Best Fighter???

[PT-MRX]

I think that all those fighters are excelent aircrafts, but, each one is the best for some markets and not so good for others.
I remember when the Brazilian government was chosing the fighter to substitute the old Mirages III. One example is the Gripen which showed very insuficient range to cover the brazilian territory, being better for the european small countries.

my best rgrds!!

[osuorsa]

for PT-MRX: yes, you are right on that the best fighter depends on the needs of a country but we can think it also in generally level...but as I have said many times before its very hard to say which one is the best because there's as many opinions as answerers...

BTW, I think one of the biggest shortlegs of the F-22 Raptor is that it is one-seated aircraft...and everyone here knows that one of the biggest lessons learned in recent wars is that you need two man in cockpit because there's just too much to take care off for one pilot in the modern air war environment including handling the aircraft, weapon systems, EW systems and taking good look for anti aircraft fire...so, for example, Russians, French, Britons and Germans have learned lessons from the wars fought recently and saw the need for the second crew member or WSO to help handling all these modern systems...I don't know why Americans haven't learned this according to their fresh F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, which both are one-seated...

[JCSVT]

Originally Posted by osuorsa

BTW, I think one of the biggest shortlegs of the F-22 Raptor is that it is one-seated aircraft...

You'd be surprised at how much easier the inofrmation is to handle with a good cockpit. Both the Eurofighter and F-22 have some of the most sophisticated electronics out there and pilots have praised the layouts of the two planes. The Super Hornet pilots are probably the most stressed at they do dual-role missions often and I haven't heard any complaints about the workload.

[osuorsa]

You haven't heard any complains about the new one-seaters because they doesen't have enough or not at all experience of the types in the real situations were you need your every single brain cell to sustain situational awarness. There will be times when the need arise for the two-seat variant to handle the modern and complex situations of information centered 'data war'. The term 'data war' means you get everything you need easily for every single member of the team and thus reduce work load. So, maybe but there's always a need for other pair of eyes in the cocpit and sky to accomplish given mission well. And when the Raptor become multi-role fighter it certainly needs the other pair of eyes to look out the systemes...

[Av8r]

every country has its own needs in an aircraft so it really depends on what "standards" you r going by.

[JCSVT]

Originally Posted by osuorsa

You haven't heard any complains about the new one-seaters because they doesen't have enough or not at all experience of the types in the real situations were you need your every single brain cell to sustain situational awarness. There will be times when the need arise for the two-seat variant to handle the modern and complex situations of information centered 'data war'. The term 'data war' means you get everything you need easily for every single member of the team and thus reduce work load. So, maybe but there's always a need for other pair of eyes in the cocpit and sky to accomplish given mission well. And when the Raptor become multi-role fighter it certainly needs the other pair of eyes to look out the systemes...

Have you seen how the Super Hornet, Raptor and Lightning II's cockpits are laid out? The pilots can easily handle the workload. The Hornet pilots have been doing multirole missions for years without complaint. The SH F models handle mostly A to A missions and the single-seat SH's handle A to G missions.

Yes, an extra pair of eyes are useful but the Eurofighter, Rafale, SH, Raptor, and others have no problem with single seats. Raptor pilots find that they don't have to work nearly as hard as when they were flying the F-15.

[osuorsa]

and for some reason many nations are still to by a big numbers of two seat fighters beside one-seaters...see the French Rafale purchase for example...
Yeah, Hornet was designed to be one-seated multirole fighter-bomber, but they also saw the need for two-seaters in combat action and the Marines got a squadron of F-18D G/A optimized fighter-bombers with missionized rear-seat and so on....

And yes, I have seen those cockpits many times and I think those are great improvements....

And what do you think about that Russia has set its main interest in fighter upgrading program to its two-seaters?

You need TWO men in combat environment to handle all the modern trheats...

[JCSVT]

Originally Posted by osuorsa

And what do you think about that Russia has set its main interest in fighter upgrading program to its two-seaters?

You need TWO men in combat environment to handle all the modern trheats...

Just because Russia does it makes it right? Maybe Russian cockpits are not as advanced and therefore two pilots are required to handle the information as their aircraft do not have the same level of sensor fusion as western planes.

You don't NEED two airmen/women in the cockpit but it is beneficial. One seat aircraft will also usually carry more fuel and reduced costs as you only have one pilot up instead of two.

[HanibalBG]

All new fithers (Eurofither, Rafale, Grifen,) have exelent electronics but they all have two seat versions for trining and more special operations(moustly graund atacs).F-22 has very limited graund atack capability soo it dasant need two seets. But it will be nice to have two seater in the formation no mather the mision.

[Pavel]

Just because Russia does it makes it right? Maybe Russian cockpits are not as advanced and therefore two pilots are required to handle the information as their aircraft do not have the same level of sensor fusion as western planes.

Apache is two-seater, no?