Which of the F-22 and F-35 would a fighter pilot choose? Porsche or Ferrari: Which would you like to drive? Which fighter steals?
Each is a high-end sports automobile, naturally out of most Americans’ price range. Car enthusiasts will, however, be quick to point out that the Porsche, built in Germany, and the Ferrari, made in Italy, differ greatly from one another.
One focuses on efficiency and dependability, while the other emphasizes luxury and top-notch speed. Aside from affluent car collectors, few people choose both because the vehicles are dissimilar.
The question of which vehicle is a better ride still exists, even though most people will never have the opportunity to drive either. In contrast to the world of military aircraft, where even fewer pilots will get the opportunity to jump into the cockpit of either the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor or the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II to judge which is better, at least actual owners can weigh in with the pros and cons. The AviationGeekClub.com says this was discussed on Quora, a social question-and-answer website started in 2009.
Users were asked in April 2017 whether they would want to fly an F-22 or an F-35.
Rick Scheff, a former F-16 pilot who served in the United States Air Force (retired), voiced his opinion despite probably having little to support it. In his apparent directness, he said, “F-35, without a doubt.”
He gave the F-22 Raptor, the first fifth-generation combat aircraft created, as an example of how it was built as an air dominance fighter with capabilities for ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence. Even if the F-22 is the finest at what it does, Scheff claims it is not adaptable enough to handle the demands of a future fight.
“The Raptor is about as cool as it gets, and it’s the best air superiority fighter the world has ever seen, but like the F-15C it was initially intended to replace, it’s an aeroplane without a meaningful mission in contemporary conflict,” said Scheff. When was the last time an American fighter engaged in air-to-air combat killed another fighter?
The Lockheed Martin F-35 outperforms its sister in this area. It was created as a real stealth multirole combat aircraft that can carry out strike and air superiority missions.
“The Raptor can accomplish this to a certain extent, but the 35 was built to do this.” The 35 is fundamentally better than the 22 in the same manner that the Viper is better than the F-15C. The mission is considered during the design of multirole aircraft. Air-to-air aircraft are mostly used as high-speed cheerleaders and built to fight a war we do not wage. At some point, the decision between which flight you would take comes down to this: would you rather do the work or be the fastest, worst cheerleader in the world? The 35 works well.
While most pilots will never have the opportunity to fly either the F-22 or F-35, some find the transition to a fifth-generation fighter more difficult than they may have anticipated.
Some NATO pilots who learned to fly Soviet-made MiGs say the F-35 is “just too much to take in.”Insider says that any pilot who switched to the F-35 would feel a “jump,” but some Polish MiG-29 pilots are having trouble.
The seasoned pilots cannot control the more sophisticated aircraft, just like old dogs who cannot learn new tricks.
How difficult is the switch from fourth to fifth-generation aircraft, and can seasoned pilots on outdated systems even handle it? It might be a future Quora question.
