Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
Looking ahead, the Air Force intends to maintain three blocks of F-22s in its fleet. Today there are four. The earliest Block 10 standard, used for training, will be upgraded to the Block 20 configuration, joining Block 30 and Block 35 aircraft, say officials in the F-22 program office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
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Toward that end, the service plans spend $7 billion on F-22 modernization over a five-year span starting in Fiscal 2010, David Ahern, director of portfolio systems acquisition in the Pentagon's weapons-buying shop, told the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee on May 20.
As of mid-May, the 141st production F-22 had rolled off Lockheed Martin's assembly line in Marietta, Ga. Under the currently planned program of record to buy 187 F-22s, manufacture of the final Raptor would be complete in early 2012, said Vince Lewis, chief of capabilities planning and integration in the F-22 program office. Factoring losses to date, the Air Force will have a total of 186 Raptors. Most will be spread out among combat wings at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; Hickam AFB, Hawaii; Holloman AFB, N.M.; and Langley AFB, Va. There are also F-22s used for testing, in addition to the training birds at Tyndall.
Today, 29 Block 10 aircraft are at Tyndall. Miller said they will be converted to Block 20s as part of the common configuration upgrade program. This effort is aimed at standardizing the different avionics and processors used in these earliest F-22s so that it will be easier for the Air Force to install future software updates in them and they are less burdensome overall to maintain. This work is scheduled for completion by 2013.
Modernization goals for the combat-coded F-22s are to add to the aircraft's air-to-ground prowess and bolster its inherent air-dominance mission via software upgrades, some hardware tweaks, and integration of new weapons, Lewis and Miller said.
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The blocks are distinguished by avionics and software differences as opposed to major hardware variations. Still the differences in build between the earlier and later models would mean that some upgrades in the earlier aircraft would require substantial work.
As a result, Miller said the program office has begun exploring the “80 percent solution”for the earlier aircraft that would yield “most”of the benefit “without tearing the whole airplane apart and rewiring it or laying new fiberoptics.â€
The current focus of upgrades is Increment 3.1. This package is already in flight testing, with operational testing anticipated for next year and retrofits probably starting in Fiscal 2011, Lewis and Miller said. It will add the small diameter bomb to the Raptor's weapons loadout, incorporate synthetic aperture radar modes for ground attack and geo-location capabilities, and improve pilot-aircraft interfaces.
The follow-on, Increment 3.2, is in the early stages of requirements analysis with Air Combat Command. Around November, the Air Force expects to define the content of this upgrade, said Lewis and Miller. Among its enhancements, Increment 3.2 is expected to add the AIM-9X air-to-air missile to the Raptor's quiver and incorporate the multi-function advanced data link on the aircraft. MADL will allow the Air Force's B-2, F-22, and F-35 stealth platforms to securely pass digital data to each other and to no-stealthy aircraft and ground units.
The program office also has notional plans for an Increment 3.3 upgrade, said Miller. But its attributes will depend on the final composition of Increment 3.2. [Editado: al final el 3.2C será el 3.3]
Beyond that, the program office has no additional upgrade plans on the books, according to Lewis and Miller. But Air Combat Command is exploring what the aircraft might look like further out in its service life, they said.
In the past there has been talk of such refinements as exploiting the Raptor's advanced electronically scanned array radar system for robust electronic attack and extending its unrefueled range in stealth mode. Today, the Raptor can carry external fuel tanks, but they are not stealthy.
Lewis and Miller said, when specifically asked, that there are no plans on the books today to install items like side-staring radar arrays in the aircraft
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The F-22 was built to have a structural life of 8,000 flight hours. With a projected usage rate of about 335 hours per year, the aircraft is expected to last about 24 years, depending on how hard or easy it is flown, according to Lewis and Miller. Lockheed Martin is examining what it would take to extend the service life to 10,000 flight hours, they said.
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Lewis also praised the F-22's “superbly performing”F119 engines, which are built by Pratt & Whitney.
“We are talking about one of the most reliable engines ever made,”he said. “They just don't break.â€
Miller noted that the aircraft's aerodynamic performance “has been superior,”too.
that there are no plans on the books today to install items like side-staring radar arrays in the aircraft
In the past there has been talk of such refinements as exploiting the Raptor's advanced electronically scanned array radar system for robust electronic attack
F-22 Raptor Program Cancellation: Will we learn from it?
