F-22 vs F-15 | Mike "Dozer" Shower"

Former F-22A Raptor pilot, Mike "Dozer" Shower shares what it was like to go up against F-15s and also F-16s in the mighty F-22!
He also gives us a little insight into being the 2012 demo pilot.
This is a clip from Dozer's full interview from 4 years ago which you can watch here:
www.aircrewinterview.tv/mike-...
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#f22 #f15

[@matthayward7889]

3:30 “you got to be fucking kidding me” 😂😂😂 What a cool, cool guy. Imagine chatting to a bush pilot in Alaska about his flying, and he used to be an F-22 test pilot. Great interview.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers Matt

[@idiotamerican]

LOL 😂😂😂😂

[@EstorilEm]

Oh to be one of the first guys to ever get checked out in a Raptor. I wonder how that FedEx interview went? “So, tell us about your flying experience..” 🤣

[@sinepari9160]

LOL right?? I think you're qualified.

[@alantoon5708]

I met a couple of Alabama Guard F-16 pilots that went up against an F-22 one day. They were both "shot down" without knowing the F-22 was there...

[@gb7418]

Can an AWACS see the F22?

[@alantoon5708]

@@gb7418 probably so, depends on range and angle

[@perelfberg7415]

Stealth is an asset with out any dough but it is also that the opponents that they fly against are completely new to the tactics. Similar to fly against a new opponent that fight in a different way. To day there are tactics to counter it to some extent and also new tech is available on many platforms. Today Infra red is a must for example. And there are many others that ad to that and more to come. The Israelis said like 2019 that stealth only have about 5 more years to ve outstanding. After that come other aspect. Any very modular platform will do very good long term. Though that does not mean Stealth can be forgotten. Its still an asset to deal with for an opponent.

[@LRRPFco52]

@@gb7418 Not at distances outside of close range. 2 F-22As have far better battlespace SA than an AWACS platform. 2 JSFs have about 4 times better SA than 2 F-22As. There are some interesting pilot reports where AWACS called out various contacts at distance, and the F-22 pilot came over the net and told them what each one was down to 100ft elevation. AWACS doesn’t have that level of Flight Level resolution or PID. The PID parameters in a Raptor are game-changing compared to legacy 4th Gen fighters and AWACS platforms. F-35s have at least 3x the number of PID parameters, with 638 NCTR parameters when the initial avionics suite was IOC. The main advantage to AWACS is endurance for early warning, and acting as a networked node. The situational awareness the 5th Gen pilots have once the power is on in their cockpits exceeds anything AWACS have ever been able to provide. Rules of the new road..

[@LRRPFco52]

@@perelfberg7415 Some ignoramus in Israel, not the Israelis, made that baseless statement. Stealth isn’t a static technology that never evolves. Within airframe designs, the VLO characteristics have always been improved throughout the life of the programs, without any discussion about it. Low Observables vs sensors is a never-ending cat and mouse game, that the US got a very long head-start on decades ago, without any other major powers developing stealth platforms of their own. The A-12 is the starting point, which was developed from 1957-1963 before it started flying strategic reconnaissance missions. Then came the SR-71A, F-117A, B-2A, F-22A, and the JSF series. Russia and China didn’t start stealth fighter programs of their own until the 2010s, both of which just barely entered production.

[@evanfinch4987]

"You just validated my whole life's work."

[@damonstr]

The protectors of Western skies! The F-22 is a deadly AND sexy aircraft! Feels good to have them on our side.

[@user-gc5ui2pz4e]

Must be a BEAST,.. because the F-15 Eagle is 50 yrs old and still walks around with the Title.. 109-0

[@aLisgarite]

“Special test things come out.”

[@undeze]

Great to listen to.

[@sferrin2]

And then they go and kill the program at 190 jets. Awesome.

