I confess I don’t have recent fighter time. I flew F-4s in the ‘70’s. I only flew against the F-14 once and that was inclusive. I did fly against the F-15 quite a bit. As a Marine, the F-15 was the a/c I would have liked to fly. It was, and still is, terrific.
The F-18 was a result of the search for a day VFR (visual flight rules: i.e., little reliance on radar and radar guided missiles, relying on IR missiles and gun) fighter. That was a result of the Mid-East War of 1967 (Arab-Israeli war). In that war, Day VFR fighters did well. By the time the fly-off of the YF-16 and YF-17 occurred, the ’73 war had occurred and the day of the Day VFR fighter was over. The Air Force picked the F-16, in part because it had the same engine as the F-15 and they needed an injection of money to fix the engine for both a/c. They put a good, small radar in it and put the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile on it. The Navy found the F-16 couldn’t be made to work on a ship and took a redesigned version of the YF-17 now called the F-18. They doubled the fuel capacity and enlarged it, but in my opinion, it was still too small. It had a very thin wing with automatic maneuvering leading and trailing edge flaps. It worked very well as a fighter, but when loaded up with external stores, caused too much drag limiting its range.
In my opinion, the F-14 went too far in the other direction. Movable wings are a big trade-off. Increased weight and complexity against some marginal improvements in performance. The radar, in its day, was pretty good, but it came out of the F-111, so it wasn’t exactly state of the art, and it was big and required a big airframe to carry it. The Phoenix missile was good in its day, but it weighed about 1000 lbs. It required a big a/c to carry it. It also came from the Navy version of the F-111. It has been retired for quite a few years now. As all a/c grow older, the maintenance costs increase. The F-14 is a very expensive a/c to keep in service.
I think, like Goldilocks, the Navy has gone through the too big (F-14), and too small (F-18A through D) and has hit on the just right size (F-18E/F). Is it the perfect fighter? Hardly. Any Navy fighter is a compromise. It is the same size as the F-4, but has a much better wing, thicker than the F-18A-D, to carry external stores, and more fuel than the old F-18s or the F-4, almost as much as the F-14. In my opinion, while it has a lot more power than the F-4, it is still probably a little under powered. It will, in similar configurations, fly rings around the F-14. With that capability, it has some magic systems to help it get the first shot.
First shot with something like the AIM-120 is a big deal. You take out a bunch of the enemy right off the bat, and break up the rest as they start running around trying to beat the missiles. While a gun is necessary, it is useful only after you have gone through your radar missile envelop, your IR missile envelop and find yourself in close with someone. Apparently, no one has found himself in that position lately, because, to my knowledge, all our air to air kills in the last couple of wars have been with missiles.
The Joint Strike Fighter could be interesting, but it must first survive the Washington battle field. It has had prototype fly-off, and they are building the first group of engineering development models. It is still years away from fleet use. The F-18E/F has been making carrier cruises for several years now.
The F-22 could also be very interesting. It is getting into operational service now. It has a lot of power, a huge wing for low wing loading, good speed and turn performance that should be better than the F-15. The radar, in combination with the low radar cross section, should guarantee it gets the first shot. Low radar cross section is one of these big time two edged sword deals, like swing wings. It certainly has advantages, but it also carries a lot of baggage as well. We shall see how it all plays out.