By David Crane
defrev (at) gmail (dot) com
May 29, 2009
While Defense Secretary Robert Gates' decision to halt production of the costly Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor low-observable/stealth fighter aircraft is perhaps not the best long-term strategic decision he could have made, it's certainly understandable. Given the U.S. government's''and thus DoD's''current money crunch vs. the program's high cost and lack of current combat-utility in Iraq and “Stan”(Afghanistan), cutting the Raptor program's reported $3.5 billion per year cost certainly has some logic to it. Some programs simply have to go, and we might as well start with the expensive ones that don't have any seeming immediate tactical or strategic utility for the two wars we're currently fighting, right? Let's face it, air superiority is not exactly an issue right now in either theater. We've got the air, and we don't need F-22s to maintain it.
So, what's wrong with cancelling the Raptor? Well, for one thing, we finally got the production cost down to approximately $143 million per aircraft. If they cancel the F-22 program at 187 total aircraft''56 aircraft short of the 243 aircraft the U.S. Air Force had stated as its requirement''the F-22 Raptor will really come in somewhere around $350 million apiece, with the last four aircraft coming off the line at an estimated cost of approx. $200 million per, due to the $147 million “end-of-production expenses”that will be rolled into their procurement price. Understand that the Air Force originally wanted 750 aircraft, but they wittled that number down to 442 aircraft, then 381, then 243, and then 183, before bring that number back up to 187.
This leads us to the second reason why F-22 Raptor program cancellation is a bad idea. Strategically, 187 F-22 Raptors simply isn't an adequate number for a future war against China and/or Russia, and the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), also made by Lockheed Martin, simply doesn't have the Raptor's air-to-air combat capability, so it can't fulfill the same air-superiority role against the latest Russian fighters, let alone their Gen-5 fighters that are currently either under development or on the drawing board''and Russia likes to export their fighters. DefenseReview would therefore feel much more comfortable with a quiver of at least 1,000 Raptors for a war against the Dragon or the Bear. Both countries are currently developing low-observable, supermaneuvarable 5th Generation fighter aircraft, and Russia's latest 4th-Gen. Sukhoi and MiG aircraft are arguably superior to our latest F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft in a number of aspects.
But, having stated the above, do we have any sympathy for the Air Force, Lockheed Martin, or Boeing? No, and here's why. First, it's they're own fault. They brought this situation on themselves. The fact is that the F-22 Raptor took WAY too long and cost WAY too much money to develop, period, end of story. There is simply no reasonable explanation for it to have taken almost 16 years for the F-22 to have entered service from the time of contractor selection. Actually, it really took about 19.5 years if you start the clock from the Air Force's request for proposal (RFP) in July of 1986, which resulted in the YF-22 and YF-23, and over 24 years if you start the count from the inception of the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in 1981.
There is simply no justifiable reason why ANY new tactical fighter aircraft, or any new combat aircraft of any kind, for that matter, should take longer than 5 years to develop from initial concept to combat (production and procurement). And it definitely shouldn't take longer than 5 years for any aircraft system to go into production from the time the Air Force selects a contractor. Don't agree? Well, here's our retort, consisting of four examples:
1) The North American Aviation (NAA) P-51 Mustang, the most advanced piston-engined fighter aircraft of World War II (WWII) was developed in approx. 120 days. That's 4 months, folks. Wikipedia provides more specifics: “The prototype NA-73X was rolled out just 117 days after the order was placed, and first flew on 26 October 1940, just 178 days after the order had been placed — an incredibly short gestation period.â€
2) The Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe (Swallow), the world's first operational jet fighter aircraft and the most advanced fighter aircraft of WWII went operational within 5 years from the start of development. This was a truly revolutionary aircraft for its time, and was arguably more revolutionary than the F-22 relative to contemporary aircraft of both models.
3) The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was brought from concept to production by Lockheed Skunk Works as a black project within 5 years. The SR-71 and its precurser aircraft (the A-12 and YF-12A) were truly revolutionary aircraft in a number of ways (design aspects, speed, capability, materials, manufacturing requirements, maintenance requirements, etc.), every bit as revolutionary as the F-22 Raptor, if not more so, relative to their contemperary aircraft.
