio
The Image-2 that i attached was for rafale so now lets start with rafale
As we can see max thrust each M88-2 (the engine that rafale uses) can produce 16,620lbs of thrust with after burner hence total thrust being 33,240. Without after burner each engine can produce 10,971lbs of thrust hence total thrust being 21,942
Now MTOW for rafale is 54,000. Now we can calculate its thrust t weight ratio at this weight
With after burner
33,240/54,000 = 0.615 ≈ 0.62
Without after burner
21,942/54,000 = 0.406 ≈ 0.41
Its max theoretical T/W (only empty weight and noting else). Its empty mass is 22,000
With after burner
33,240/22,000 = 1.51
Now lets calculate its thrust to weight ratio at 50% fuel with full air to air loadout with a pilot
In full air to air loadout it can carry 8 missile, so we go with 4 meteors and 4 mica therefore total mass of missile would be ≈ 2,664 and with pilot lets round it off to 2,270
The rafale can carry 10,300lbs of fuel internally hence 50% of it would be 5,150 so the total weight would be 7,420+22,000=29,420. Now lets calculate thrust to weight ratio
With after burner
33,240/29,420 = 1.12 ≈ 1.13
Without after burner
21,942/29,420 = 0.74 ≈ 0.75
This gives us a range for thrust to weight ratio at minimum of 50% fuel to be 1.13 to 0.75. As the payload increase the weight would also increase and hence decreasing the Thrust to weight ratio
As we can see F-22 has higher thrust to weight ratio then rafale despite it being heavier and i think it should perform better in terms of flight performance than rafale which it did during 2009 joint exercise with the score being 6-1 with F-22 winning 6 times and rafale 1 time and 5 times it being a draw
At the end of the day it would all depend of the person controlling each plane
I would like to apologize again if i had said something wrong
If you give the F-22 less endurance, it’ll get higher TWR but won’t be able to fly as long.
Percentages aren’t useful here.
In clean loadouts, the F-22 matches the Gripen in zero-speed TWR with same-endurance loaded.
P&W engines typically improve 50% over static, however there is no knowing without documentation for PW119.
The only incorrect portion of your post is giving the F-22 less fuel endurance over Rafale to increase its TWR.
What militaries do is up to them, and they can make things as fair or unfair as they want.
If Rafale beat F-22 while having mass disadvantage, that’s even worse in F-22’s case…
But i gave both rafale and F-22 there 50% of fuel they carry which is 9,000 and 5,150 respectively, now even if you increase that to 70% for f-22 it would carry 12,600 lbs of fuel and now the total weight would be 58,290 so now the max thrust to weight ratio would be 1.2
Also i did not understand the context of this. Sorry
50% fuel in Rafale will give it 1 more minute of endurance over F-22.
On full fuel capacity, F-22 has an estimated 7 minutes of fuel at speed.
Rafale in comparison has 9 minutes.
At half, F-22 drops to 3.5 and Rafale to 4.5.
This is why percentages are misleading.
Ah, I get it now
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I’ll just drop my two cents here and say that it probably won’t matter considering how short top tier air battles are
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Why would this be the case? F-16 also can’t pull more but it easily pulls 16 ingame.
It has a cobra button.
Edit+ Off Topic a bit:
Spoiler
I’d like to add from the pilots who fly the thing they’ll tell you it always performs like a clean F-16C Block 50, which is one of the best dogfighters around, because on it’s internal payload. It also has similar instantaneous turn and AoA to the Superhornet, even on the A model.
This info + the known data that it has 360 degree launch parameters for all of it’s air to air missiles makes it extremely likely that in a combat situation, it would be much better in a dogfight than both the superhornet AND viper under similar loads. Especially the viper, which to emulate the F-35’s range and payload, would have to carry 4x AMRAAM, 2x Sidewinder, and 2x Drop Tank +at least 60% fuel, heavily impacting it’s maneuverability. In comparison to the hornet, It would have to carry 3x Drop tank, Full Fuel, and the same 4x AMRAAM on high drag racks and 2x Aim-9. Again, severely impacting performance.
I used to not be a fan of the F-35, and I’m definitely still not a fan of the price it took to develop it, but it really is an amazing aircraft for it’s price. Especially when it gets 6x AMRAAM and possibly even METEOR, that thing is going to be super dangerous…
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Don’t look into the F-15. ;)