I agree with Magoo that a split fleet is the way to go. My proviso to the RAAF is to slow down on the F-35. They are talking about buying it very very early on in its production schedule. This is my main concern. If the F-35 runs into any number of technical problems which are normal and understandable considering the complexity of modern fighters than the RAAF have a sizeable headache. I believe it is far better to wait until the yanks and the poms have it in squadron service and are working through fixes for all of the usual hiccups that occur before we purchase it. The F-35 has a lot of hard yards ahead of it.
For the sake of argument a combined F-22 & F-18 E/F/G or F-22 & F15E/SG/T is worth condiering I believe. A article in Air and Space October/November 2005 "The raptor arrives- debriefing the pilots who got the first crack at the FA-22 by Carl Hoffman" is interesting. Interview in part with Major Robert Garland FA-22 divisional commander......F-15's and F-16's fly in close visual formation because theyre not stealthy, they must work together to scan the airspace in front of them."In an F-15 you live and die by putting your radar in the irght piece of sky to find threats and ID them" says Cabral. But looking from the ground to 60,000 feet - 120 degrees of sky - takes the F-15C's radar 14 seconds. Flying within visual formation, the flight lead takes the low half and the wingman takes the high half. A sensor called the radar warning receiver indicates if an airplane or a SAM is looking at you. Flying at 500 knots (575mph), Cabral says he alternates between the RWR and radar, while using "my eyeballs and moving my head to look for stuff. If the radars pick something up- bandits are merely green blips,and you dont know if a blip is one airplane or two together- I have to ask; Do I need to defend myself? Is it a threat? Or do I need to call an AWACS and give them the information?"
Flying anf fighting in the F-15 is "task prioritization" Cabral continues. "You have to generate a mental picture of the airpsace and battlefield in your mind. Sometimes I even literally sketch a picture on my kneepad, all while talking on my comms and cross checking the system."
In the raptor , on the other hand the radar sweeps 120 degrees of sky instantly and computers synthesize the incoming data and display the results on a single eight inch square color display. Bandits are red triangles , their flight path , altitude and relative speed are apparent at a glance. Friendlies are green circles. Unknown aircraft are yelow squares, other FA-22's are blue, SAM sites are depicted as yellow pentagons , the sizes varying relative to the distance at which the radars can pick up the stealthy raptors. The raptors radar range is classified but Stapleton says he has "seen targets beyond 320 miles". Attack and defensive displays respectively on the right and left of the main display can show tactical information in even more detail. The attack display for instance can show all tracked aircraft "tracks" in the current shoot list, which tracks you've deployed missiles against and what the status of those missiles is.
Says Dave "shotgun" Lopez a pilot in the 43rd " The airplane is just a huge sponge in the sky soaking up information."
Raptors talk to one another over a secure digital data link, so every raptor in a formation knows about the others; how much fuel a wingman has, which weapons have been fired, even which enemy aircraft have been targeted, "everything he sees, I see and vice versa", Cabral says.
Because of the aircrafts stealth and its knowledge of what others are doing, Raptor formations can be much more widely spaced than F-15 formations, the aircraft can stay beyond visual range of one another - whats known as "detached mutual support" "typically were outside of five miles from each other in different chunks of the sky"
I aplogise for the length of this post however I found the above interesting and hope others do as well. If as magoo suggests that a split fleet is possible than considering the above wouldnt it be prudent to have an aircraft that guarantees air superiority and can target an opponents air defence system backed up with modern second tirer non stealthy types to do all of the heavy hauling.
Thanks