Oshkosh 2008 was the first F-22 demo I ever saw and will probably never see one like it again. It was not a scheduled part of the airshow and was ( I believe) an impromtu display by two airplanes that were enroute to somewhere else. One did a routine over the show line and the other was over and behind the flightline. The entire place came to a standstill, everyone rushed out of the exhibit buildings, nothing moved, everyone was gazing skyward. When one when vertical over the Red lot and stopped, went into a tail slide, I thought, this is it. The canopy will come off, followed shortly by the ejection seat but he just powered over into level flight and accelerated away. I was dumbstruck and looked around at everyone's jaws dropping. I've never seen anything like it. The angle of attack changes were just incredible to the point where there were vapor trails off the top of the canopy. And it was not a humid day. I don't think there will ever be another display like that because these guys pulled out all the stops. I don't think they followed normal demo pilot protocol but , Jesus Christ, it was GREAT!

An F/A-18 friend of mine came back to our campsite later and said" the era of F/A-18 air dominance is over. Every fighter pilot on the field must be hanging his head."

Its all about the man in the seat. I know plenty of Hornet guys (and seen the footage) with gun kills on Raptors. (It was over a long time ago)

Concord was built to go fast in a straight line, one trick pony. Couldn't turn within the state of Texas though. Building a jet to operate in the wide regime that the Raptor does, whole new set of engineering challenges.

Lots of jets like the Flanker and Typhoon will touch hit 1.5. To cruise around at 1.5+ not using afterburner is a talent only the Raptor can claim right now.

He was doing tail slides Saturday.

Agreed, but the question wasn't about what other capabilities the airplane has, only which ones can supercruise at that speed.

Interesting. So does that mean that every source that claims the Typhoon can go 1.5 without "reheated thrust" is wrong?

Also, can an F22 hit those speeds with a full fuel/weapons load?

While I'm not privy to the technical details on that aircraft my understanding is that it can't supercruise with a full loadout. The F-22 is the first that can really do that. You can't really compare the two since the F-22 is full fifth generation, full stealth. The typhoon is neither. The Indian's newest Flanker has already had it's way with the eurofighter.

It was designed with internal weapons bays and intended to be operated without external loads for stealth. So yes, it can.

What are you using as the cutoff for supercruise? Some sources say the Typhoon can go 1.5 unloaded, and just short of that loaded. Seems as if the basis for where it starts can vary on source.

Yep, fully understand that. It was more directed at what affect the weight of fuel and weapons had on it's speed capability.

Amazing what you can do with 70K pounds of thrust. I would G myself retarded if they ever let me loose with that thing.

I will bet a red buck that it was not impromtu display. Even the laid back USN doesn't do impromptu displays at airshows! :eek:

USMCFLYR

Funding was capped for the Raptor a few months back, I guess all they will ever do is air shows and training now.