[@williamkillingsworth2619]

Didn’t need any more. No other potential adversary has yet to produce anything comparable in significant numbers. There are over 700 F-35’s currently built. And is currently topped produced Fighter on the planet. It would have been a waste of money to build more

[@LRRPFco52]

Secretary Gates was a KGB/Soviet asset dating way back in his career. Confirmed with former colleagues of his who worked for DARPA and other 3-letter agencies. China and Russia were very upset that the US was going to permanently base 200 F-22As in Europe and 200 F-22As in the Pacific, with 100+ on the East Coast, and 100+ on the West Coast able to plus-up both theaters, and another 150 for training and test purposes. Possessing that large of a fleet of F-22As in each theater would have given the US the ability to erase the regional air threats within 2 days or less, with no or very few Raptor losses. That represented a strategic threat that neither China nor Russia had any answer to, so they leaned heavily on their large traitor networks established in the US political and defense communities to get the Raptor killed before we could go into FRP (Full Rate Production). In FRP, the F-22A Block 50 and later would have been $92.3 million per unit flyaway. Instead, the broken F-15C fleet got flown decades longer than they were rated for even to the present, costing us more in lost opportunity and very high maintenance costs, with extremely high maintenance costs on the early production F-22A fleet that were supposed to be the test and training aircraft, not the frontline operational squadron airframes long-term. With no/few spare parts manufacturers, the mx costs are very high.

[@williamkillingsworth2619]

@@LRRPFco52 That many aircraft were unnecessary. Nobody still to this day has a counter to it in any sufficient numbers. Having 7-800 F-22’s would be like using a 300 WinMag to shoot a squirrel. I don’t care if gates is/was Russian communist in cahoots with the CCP wearing a German Nazi uniform... The small number of F 22s we have still dominate!

[@LRRPFco52]

@@williamkillingsworth2619 If you understand the forward deployment posture of USAF units in Europe and the Pacific, then you will see how it was necessary to have way more F-22s than we currently have. The original plan called for 750 of them, not 800. That would replace the F-15A/B/C/Ds one-for-one so they could be concurrently retired as Raptors rolled off the line. A large number of F-22s are not combat-coded, since they are used for conversion training, with a small number for weapons and developmental testing, as well as fighter weapons school at Nellis. What really makes our force structure dominant is the mass-production of F-35s, with foreign partners operating them in those same forward regions like in the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Roughly 50% of the F-22 fleet is down for maintenance at any time, so that leaves only a few dozen forward-deployed Raptors that are FMC. Of all the fast-movers, F-35As have the highest FMC rates in USAF, followed by F-16C (not including pods). F-22A is the lowest FMC rate bird last I looked, with the highest CPFH for the reasons I stated earlier.

[@williamkillingsworth2619]

@@LRRPFco52 What you are not considering is there was no opponent for them to fight that required huge numbers. So your data points completely miss the point it was not actually necessary. Which history proves there wasn’t a need. As they have still yet to be used in active air to air combat. With F-35’s coming online and being produced in great numbers. We are good! They are more than capable of countering potential adversaries. Who else on the planet, fields modern Stealth fighters in the Numbers the US does? Nobody! F-22 served its purpose, and was built for a mission that dissolved.

[@bcfmef]

an assignment at the Pentagon = career ender

[@atf0013]

Nice

[@SandMartin]

what will the air combat look like if the f-22 has an opponent f-35? or a pair of f-22s against a pair of f-22s? how will they find each other?

[@robertgaudet7407]

Visually :p

[@Rdenham1976]

The USAF plans to retire 33 F-22's becuase since we didn't buy enough to start with lets get rid of 15% of the ones we do have WTF?

[@casualguy3938]

Source?

[@Rdenham1976]

@@casualguy3938 it has been widely reported the USAF wants to mothball 32 Block 20 F-22s in the 2024 budge. google it

[@rst4u1999]

So I understand they cant detect the F- 22's. Though shouldn't the Eagles get a missile detected alert, and launch flares?

[@koc988]

C and E eagles don't have missile warning gear and the radar on the F-22 is an LPI (low probability of intercept) That frequency hops every few milliseconds making it more difficult to detect via RWR by the time the missile turns on its own radar for final intercept it is much to late to defend

[@ryanrowson2007]

instead of f 22 and f 15 , I just saw two men talking in this video.

[@hrvojegrgic5111]

That sounds like "Ghost of Kyiv" might actually be F-22 flying out of Hungary or Poland.

[@williamjordan5554]

He's dead. Shot down.

[@Akm72]

F-22: OP and should be nerfed! 😅

[@405bikelifeallin5]

Some random bush pilot with the Ferrari of Bush planes shows up and starts bragging to this guy in just his plane. Lmao Son that's nice. Lmao 😂😂😂😂

[@jhill4874]

But Congress, in their immeasurable wisdom, cancelled the program, and Lockheed lost the plans. The F-35 may be stealthy, but it's not an air superiority fighter.

