Awesome pics. I have some of my own up in a MySpace album from an airshow I went to back in May. And that F-16F looked bad-ass! I've never seen one like that before. Crazy!

I'm still amazed every time I see an Osprey in the proper orientation and actually flying.

It seems like every second or third time they launched one during prototyping, it crashed or exploded and killed a ton of people.

While the F-22 may be a technically superior craft to the F-16, just based upon their service track record I'd have to award the Best Fighter award to the Falcon. Badass pics though. Thanks for posting them.

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
While the F-22 may be a technically superior craft to the F-16, just based upon their service track record I'd have to award the Best Fighter award to the Falcon. Badass pics though. Thanks for posting them.

I dunno, the F-15 has the best kill record of them all(something like 103 to 0). The F-16 is a great dogfighter, but it's dead if it's fighting anything stealthy(which won't be for a while, Russia's still "asking" for cash from India)

The F-22 is unproven, but I have books from the eighties saying the exact same thing about the F-15.

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
While the F-22 may be a technically superior craft to the F-16, just based upon their service track record I'd have to award the Best Fighter award to the Falcon. Badass pics though. Thanks for posting them.

I dunno, the F-15 has the best kill record of them all(something like 103 to 0). The F-16 is a great dogfighter, but it's dead if it's fighting anything stealthy(which won't be for a while, Russia's still "asking" for cash from India)

F-15 is a very different sort of aircraft from the F-16. Hard to argue with the thrust-to-weight ratio on the F-15 though :D

Quote:
The F-22 is unproven, but I have books from the eighties saying the exact same thing about the F-15.

Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

Quote: Original post by Dragon88

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
While the F-22 may be a technically superior craft to the F-16, just based upon their service track record I'd have to award the Best Fighter award to the Falcon. Badass pics though. Thanks for posting them.

I dunno, the F-15 has the best kill record of them all(something like 103 to 0). The F-16 is a great dogfighter, but it's dead if it's fighting anything stealthy(which won't be for a while, Russia's still "asking" for cash from India)

F-15 is a very different sort of aircraft from the F-16. Hard to argue with the thrust-to-weight ratio on the F-15 though :D

Quote:
The F-22 is unproven, but I have books from the eighties saying the exact same thing about the F-15.

Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

Well, the F-15C is about as pure a fighter as you can get (the mantra of the design team was "Not a pound for air to ground"), so by that logic, I'd say the F-15 has the edge over the Viper in terms of which was the better fighter.

I would also argue that the F-22 has been proven about as much as a fighter possibly can without going to actual war. In the 3 years since the F-22 began to equip operational squadrons, they've racked up over 300 simulated air to air kills, with only 1 loss. If you ask any fighter pilot what airplane he'd want to take into combat, I would wager a lot of money they'd pick the Raptor.

Quote: Original post by Sir Sapo

Quote: Original post by Dragon88

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
While the F-22 may be a technically superior craft to the F-16, just based upon their service track record I'd have to award the Best Fighter award to the Falcon. Badass pics though. Thanks for posting them.

I dunno, the F-15 has the best kill record of them all(something like 103 to 0). The F-16 is a great dogfighter, but it's dead if it's fighting anything stealthy(which won't be for a while, Russia's still "asking" for cash from India)

F-15 is a very different sort of aircraft from the F-16. Hard to argue with the thrust-to-weight ratio on the F-15 though :D

Quote:
The F-22 is unproven, but I have books from the eighties saying the exact same thing about the F-15.

Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

Well, the F-15C is about as pure a fighter as you can get (the mantra of the design team was "Not a pound for air to ground"), so by that logic, I'd say the F-15 has the edge over the Viper in terms of which was the better fighter.

I would also argue that the F-22 has been proven about as much as a fighter possibly can without going to actual war. In the 3 years since the F-22 began to equip operational squadrons, they've racked up over 300 simulated air to air kills, with only 1 loss. If you ask any fighter pilot what airplane he'd want to take into combat, I would wager a lot of money they'd pick the Raptor.

For sure. As I said in my first response, I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't vastly technically superior. Just saying that based on their combat records (the real ones, not the simulated ones), the Viper definitely has an edge on the F-22. I wasn't trying to discredit the F-22 in any way, just wanted to make sure the F-16 was given the credit it deserves. It's my personal favorite fighter aircraft, and I have a great deal of respect for it and its designers.

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

I'm saying there is no correlation between being "proven" or not and doing well in air combat. The F-15 was "unproven" for several years, until Israel used them to great effect, and we annihilated with them in Iraq (fun fact: the only airplane to shoot down an F-15, was in fact another F-15 -in a training accident during a JASDF exercise)

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

I'm saying there is no correlation between being "proven" or not and doing well in air combat. The F-15 was "unproven" for several years, until Israel used them to great effect, and we annihilated with them in Iraq (fun fact: the only airplane to shoot down an F-15, was in fact another F-15 -in a training accident during a JASDF exercise)

I never said it wouldn't do well in air combat. It's undoubtably superior. I'm just saying that giving the "best fighter" award to a plane that's seen almost no real combat makes little sense to me.

Quote: Original post by Dragon88

Quote: Original post by Prinz Eugn

Quote: Original post by Dragon88
Not to be deliberately offensive, but can your logic here possibly be any more flawed? Just because negative things were forecast about something doesn't mean it's sure to suceed.

I'm saying there is no correlation between being "proven" or not and doing well in air combat. The F-15 was "unproven" for several years, until Israel used them to great effect, and we annihilated with them in Iraq (fun fact: the only airplane to shoot down an F-15, was in fact another F-15 -in a training accident during a JASDF exercise)

I never said it wouldn't do well in air combat. It's undoubtably superior. I'm just saying that giving the "best fighter" award to a plane that's seen almost no real combat makes little sense to me.

Well, "best" is pretty subjective. To me, the best fighter is the one that would win the most in combat, not the one that has done so in the past. It's an unusual situation because military technology can sit around for a very long time before being used for its intended purpose.

Awarding the "Best Fighter" award to an airplane that will get utterly annihilated by a different airplane makes little sense to me, either.