USAF Fighters

F/A-22 Raptor
The F/A-22 is being developed to counter the increasing sophistication and threat of hostile air forces and integrated air defense systems in use around the world. This fighter will provide air dominance and a precision ground attack capability for U.S. forces for the next 40 years.

Air and ground threats that the F-15 can no longer counter will be defeated by the lethal and survivable F/A-22, with its balance of increased speed and range, enhanced offensive and defensive avionics and low observability or stealth. The F/A-22’s design also emphasizes reliability and maintainability of systems.

The F/A-22 provides a first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability through the use of stealth, advanced sensors and a lethal mix of advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. The F/A-22 also requires shorter takeoff and landing distances as compared to current frontline fighters. F/A-22 pilots will be able to engage the enemy over its own territory and support long-range air-to-ground assets. The F/A-22 also brings its own precision ground attack capability to the battlefield.
 

Foreign Fighter Threat

Foreign warplanes such as the Russian Su-25 match up well with current-generation USAF fighters. Without sufficient numbers of F-22s, Handy warns, "We couldn't do our job."

"If we put our pilots in their [foreign] aircraft, ... nine out of 10 of those sorties are lost to our guys in their airplanes. What that tells you is that training is the difference between our aircraft today. It is not technology, it is training. If I were weighing the scale of capability and my challenge was I just need to train better to beat you, I am going to spend the money in training, because I've already got the technology. That is a scary thought. ... The [Russian-made double-digit] SAMs are an incredible threat. It is a scary, scary thing. There is no sense in not developing weapon systems that have the capability to defeat potential enemies and potential technology breakthroughs as well as those that we already know about."

Fighter Requirement

"[Reducing the planned buy of F-22 fighters] would represent constraints that would unquestionably lessen our ability to guarantee the security of not only air forces but deployed ground forces. We couldn't do our job. I've already said the requirement is 339. In fact, the requirement could readily be more than that. We constrained it many, many times already. You all know that as well as I do. We are down to 339. I am saying, categorically, that in our best analysis of the threat, ground and air, our best analysis of the tempo that this nation expects, that is the number you need to prosecute the conflict."

Conventional B-2 Bomber?

"With regards to B-2C: You all know we have an unsolicited proposal, and we just don't have the money to afford the aircraft right now. We really, really like the capability that the B-2 brings to the fight. That is perhaps one of the most unremarkable statements I'll give you all day. That shouldn't surprise anybody. Its performance in the air war over Serbia was extraordinary and well-documented. ... But with the existing topline, we can't get where we are from, to there. We have an incredible list of other priorities that are desperately needed over and above that."
 

Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering
This is almost certainly the most authoritative text on the market. I can think of no other book on the subject which goes into the depth that this one does. That said, it is certainly not the sort of volume one can sit down with in front of a fire on a rainy Saturday night for a bit of relaxing reading. This book requires a lot of concentration and determination to both understand and complete. In fact it took me some months to read it and I was left with at least as many questions at the end as I had at the beginning.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that it is, first and foremost, a text book. As such, it requires a rather different approach. It was obviously intended to be used in a classroom environment where one is totally focussed on the matter and can readilly ask questions. It also requires the reader to be familiar with the many other components which make up modern air combat. A flight simmer can simply go and fly a mission to prove or disprove his or her understanding of the topic but for the average reader some of the detail is baffling.

Tom Clancy - Fighter Wing
In the updated and expanded version, Tom Clancy goes into great detail of why air superiority was and remains key to U.S. armed forces. For instance, the f-15 originally developed to combat Russian Migs, is now becoming obsolete. Third World contries can now rival the fighter. This is now why the U.S. developed the f-22. The radically advanced fighter has stealth, advanced avionics, and radar. This was SUPPOSED to fight new Migs and Sokui aircraft, but the Cold War ended. With Russia as our ally the U.S. has endured many cuts an reformation of airforces. Why hasn't the f-22 replaced the f-15? Why has the b-2 not become the U.S.'s primary bomber? This is a must read for all those interested in answers to these questions. Plus, analysis on why the U.S. is developing the Joint Strike Fighter!

Eye of the Viper
Take the best pilots. And the best teachers. Put them through a taut-nerve, adrenaline-infused training program where only a handful of mistakes will lead to dismissal. The stakes are high and few succeed.

Hand-picked, pressure-tested, and astronaut gung ho, the young pilots of Eye of the Viper are poised for the toughest assignment of their career: the exhaustive six-month training course at Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base, at a cost of $2 million each. Luke, the world’s largest fighter wing, is the only F-16 fighter training base in the United States, and each year it produces one thousand pilots who will fly the F-16 from Korea to Afghanistan to Iraq.

But being among the elite pilots who are selected for the course is by no means a guarantee that they will earn the right to fly the F-16, perhaps the most agile jet fighter ever sent into combat. Only a few select individuals have what it takes.

Award-winning journalist Peter Aleshire, given unprecedented access to the pilots and teachers at Luke, provides a full blast of the rigors and intensity of the course—the personalities, the incredible machines, the irreverence, the bravado, and the toughness, not only of the hand-picked students seeking a place in the warrior subculture, but of the veteran plots who must teach them how to stay alive.

Readers will quickly come to understand the extraordinary mental and physical demands on a modern pilot—and the incredible joy and sense of freedom that makes most F-16 pilots describe their single-engine, weapons-laden, needle-nosed jet in terms that sound more like true love or helpless addiction.  Eye of the Viper is a frank, ambitious, and eminently entertaining look at the ambitions, fears, frailties, and courage that make or break the young pilots at the exquisitely sensitive controls of a $35-million jet.

In 1981 the Air Force developed a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) as a new air superiority fighter. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon, including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, higher power propulsion systems, and stealth technology. Air Force leaders believed that these technologies would make aircraft like the F-15 and F-16 obsolete by the early 21st century. In 1985 the Air Force sent out formal requests for proposals to a number of aircraft manufacturers and selected two industry teams, one led by Lockheed, and the other by Northrop, to build the prototypes. The Lockheed and Northrop teams each built two prototypes, one with General Electric YF120 engines and one with Pratt & Whitney YF119 engines. The Lockheed aircraft was designated YF-22 and the Northrop Aircraft was YF-23. After extensive flight tests the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics team won the airframe competition and Pratt & Whitney the engine contract. In 1997 the Air Force sent the YF-22 prototype that had been equipped with GE engines to the Museum. After it was refurbished and equipped with two Pratt & Whitney YF-119-PW-100 engines, the YF-22 was placed on display in 1998.

Guide to Military Careers

Military Discounts