4) The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15 Eagle, our most advanced and capable 4th-Gen. fighter aircraft (and a very large leap ahead of the F-4 Phantom), went into production within 5 years of contractor selection.
So, what happened with the ATF and subsequent F-22 Raptor programs in the 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's? In a word, racketeering. In another word, corporatism. Here's one more: corruption, corruption of the U.S. military procurement system. Somewhere along the line, someone (or a number of people) somewhere in the U.S. military industrial complex discovered that they could accomplish a number of objectives by dragging system (including aircraft) development time out over many more years, instead of developing and fielding a finished product as quickly as possible. The private sector/contractors figured out that they could make a lot more money, squeezing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars from the Department of Defense (DoD) before ever going into production. After all the development money, the actual production contract was just a bonus, the icing on the cake, if you will. And, the public sector/military folks realized that they could safeguard or prolong careers and create a more advantageous public-sector-exit/private-sector-entry strategy for themselves. Synergy. Of course, you can apply this to pretty much all areas of current U.S. military procurement.
And so went the F-22 Raptor, which has cost the U.S. government approx. $11 billion''that's “billion”with a “bâ€''for Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) alone, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). That's before you even get into production! According to GlobalSecurity.org, “as of 2002, DOD had [already] spent $26 billion of the $69 billion planned for the F-22 program.”$69 billion…for an aircraft program.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is the F-22 program's suppression of evolutionary 4th-Gen. figher aircraft design concepts. The F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE) is a perfect example. What, you think Boeing just came up with Silent Eagle in the last few months? Anyone reading this who doesn't think that significant capability and performance upgrades haven't been available for the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon, and F/A-18 Hornet''including low-observability/stealth upgrades, thrust vectoring, canards, and upgraded flight software and systems, (for supermaneuverability), conformal fuel tanks (CFT), integrated flight and fire control (IFF) and ramjet missiles with tail control, just to name a few''for the last 20-25 years while the F-22 Raptor has been ravenously and rapaciously eating taxpayer dollars, well, let's just say I've got some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you. All of a sudden, just as the Raptor is getting cancelled, here it is (Silent Eagle)! As the Church Lady might say, “Well…isn't that convenient!â€
Of course, the F-15 Silent Eagle is only the latest in succession of F-15 and F-16 upgrade/improvement/modernization concepts. It's been preceded by the F-15 ACTIVE (Advanced Control Technology for Integrated Vehicles), F-15 S/MTD (Short Takeoff and Landing/Maneuver Technology Demonstrator) a.k.a. STOL Eagle, and the AFTI F-16, just to name a few. “AFTI”stands for “Advanced Fighter Technology Integrationâ€, by the way.
Note: DefenseReview has been informed by an aerospace insider that an even lower-observable/stealthier F-15 than the Silent Eagle was flown across the continental United States without detection by radar during the 1980's, and that it's possible to make an F-15 just as low-observable/stealthy as an F-22. Since we only have one source and no confirmation or documentation on this '80's-era low-observable F-15, we have to consider it as an unconfirmed/unverified report for now, no matter how trustworthy our source is (but this source is very trustworthy). If anyone out there has any more information on this unconfirmed low-observable F-15 project, we'd love to hear from you on it.
The bottom line is that we could have had F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s with low-observable design upgrades, thrust vectoring, canards, conformal fuel tanks, IFF, better missiles etc. a long time ago had these types of upgrades to our 4th-Gen fighter aircraft not been considered a threat to our 5th-Gen fighter program (F-22 Raptor) and therefore suppressed. In other words, F-22 Raptor program survival trumped viable upgrades that would have brought our 4th-Gen. aircraft into flight-capability parity with the latest Russian Sukhoi and Mikoyan fighter aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI Flanker-H and Su-35 Flanker-E, and Mikoyan MiG-29OVT, and MiG-35 Fulcrum-F.
So, while Defense Review likes the F-22 and thinks we should build more of them (again, at least 1,000) to be help to ensure U.S. air dominance even if China and/or Russia become a serious military threat or enemy in the future, we're not going to cry about it, since the Air Force and contractors (Lockheed Martin and Boeing) could have developed the F-22 much more quickly and at significantly lower cost. If they had done it the right way, we could have had operational Raptors by the 1996-1997 time frame and had the full compliment of 750 aircraft''or possibly even DefenseReview's desired 1,000. Let this be a lesson to the United States Air Force. Do it right, do it better, next time.
