Doug Cronkhite

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OK.. so most of you have probably seen the videos on youtube and other places of the airshow routing performced by the F-22 Raptor, but let me tell you.. video does NOT do this aircraft justice. Finally saw the Raptor up close and personal today at the MCAS Miramar Air Show here in San Diego and I'm still floored by it. I haven't been this impressed with a new aircraft since I saw the first F-14 Tomcats arrive at (then) NAS Miramar.

One thing I noticed right away though.. in comparison to the F-16 which has a relaxed stability setup, the F-22 seems to have gone back to dynamic instability setup the YF-16 originally had. When any sort of pitch change is commanded, the elevators set the pitch rate, and then return to neutral, yet the pitch rate still occurs until arrested by a quick input of opposite control. It's also more than a little amusing to watch the Raptor happily flying along while the control surfaces flail about in this constant dance preventing the aircraft from going out of control. By far the most impressive aspect of this demonstration is the airplane's ability to point the nose wherever the pilot commands, even at very low airspeeds.

InboundLZ

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Yep, saw it for the first time at Reno this year....for a BIG aircraft it was very nimble....

Billy

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That F22 was incredible.

I liked the last move he did at show center, that thing can really turn on a dime.

Billy

Dancobsen

I saw it last year @ Nellis. It's insane in person, the back flip is cool, the 300 foot tailslide is insane the plane stops the tailslide flat does a 180 deg. turn and powers out! Sick, Sick I tell ya. Almost as cool as hogfest in Fresno, Well maybe a little cooler.

Dan

WhoDaMan

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Reno was awesome this year

rhklenke

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It is very impressive - especially with the ability to super cruise, stealth, and an awesome weapons system thrown in there for good measure. Its an aircraft that is literally decades ahead of anything that anybody else has on the drawing boards.

Nice to see we can still do something like that when we pull our collective heads out of our *****'s. Unfortunately, it looks like military hardware is the only place we care to do it any more. I believe that there will be humans on the moon again in the future, but I'm not sure if the insignia on the vehicle will be that of Virgin Galactic or the PRC... []

Bob

Doug Cronkhite

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Seems the F/A-18F pilot today gave everyone a little physics lesson in what happens when you lower the nose slightly approaching show center at .98 mach... you slip past mach 1 rather easily and BOOM! Felt the shockwave hit my chest and heard the bang.

Windows be damned.. it was freaking cool as hell..

Doug Cronkhite

My Feedback: (34)

Also today, the clouds cleared away giving an unlimited ceiling, and man.. the F-22 demo just got better. About 1/2 way through, he climbed vertically to about 6000 feet, pulled the nose through in a back flip and did this falling leaf maneuver moving the nose back and forth through 90 degrees left and right of the flight path.. then just throttled up and flew straight out of it. Really cool stuff.

Joe C

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I was at the Airshow today and I agree, the most impressive Jet I have ever seen, speed, maneuverability was awesome.
Joe!!

E.N.T.

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Guys: forget the 22"s and take a close look to that Albatross in the photo. That paint scheme is sickening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Hector

rhallgarth

I was doing work on the Carl Vinson in the pacific in late 90's and a very big Natural gas tanker came inside the carrier group and at the time all they had was the Carl Vinson and the USS Princeton. They had 2 tomcats and 2 hornets running and ready when at sea in case of emergency such as bad guys. They launched all four in under a minute and raced to the tanker which kept on coming right at us. The tanker was iranian I learned later.

One has to understand that Carrier groups want everyone to know they are coming so this will not happen. I figure this was just a dumb tanker captain or a deliberate attempt to irritate the US NAvy but the only problem is Carrier Captains take ZERO chances. They buzzed him with all four planes and he never budged. I was on the Signal bridge and a chief told me the hornets would buzz the tanker. The two hornets made a pass at 400 feet or lower and broke the sound barrier. I was watching through these great binocs they have and it blew out half the windows on the tanker and scared the living crap out of me and it felt like the carrier shuddered.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like that close cause this was about 7 miles from us. By the way if the tanker had not turned away they would have blown it out of the water probably.

noahb

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I know this is not an F-22, but all the same a great fighter. F-15.

Took these pictures this past weekend at the Amigo Airshow in El Paso, TX.

noahb

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Not an F-22 by any means. I may be heading to San Antonio, tx. They are suppose to demo the F-22 there as well as the Blue Angels.