F-22 91-4006 Upgraded to Block 20

[neptune]

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... et-440178/

The US Air Force has taken a Lockheed Martin F-22A out of storage and plans to return the Raptor to flying status by the end of this year, the service confirms to FlightGlobal. The service’s fiscal year 2018 budget justification documents states the F-22 program will add another operational test aircraft to the fleet by taking one aircraft out of flyable storage. The USAF selected F-22 serial number 91-4006, an engineering, manufacturing and development model aircraft with a Block 10 avionics configuration. It has been parked at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Modifications worth $25 million to upgrade the parked Raptor to a Block 20 avionics standard have already started, a USAF spokeswoman tells FlightGlobal. The service will also modify basic systems including hydraulic, electrical and flight controls.

[neptune]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13 ... st-raptors

The USAF Is Adding a Newish F-22 to its Fleet of Flight Test Raptors

By Joseph Trevithick
August 10, 2017

The U.S. Air Force .. has pulled one the jets out of mothballs in order to expand its operational test force as work continues to expand the capabilities of the combat-coded jets. The Air Force confirmed to Flight Global that it was in the process of rehabilitating a Raptor, with the serial number 91-4006, at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Edwards is home to the 411th Flight Test Squadron, which oversees the F-22 Combined Test Force (CTF)... The Raptor, which is a Block 10 aircraft, had been in flyable storage. An Air Force spokesperson told Flight Global that it would take $25 million bring the plane’s avionics up to Block 20 standards, as well as update its electrical and hydraulics systems and flight controls.

In its budget request for the 2018 fiscal year, which it released in May 2017, the Air Force noted the plan to bring the older Raptor back into service. The service also requested $54.6 million for the F-22 CTF, a nearly $6 million increase over money it received for the test force in the previous fiscal cycle. Expanding the CTF is extremely important for the future of the F-22s, especially with no plans to restart the production line and build new Raptors with more modern systems. Of the 187 jets that remain in service, only 125 of them are combat ready at any one time, with the bulk of the rest going through the upgrade or maintenance pipelines or sitting in flyable storage...... In the early 2000s, the CTF had seven F-22s of its own for test purposes. By September 2016, this number had dropped to just four aircraft. . A fifth full-time test jet will be a boon to ongoing upgrade work, most notably the Increment 3.2B software. The Air Force says this update will be the “biggest capability upgrade since reaching Initial Operating Capability in December 2005.”

In addition to the 3.2B software, the Air Force’s budget request says the CTF will support improvements to the F-22’s sensor suite, a set of National Security Agency-mandated updates to encryption capabilities of the aircraft’s communications gear and data links known as Update 6, and work on the Flutter Excitation System (FES) and Common Range Integrated Instrumentation System (CRIIS), according to the official budget documents. ..Whatever the F-22 CTF does find itself doing in the coming year, it will have a fifth aircraft to help, and that can only be good for the fleet as a whole.

Of the eight EMD test a/c, EMD F-22A 91-4003 is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force and Raptor 91-4001 was retired from flight testing in 2000 and subsequently sent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) for survivability testing, including live fire testing and battle damage repair training. 91-4004/4009 are block 10.

[sferrin]

Sooo glad we shut down and dismantled the F-22 production line.

[talkitron]

Here is a document from 2016 listing a large number of F-22 programs, including the obscure Flutter Excitation System (FES) and Common Range Integrated Instrumentation System (CRIIS) mentioned in the article. There is also a brochure on CRIIS from the vendor.

http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y201 ... B_2017.pdf

https://www.rockwellcollins.com/~/media ... chure.aspx

As to the FES, here is quote

Ground tests were also performed on the airplane's flutter excitation system. This system sends commands to the flight controls to oscillate or vibrate any of the control surfaces on the airplane while it is flying. The system can induce controlled pulses that simulate atmospheric turbulence and other disturbances. Like plucking a banjo string, the flutter exciter causes the aircraft structure to vibrate.

The damping, or dying out of the vibrations, is measured to ensure that the structure is free from flutter - a large amplitude vibration that can be destructive. The system makes certain that the aircraft is structurally stable throughout its flight envelope.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... JqiUG-7YtQ

[mixelflick]

Gates should lose his pension for his treacherous decision to stop F-22 production.

These people get the big money to make the right decisions, and he blew it - big time. Instead, he's comfortably retired and probably telling everyone he made the right decision. God it really frosts me he escaped without any repercussions. Oh sure, you can say it was more than just Gates, but at the end of the day it was his responsibility.

He let the air force (and the nation) down...

[steve2267]

Gates should lose his pension for his treacherous decision to stop F-22 production.

These people get the big money to make the right decisions, and he blew it - big time. Instead, he's comfortably retired and probably telling everyone he made the right decision. God it really frosts me he escaped without any repercussions. Oh sure, you can say it was more than just Gates, but at the end of the day it was his responsibility.

He let the air force (and the nation) down...

I don't see it that way. The brown smell stuff rolls downhill. IMO, the culpability lays with the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave at that time.

I sure wish we had built more F-22s. I wish the production line was still open or viable. But the country was under extraordinary financial stresses at that time. As I recall, the decision was to shutdown F-22 production, but as part of the "deal" or decision, F-35 production would not be touched. If the F-22 had remained in production, I wonder if the F-35 would have survived -- it might have been too easy to cancel F-35 rather than re-baseline it. (As I recall, I believe the F-35 re-baselining occurred after the decision to terminate F-22 production, but I may be mistaken.) I think it came down to -- terminate F-22 at 187 units, and protect F-35 at all costs. Otherwise, now we might have several hundred F-22s and no F-35. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre.