Is it Possible to Have a Stealth Carrier???

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

I personally think the F-22 is over rated. Do a quick google and you'll find it has some deficiencies that aren't touted in AF publications.

For example.
Current aircraft don't have Link 16 so can't be the forward air controller that is often portrayed in articles.

Apparantly there was no destructive testing done on an airframe test model and that there is a weakness in its main fuselage boom.

http://www.armytimes.com/community/o...raptor_071126/
This is one report, also read it in AFM monthly.

Minor problems that will be fixed as time goes on. FYI - every new airframe has bugs that must be worked out once you see what happens in full operation. Link 16 is a systems mod that can be added as its completed. The airframe is minor enough to not even warrant a grounding. There is a leaky top plate on the first planes off the assembly line that is causing corrosion in places, but all that will be fixed in time and current models rolling off don't have that problem.

All minor BS brought up by critics. Same thing happened for F-16's and F-15's and every other aircraft that ever entered service.

-S

PS. One thing I noticed - the F-22's are still not giving away their true potential. They are not being flown without drop tanks for instance so as not to give away their true stealthy nature. Must still be classified until a real war erupts???

[geetrue]

http://www.defense-update.com/newsca...807_ucas_d.htm

Perhaps no stealth carrier in the near future like the new Zumwalt DD-1000 that was just approved for building, but they do have a next generation US Navy unmanned observation stealth plane being developed as we speak.

Production version could be out by 2018: X-47

Testing is scheduled to begin in late 2009 and culminate with carrier flight operations in 2013. The tests will involve shipboard operation, including catapult takeoffs, arrested landings and flight in the immediate vicinity of an aircraft carrier. The air vehicle will not carry weapons.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

PS. One thing I noticed - the F-22's are still not giving away their true potential. They are not being flown without drop tanks for instance so as not to give away their true stealthy nature. Must still be classified until a real war erupts???

I've seen plenty of pics of F22's without tanks.
Then again, they could be over the US, away from snoopy radars

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

I've seen plenty of pics of F22's without tanks.
Then again, they could be over the US, away from snoopy radars

Me too, but the only intercept pics I have seen were with un-needed drop tanks. That thing has a 1,000 mile range with internal fuel alone. 2,000+ if you add drop tanks.

-S

[XabbaRus]

The point is with the money spent no destruction testing was carried out on a complete airframe. It is a problem that should never have happened. and needed to be fixed especially when you are getting so few.

As for Link 16 it should have been in at the beginning, other AF have it and the USAF touts its network centric ability which at the current moment it can't do. Sure it will in time but that shuldn't be the case.