Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor - Transforming the Aerial Warfare

its beautiful. and the YF-23

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Didn’t even see the YF-23! If that gets added the Su-47 is also a contender. We are in paper/prototype jet wars

the YF-23 had a weapons bay made and seperately tested, afaik the Su-47 had no such thing. Su-47 was purely experimental while YF-23 competed against the YF-22 to become the ATF program winner, it was meant to fight.

Top tier final form, ngl we’ve been telling that since firebirds update. I wonder how the F-35 will be compared to the F-22 though. All depends on how they model stealth.

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bang some R-27ER/EA and R-73s and job done.

F-35 will be a bag of poo, compared to the F-22 performance is nowhere near the

Wasn’t the cargo compartment for the Su-47 created for testing the Su-57?

yeah but f35a still beats f16 in dogfights, so its not like its bad IRL just nowhere near as insane as f22

F-16 is pretty dated by todays standards

yes and no, it is still considered to be a good dogfighter, just not as technologically advanced as some others even with its upgrades

Being able to dogfight is one thing, it’s how well it can pull in high speed BVR

gaijin: Money! Money!! Money!!

fully confirms some previous stuff

https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FM-Resources/Budget/Air-Force-Presidents-Budget-FY26/

all the 2026 USAF budget stuff if anyone is interested

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F119 improvement?
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RCS figures for the F-22

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Thanks. I’ve added the RCS figures for the F-22A’s specs and linked to this document in the source list, as it has been approved for public release.

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what’s its best loadout air to air wise, 6x internal amraams, 8x external amraams and 2x 9x internally? can those external pylons also carry 9x?

6 x internal, 8 x external AMRAAMs, and 2 x AIM-9X internally are your best loadout for A2A purposes if you are willing to sacrifice your RCS.

Despite that diagram showing it as a possible configuration, AFAIK, external pylons are neither authorized nor configured to mount AIM-9Xs. They need to develop new external pylons for the Sidewinders similar to the ones on the F-35 aircraft.

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Though I don’t really see why they’d develop such pylons, the F-22 excels at long range combat and sidewinders are here “just in case” so there’s no point adding more than two, especially if that requires sacrificing stealth

Some of the only reasons for developing such a pylon on the F-35 was the failure of LM to find a method to fit them and other IR missiles internally along with the other 4 missiles required. More of a Failure than an Advantage.

Also particularly for the F-22 with dedicated sidewinder bays in an air superiority loadout where the stakes are more in favour of sacrificing stealth for missile capacity, the AMRAAM or AIM-260 is going to be more useful so why would they bother with sidewinders.