[@casualguy3938]

Lockheed lost the plans? What? someone threw them in the trash can?

[@jhill4874]

@@casualguy3938 Maybe those plans are hidden with the missing raw film footage of Apollo 11...?

[@perelfberg7415]

I value this interviews alot but you have a very good point. Meny tend to be bias and many interviewers might not have have studies journalism and thus not ask the tricky questions or fight for the actual answer. I find the Fighter pilot podcast to be like this. Don't ever follow through on the tricky questions or the ones that are critical. Remember a F35 interview with Billi. It would have been so interesting to hear him talk of Pros and Conns from his angle but it all was just him talking like it dies not have any. Again... thats when I think the interviewer should be abit harder

[@LRRPFco52]

What you’re advocating is that someone who isn’t familiar with the actual weapons employment of both F-15Cs and F-22As ask hard and detailed questions about that subject from a guy who spent his whole career flying F-15Cs and F-22As, who also attended F-15C Weapons Instructor Course, who also is a MiG-killer. Watch the full interview for more clarity and depth. He also expressed how they were skeptical whether or not the VLO features would work on the F-22A up against the most capable fighter Radar in existence at that time (outs of the APG-77 on the Raptor). Fighter pilots at that level tend to be biased towards what actually works, not what brochures or contractors claim, because they’ve seen all kinds of things fail.

[@hookinmouth1]

Umm did i interpret that correctly that two F-15s were trying to run away and he chased them down at mach 1 of closure? If the F-15s were balls to the wall running, no way hes catching them. If so definitely not at mach 1 of closure unless he snuck an SR-71 out of a museum.

[@LRRPFco52]

F-15Cs combat-configured with 2 EFTs on the wings down at lower altitude are lucky to get to Mach 1.5, so if they had just pushed through the Mach and he was at high altitude running them down like dogs, it makes perfect sense. He was a high hour F-15C driver, F-15C Weapons Course patch-wearer, and MiG-killer, so when he talks about taking the Raptor against the F-15C, understand that he knows the F-15 better than about 95% of all F-15C pilots at the time. That’s why he was picked to go to the F-22A initial tactics development team at Edwards.

[@mikelong5207]

Altitude advantage and a clean airframe , not remotely doubtfull, the max speed of any aircraft is at a particular weight, clean and at a particular altitude, they don't do mach 2.5 everywhere, thats fantasy.

[@LRRPFco52]

@@mikelong5207 We were on the F-15 CTF at Edwards, as well as involved with it in West Germany in the operational squadrons to a degree. I've never known an Eagle Driver who has seen Mach 2.5, and we were primary focused on weapons employment and envelope expansion. See into that as much as you will.

[@Pouncer9000]

I just have to ask, during these exercises I assume no real missiles are launched; seeing as they are not stealthy how does that affect the outcome? Any 4th gen fighter will know if an active seeker is launched right?

[@perelfberg7415]

Atleast Gripen Do and I assume the others do as well. Not only seekers but also the the rocket is fired so also no emitting seekers get detected at launch.

[@0MoTheG]

@@perelfberg7415 Launch? The F-35 can, if there are no clouds, but nothing else AFAIK.

[@0MoTheG]

The F-22's and F-35's radars are also 'stealth'. Google LPI

[@Pouncer9000]

@@0MoTheG I was thinking about the A2Amissiles, those aren't stealth, same ordinance as on the rest of the fleet?

[@0MoTheG]

@@Pouncer9000 Yes, same AIM-120. But that is not a problem as that is just the terminal guidance.

[@jeffspicolli593]

If he was a connouseur of bush planes as he is fighter jets he would be flying a 180 Skywagon in Alaska not a Maule.

[@hookinmouth1]

"WWIV will be faught with sticks and stones"- Albert Einstein. If two stealth foes cant see each other on radar then history will repeat itself bringing back the art of WVR dogfighting.

[@LRRPFco52]

WVR rear quadrant maneuvering fights have been dead for about 20 years. It progressively went that way once all-aspect HOBS missiles started proliferating. Especially with Helmet-HOBS missiles, nobody is trying to get WVR of each other, especially in the 4th Gen fighters. Not all stealth is created equally. He who has been working on, fielding, and improving stealth designs for the past 70 years will prevail. Most WVR engagements from The Great War to Desert Storm were executed from unobserved attackers.