
An F-22 test pilot on the Raptor's flight control system - clouddrover
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34762/this-lecture-by-an-f-22-test-pilot-on-the-raptors-flight-control-system-is-bonkers
======
sandworm101
>> is needed to make the Raptor's super maneuverability a reality.

The term is "Supermaneuverability"... all one word. This is characterized as
post-stall, sometimes called "non-aerodynamic" controlled flight. In short, it
means the aircraft remains under pilot control even after the flow has
separated from the wing (aka a stall).

The 22 is not considered supermaneuverable by many. It can use thrust
vectoring and some fly-by-wire tricker to ape supermaneuverability but it
pales in comparison to many russian aircraft. The 22's wing becomes very
unpredictable in stall, hence the need for all the fly by wire. It was meant
for flying fast in a strait line, and for stealth. It was never meant for
things like Kobras or Kulbits. That it could eventually do them was an
afterthought. The Russian aircraft have wings designed for slow speed/high AOA
maneuverability.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulbit)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jks6TTFsglk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jks6TTFsglk)

Kulbit / Chakra at about 05:20 and again at 06:20. Note how slow/tight the
show is. An f-22 could never perform repeated maneuvers like this in such a
confined space.

~~~
scarier
To add on, supermaneuverabillity looks really cool and is an impressive
technical achievement for sure, but its utility in combat (at least for the
time being) is likely low to negative. Among other reasons, the more players
in a fight, the less anyone can afford to sell all their energy for a shot
opportunity--even if it works, it leaves them extremely vulnerable.

~~~
stouset
This 100%. While really cool demonstrations, the utility of these in a fight
is virtually nonexistent. Any air-to-air engagements these days are inevitably
BVR (beyond visual range) encounters, where aircraft fire missiles at one-
another from extreme ranges. This type of maneuverability has no use
whatsoever in such a scenario.

If all of the long-range missiles fail to neutralize one side of the other and
both forces opt to continue the engagement, you get to WVR (within visual
range) where infrared missiles and—once those are spent—guns are employed.
There _could_ be opportunities here where such a trick might be useful, but
only in a 1v1 scenario. For any case where you might have two or more enemies
to deal with, such an abrupt loss of energy is suicide. And if you’re on the
side with superior numbers, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor with
little chance of you being defensive in the first place. And in the 1v1
scenario, modern infrared missiles like the AIM-9x (which are effective even
when launched at frankly ridiculous off-boresight angles) make such a maneuver
suicide as well.

So it might, _might_ be useful if: both sides empty their long/medium-range
radar-guided missiles at one-another, only two combatants remain, neither
decides to bug out, the aggressor empties their IR missiles unsuccessfully,
and the defensive craft is imminently going to be within the weapon employment
zone for the bandit’s cannon… _then_ this might be a Hail Mary to force the
aggressor to overshoot so you can turn the tables. But having bled all your
energy, you’re going to get at most one shot before you’re back to simply
trying to survive.

~~~
Bobbcatt
All of this is extremely wrong.

First of all, there's no guarantee that you will be able to use BVR. A stealth
fighter using its radar is the same as a man in a camouflage at night turning
on his search light. Everybody will know where you are. There might also be
rule of engagement restriction, as has been many times that forced within-
visual-range.

For WVR, the ability to supermaneuver is useful. It can give you that extra
edge to get the angle on a target. You have to give up a lot of energy, sure.
But you do have >1 TWR, and your buddies to cover you. It's not a magical tool
but another one in a toolbox.

Also, in WVR, the advantage goes to the side with fewer planes. There was a
study from the korean war to show this. The reason is because if you and your
buddy is fighting 20 bandits, you can shoot at anybody that flies in front of
you, while the enemies have to visually identify. And the speed of jet combat
makes it impossible to verify before you lose your opportunity.

>So it might, might be useful if: both sides empty their long/medium-range
radar-guided missiles at one-another, only two combatants remain, neither
decides to bug out, the aggressor empties their IR missiles unsuccessfully,
and the defensive craft is imminently going to be within the weapon employment
zone for the bandit’s cannon

Yup. Just like in vietnam. We are gonna fly up there with our f4s afterburning
to mach 2, then we will launch all our sparrows at the bandits, who would fly
straight into our missiles because they are dumb, and then we will land just
in time for lunch.

~~~
scarier
Oversimplified for sure, but I think "extremely wrong" is unfair. I think the
jury is still out on whether or not a stealth-on-stealth fight (or a more
conventional fight in an ECM-heavy environment) inevitably devolves into a WVR
knife fight. There are a number of reasons why this doesn't have to be the
case.

You're absolutely correct that ROE can force a VID, but it'd be pretty dumb to
box yourself into a corner that would force you into a neutral-ish WVR fight,
yeah?

I agree that supermaneuverability has the potential to be useful, but I think
it's fair to say that it's very much an edge case, and even then more of an
augment to missiles that already have HOBS capability than a replacement for
them. It certainly isn't a game-changing capability the way HOBS was. Also,
TWR only goes so far to help recover from an energy deficit, especially if you
have to go into reheat to make it happen. Gas kills are a thing...

