Message posted by Sundog on January 05, 2007 at 0:35:07 PST:
The only aircraft I know of that ever shot itself down was one of the Grumman F-11F Tiger prototypes. It was armed with four 20mm cannons and ran into it's own shells in a diving firing test. As for shooting the 20mm at supersonic speeds, I'm not sure why you would. If you're supersonic chances are you aren't dogfighting. Granted, the F-22 can supercruise and has good supersonic maneuverability, that isn't the same as low speed maneuvering and turn rates, etc. If it is possible to use at supersonic speeds, I would guess it's only at the lower end, M=1.2 to maybe M=1.4 You have to understand that the aircraft it's fighting won't be going as fast if they're cruising and after the first turn I'm sure they're subsonic, or in the low supersonic range (I know the YF-17 was optimized for a maximum turn rate at M=1.2 at least according to the excellent book out about it) But even with the F-22s extra power, they don't want to overshoot their target or be moving so fast they can't target an enemy aircraft with the gun due to too high closure rates. Of course, I doubt they really plan to use the gun in the F-22 much. If you're close enough to use the gun, it doesn't matter how stealthy you are, at least during the day. ;) I'm sure they are planning to maintain their dominance at BVR and kill the enemy long before the merge.
In Reply to: Re: Happy New Year and an F-22A Question posted by The Major on January 04, 2007 at 18:31:28 PST:
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