Think about it. If another country can develop a next-gen fighter in 5 years, but it takes us 15-25 years to develop one, that puts us at an obvious and very significant deveopment-cycle and cost disadvantage, and potentially a strategic warfighting disadvantage, as well, since the technology might be obsoleted by other countries' tech by the time development is done. So, U.S. Air Force, give us an operational next-gen aircraft (fighter, CAS, tanker, transport, whatever) within five years. That's 5 years from concept to combat. We need to be able to do that, and we can do that. After all, we're still the United States of America, at least for the time being.
DefenseReview would therefore feel much more comfortable with a quiver of at least 1,000 Raptors for a war against the Dragon or the Bear. Both countries are currently developing low-observable, supermaneuvarable 5th Generation fighter aircraft, and Russia's latest 4th-Gen. Sukhoi and MiG aircraft are arguably superior to our latest F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft in a number of aspects.
He said under his plan—to cap F-22 production at 187, shed more than 250 legacy fighters, and rely on the F-35 production line henceforth as the sole active source of advanced stealth fighters—the US will still be left with a “numerical and technological edge”that will remain “extremely strong and far superior to that of any potential competitor for at least the next 15 to 20 years.”In fact, Gates said the US will have “roughly 1,200”fifth-generation combat aircraft in 2020, while “the Chinese will have zero.”And in 2025, the Chinese will have “a few hundred,”while the US will have “1,700 ... plus another 1,000 fourth-generation aircraft,†he told the airmen during the town hall meeting he held during his stopover at the base on the final leg of his week-long trip to the Asia-Pacific region.
There is simply no justifiable reason why ANY new tactical fighter aircraft, or any new combat aircraft of any kind, for that matter, should take longer than 5 years to develop from initial concept to combat
DefenseReview has been informed by an aerospace insider that an even lower-observable/stealthier F-15 than the Silent Eagle was flown across the continental United States without detection by radar during the 1980's, and that it's possible to make an F-15 just as low-observable/stealthy as an F-22.
El Sr-71 y el F-15 tampoco añaden nada a lo existente anteriormente. Son el desarrollo maximo de unas tecnologias conocidas, los motores ramjet llevaban probandose desde los años 20 de manera teorica y desde los 40 practica, los motores se basan en los mismos conceptos clasicos que en los demas modelos de su tiempo, la electronica no es mas que la evolución de lo existente, no hay nada rompedor o novedoso en ellos, la forma de volar, las tacticas y las tecnicas siguen siendo las mismas que con el Phamtom solo que mejoradas.
poliorcetes escribió:Nadie ha dicho que el I+D sea barato o sencillo. Pero el I+D es el componente de todo nuevo desarrollo, y a resultados superiores también les preceden medios superiores (léase, ordenadores aplicados al diseño). La diferencia decisiva en la que hace hincapié el post es que con más medios que nunca, se tarda más tiempo que nunca en acabar el ciclo de desarrollo de un producto.
poliorcetes escribió:Del F15 me parece discutibles ciertos aspectos, pero decir que el SR-71 no añade NADA a lo existente... si comparamos al SR-71 y al F-22 con sus precedentes, sería complejo hablar de cuál supone un salto mayor, pero decir que el SR-71 no aporta nada es un interesante ejercicio de wishful thinking. Empezando por las entradas de aire, siguiendo por los materiales o las características stealth... pero vamos, estoy convencido de que los detalles los conoces mucho mejor que yo.
poliorcetes escribió:Por supuesto que el tipo es provocador en su exposición de los abusos de los desarrolladores, aunque ni mucho menos es una opinión aislada en los escalones bajos de los tres servicios estadounidense. Lo que no tiene equivalente en España es el paso al sector privado de oficiales en puestos claves de decisión, no al menos a ése nivel.
poliorcetes escribió:Me temo que le has dado la vuelta a la cuestión hasta convertirlo en una cuestión muy diferente (negar la dificultad del i+d). No puedo imaginar ninguna razón que podrías tener para negar los abusos crecientes de las empresas del sector de defensa en relación a los tres servicios, con lo que tengo que decir que estoy un poco desconcertado
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