F/A-22 Raptor Setbacks Tempered by Performance
Achievements
The news earlier this year that the F/A-22 program was $1 billion
or more over budget, resulting in reassignment of Lockheed Martin's
program manager and the U.S. Air Force general in charge of the
program, has been tempered somewhat by the fact that the Raptor
has met many of its technical goals and just recently received
orders for a third lot of aircraft. As of this date, the USAF
has ordered 44 production F/A-22s.
The F/A-22, which has been in development since in 1991-and only
added the "A" for attack in the last eight months or
so-has been troubled by cost overruns and schedule delays. As
the Raptor transitions to the Initial Operational Test & Evaluation
(IOT&E) phase, planned for August 2003, there are several
key risk areas that will remain under scrutiny.
At the top of the list has been software instability in the aircraft's
suite of integrated avionics. Earlier this year, a flight test
failed to validate progress that Lockheed Martin said had been
obtained in a laboratory, and it is yet to be seen whether the
prime contractor and its partners can achieve the goal of 20 hours
of successful software performance before IOT&E begins.
On the positive side, the F/A-22 fighter flight-test program has
for the first time successfully demonstrated between two Raptors
the capabilities of the intraflight datalink, a key component
of the Raptor's avionics suite that is designed to enhance a pilot's
situational awareness-and is another necessary milestone on the
path toward IOT&E.
Other technical setbacks include a restriction in the time spent
in high-speed flight testing because of overheating in the rear
of the Raptor, and the need to redesign the horizontal tail to
overcome an earlier incident where materials separated in the
tail and the shaft. Flight tests of the redesigned tail are scheduled
for first quarter of 2004.
The USAF plans to purchase 276 F/A-22s under the $42 billion-plus
cost estimate-a figure that has ballooned over the $36.8 billion
congressional cost cap. The U.S. Congress might have to raise
that cap if the Air Force is to buy all the planes it wants.
That said, USAF, General Accounting Office, and industry observers
all agree that the F-22 will meet or exceed its performance goals
by the end of its development program. The F/A-22 is superior
to the F-15C Eagle-the aircraft it is designed to replace-by being
less detectable (stealthy), capable of flying at higher speeds
for longer distances, and able to provide the pilot with substantially
improved awareness of the surrounding situation through use of
integrated avionics.
In testimony before Congress in April, Assistant Secretary of
the Air Force for Acquisition Marvin Sambur said: "The F/A-22
is meeting or exceeding all eight aircraft performance-related
key performance parameters," including supercruise, maneuverability,
sortie generation rate, radar cross section, payload, combat radius
and radar detection range.
The F/A-22 Raptor is being designed, built and tested by the USAF
and the team of Lockheed Martin (forward and mid-fuselage, armaments),
Boeing (wings and aft fuselage), Pratt & Whitney (engines),
Northrop Grumman (radar), TRW (COM/NAV/IFF) and BAE Systems (electronic
warfare suite). Final assembly and initial flight testing of the
Raptor takes place at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Georgia factory,
production headquarters for the F/A-22 program's contractor team.
The Raptor's low-observable control surface edges, antennas and
radomes are built in Palmdale, California, while its mid-fuselage
is built in Fort Worth, Texas.
The F-22 air superiority fighter will replace the F-15C air-to-air
fighter. The first Raptor squadron is scheduled to be operational
in 2005. The Air Force has not yet announced F-22 operational
bases, but candidates includes Langley AFB, Virginia; Elmendorf
AFB, Alaska; Eglin AFB, Florida; and Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