Yes and no. Against a well-coordinated, larger force it's really difficult to
win, and I very much wouldn't recommend adopting it as a primary tactic. If
you had a fight that magically began at the furball phase (admittedly, this is
one potential outcome of stealth-on-stealth engagements, although I imagine
we'd need to develop better and different technology to make it a reality),
that would be more likely to favor the individual, at least until they run out
of missiles (it's difficult to over-emphasize how difficult guns kills are
against maneuvering targets, even for a hypothetical magic robot with near-
perfect aim). Old-school fights like Korea were much closer to the "immediate,
chaotic furball" side of the spectrum than current fights, and there was a
much less well-developed set of intra-and inter-flight tactics. A modern 2v1
(even heaters-only) is far more lopsided against the 1 than it was during
Korea. With good coordination, this scales. (Aside: a really good book about
the air war in Korea is _The Hunters_ by James Salter. Highly recommended--
it's fiction, but based on the author's own experiences as a pilot there.)

For what it's worth, technology and tactics have improved in the last half
decade (perhaps more than we can say about our judgement?)... The
proliferation of certain technologies will force continual re-evaluation of
tactics, but I think it's safe to say that BVR is reasonably mature and not
going anywhere in the foreseeable future. (That said, reports of the death of
the air-to-air gun will always be greatly exaggerated.)

------
SECProto
In case anyone else is confused by the title, F-22 and Raptor both refer to
the same thing.

------
krisoft
What I’m really interested is how do you engineer such a software system? I
bet they have a simulation system, how do you validate that? What type of
tests do they have? How do they iterate when a deficiency is found?

How do the team looks like? Is it 10 geniouses keeping the whole system in
their heads or 4000 replacable cogs? If the second how do you make sure they
all act in coordination?

~~~
richardowright
They do have a very comprehensive simulation system with a large part of the
work being done at Dobbins Air Force Base just outside of Atlanta. From what I
understand, the team is quite small (<10).

------
jcims
This is an amazing talk. Somebody pointed it out in the YouTube comments,
watch how he handles the little toy Cessna versus the toy F22. :)

------
ape4
Its cool but would be nice to spend the billions on peaceful activities

------
blunte
The F-22 is such a marvel. I really wonder why the F-35 is plagued with so
many systemic problems since it should be no more complex (and has the F-22 as
an example for many of its own requirements).

~~~
Causality1
The F-22 is designed first and foremost as an air superiority fighter. The
F-35 was intended to replace half a dozen wildly different aircraft with a
single plane. That was a horrible idea right from the outset.

~~~
terlisimo
According to one AF general, the purpose of the F-35 is "to spend money". So
in that aspect it is performing admirably :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw)

~~~
credit_guy
This is such a silly conspiracy theory. It may make sense for US congressmen
to lobby for pork in their districts, but why would the Israeli Air Force
invest in defective machines?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_Israeli_procurement#2019)

~~~
projektfu
Their existing fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighters is getting pretty old. I have
been a “fan” of the F-16 since I was a kid and I’m in my 40s now.

I think for political reasons they don’t have access to Russian or European
aircraft and they probably don’t want Chinese ones. This is the first new
fighter we have available to them.

~~~
ip26
They can't buy F-22's?

~~~
advaita
No, F-22 is not up for export. Also, F-22 serves a specific role vs F-35 which
is geared towards multiple capabilities. There are neither mutually exclusive
nor substitute for each other.

------
iooi
Around 19:30 he gets the movement of ailerons wrong, in case anyone else was
confused by that.

When turning right, the left aileron goes down and the right aileron goes up.

[https://sites.google.com/site/thebasicsofaviation/rudder-
emp...](https://sites.google.com/site/thebasicsofaviation/rudder-empennage-
and-ailerons)

------
canada_dry
As an aside I thought the prof's comment regarding having commercial co-pilots
flying along with the pilot - via remote control - was interesting.

It would seem to me a logical first step to someday having fully remote
controlled aircraft flying passengers (which as the F22 pilot notes - is every
airline's dream).

~~~
CryptoBanker
I would imagine that cargo planes will have to safely fly on fully remote
controlled aircraft for a number of years before airlines start thinking about
opening themselves up to such liability...

------
Shivetya
The level of automation leads one to believe it is not inconceivable there
will be versions without a cockpit with even greater flight capabilities.

While many can be seen as making it easier on the human pilot conversely you
can see it as making it easier to validate the automation by having a human as
a backup.

------
raverbashing
So someone picked up a comment on HN that had this video (or maybe through
some other path) and turned it into an article

Interesting

------
fermienrico
Why do we time and again see this horrible blog spam, that is The Drive
magazine? All they do is keep padding the prose until it is 8-10 paragraphs
while paraphrasing and quoting the original source. Stratechery does that as
well, but also provides original commentary and insight. The Drive is a
terrible source of information.

Just link to straight to Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evhrk5tY-
Yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evhrk5tY-Yo)

~~~
exhilaration
While I generally agree with your sentiment, I didn't watch the video and was
satisfied reading summary in the linked article.

~~~
sandworm101
The article almost made me not watch the video. It is poorly written, by
someone not versed in aviation terminology. Much of what said of "raptor
pilots" is in fact true of all fighters. And some of the facts are so
awkwardly worded that they are borderline incorrect. For instance, the F-22
does not fly at 60-65,000 feet. That is its service ceiling, its maximum
possible altitude.

~~~
Aeolun
> For instance, the F-22 does not fly at 60-65,000 feet. That is its service
> ceiling, its maximum possible altitude.

So it flies at 60-65k feet. I don’t see how that is wrong? If a pilot wants to
keep cruising along at that altitude it is apparently possible, even if they
might not generally do so.

~~~
mirimir
Actually, TFA says:

> ... Gordon notes the aircraft flies at altitudes from 60,000-65,000 feet.

~~~
sandworm101
Which would make landings rather difficult.

~~~
mirimir
My thought _exactly_ :)

