Guyz, the best fighter plane/combat aircraft in the world?

Question

I believe its between F-22A Raptor and Sukhoi Su-30MK2. If you consider some other plane to be the best Ill be glad to hear from you.

Last year American Airforce and their Indian counterparts held joint excercises in the state of Rajasthan. The Americans had F15 and the latest F16s. Guess What? the Mig29 with its upgaded avionics gave both a planes a good run for their money, slightly losing out to the newer F16s. The talk of this excersice was the SukhoisMk2 (much different than the MK1) which beat both the planes in almost all depts. Suddenly the mighty F-16s and 15s were not that invincible afterall. The Indians then let the Americans fly the Sukhoi and they were shocked to find out that the plane not only had matching avionics it could also outmanuver the F-18s which are considered the best handling planes of the American fleet. Janes Defence Weekly carried out a detailed report and concluded that the excersice highlights the need of F22's induction much earlier than anticipated. It was also all over the Indian press. The chief American test pilot admitted he had never flown a more agile aircraft of this size.

Answer 1

This is an open-ended question, if you have not noticed.

The F-22A Raptor is the best you can get (aerial combat wise).

During its operational evaulation phase, where 2 F-22A went up against 4 F-16C and 8 F-15C aggressors, its was about as difficult as eating breakfast for the Raptor pilots. The aggressors could not even pick them up on radar, much less shoot at them. Plus, the aggressor pilots sums it up nicely:

"Its a boring affair for us, we take-off, die. Go back to the tanker, head back again, die a second time. Head back for a final top up, go back to the range, die a third time. Then we head for home plate."

Contary to many what many people thinks, the Raptor is designed for air dominance, not ground attack, where the design of the plane doesn't really help in the first place.

CAS (Close Air Support) roles are better executed by planes like the A-10A Warthog, where its is better armored and has more weapons hardpoints for a large variety of weapons, in addition to its powerful mounted gattling gun. It also has better turning characteristics at low speeds.

Sukhoi, like its SU-27 Flanker is Russian, so is the more famous Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG, i is the russian for the English ~ and) like its MiG-21s and MiG-29. Other Russian aircraft manufacturers include Ilyushin for planes like the IL-76 Mainstay (a counterpart to the E-3C Sentry AWACS), Tupolev for its TU-95 Bear (a maritime/strategic bomber, a reversed engineered version of the early B-52 bomber).

Answer 2

Have all the answers been made by Americans so far? How can I tell?

Just a little correction to start with, the Tu-95 Bear (and derivatives) is NOT a reverse engineered B-52; just the little detail of the contra-rotating props on the Bear should have given a little clue. ;-) Tupolev did reverse engineer the B-29, which they called the Tu-4, and the Bear was 'descended' from the 'Bull'.

I would like to put forward Eurofighter Typhoon and AMD Rafale as realistic candidates. There was the well documented case of a group of F-15s from Lakenheath 'bouncing' a couple of Typhoons on a test flight; the Eagle drivers very quickly found out that this was not a great idea, when they found it was THEIR tails being comprehensively waxed.

Answer 3

Yeah but the eurofighter beat the f22 in air to air combat using the beyond visual rocket which has the double the range as the f22 range

Answer 4

I'd say, in this order

1) F/A-22 Raptor (They're trying to make it a mud mover at the mo)

2) Eurofighter Typhoon (I work with it. It's incredibly Hi-Tech and agile) I used to work on a Jaguar sqn and they went up against Typhoon, with Tornado and hawk fighter support. The Typhoons flew rings around the lot of them. They never lost in a training dogfight!

3) Sukhoi Su-30MK2 (Crap avionics in comparison to the other two, but extremely agile)

Answer 5

The Grumman F-14 D Super Tomcat is the best. Anytime Baby!

Answer 6

I agree, the F-22 Raptor. don't think it's being used yet, in real combat. but I pitty the fools who try to compete. USA Rules with
aircraft. It's hard to believe the F-14A Tomcat, F-16 and F-18 will be
blown away. oh yeah the F-17A Stealth fighter, but that's in it's own class. Never heard of the Sukhoi, is that Japan?

Answer 7

Wayne, Dude! If you've never heard of a Sukhoi, then your opinion or automatically invalid!

Answer 8

B1 bomber

Answer 9

what about the A-10 WARTHOG???