Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Dude, seriously, most of it is software anyhow. Do you have any idea how electronic systems work?! You make it seem like all they can do is stuff more crap in the plane. Software updates don't add weight or mechanical complexity. And things are getting even smaller still on the hardware side. IBM recently announced they had made 100 GHz transistors out of graphene and another group announced they had demonstrated the first molecular transistor. You DON'T require new builds. You DON'T require re-engineering. The insides are modular for the most part anyhow. You don't think engineers can come up with a piece that you can swap in there and have the same inputs and outputs while giving VASTLY superior capability? You're DEAD wrong. It's not even funny how completely wrong you are on that point. Engineers do that all the time.

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I don't know anything about the F-22 (OK, I WAS briefed on the program) but if it comes to upgrade experience, look at what happened to the F-16. Today's airplane is certainly different than the ones that Gums flew and today it is still one of the most capable 4th gen airplanes around.
fisk

On 5 January 2001, Raptor 4005 flew with the Block 3.0 software, which was the first combat-capable avionics version.[67] In June 2009, Increment 3.1 was tested at Edwards Air Force Base. This provided the F-22 a basic ground attack capability through Synthetic Aperture Radar mapping, Electronic Attack and the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb. The F-22 Raptor Increment 3.1 Modification Team with the 412th Test Wing received the Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award for upgrading 149 Raptors.[68] However the software for the upgrade will not be completed before 2010.[69]

"The current F-22A modernization plan will result in 34 Block 20 aircraft used for test and training, 63 combat-coded Block 30s fielded with Increment 3.1, 83 combat-coded Block 35s fielded with Increment 3.2, and 3 Edwards AFB-test coded aircraft. Consideration is also being given to upgrade the 63 Block 30s to the most capable Block 35 configuration."
—Extract from Congress dialogue upon the Air Force F-22 Fighter Program.[70]
The next step will be Increment 3.2 with an advanced SDB capability, automatic ground collision avoidance system (Auto GCAS) to enable low level operations and the ability to use the AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-120D AMRAAM missiles. However, the F-22 will still lack a helmet mounted cueing system to allow the aircraft to take advantage of the AIM-9X's high off-boresight capability, they may integrate the JHMCS later on.[71][72][73] Defense Daily reported that the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System was deferred on the F-22 because of maintenance overhead.[74]

Upgrading the first 183 jets to the 3.2 upgrade is estimated to cost $8 billion.[75] In May 2009, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley gave testimony to Congress that this would be paid for through the early retirement of legacy fighters.[76] The retirement of 254 fighters over the next year would have reduced the Air Force below the 2,250 fighter minimum requirement for national strategy,[77] but the Fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill prevented this.[78] Increment 3.2 is expected to be fielded in FY15,[70] and it will also include the Multifunction Advanced Data Link that will tie together future U.S. penetration forces of stealth aircraft and unmanned platforms.[79] In July 2009 the USAF announced that three business jets had been deployed with the interim Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) to allow communication between F-22s and other platforms, until MADL is installed.[80]

Lockheed Martin is working on an upgrade the AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD) system to provide situational awareness and defensive Infrared Search and Track along the same lines as the F-35's SAIRST, but with less resolution.[81] The unfunded Increment 3.3 upgrade will include automatic target tracking and so bring the F-22 fleet to full fifth generation situational awareness.[71] On 16 September 2009, Gates said "Our commitment to this aircraft is underscored by the 6 and-a half billion dollars provided over the next few years to upgrade the existing F-22 fleet to be fully mission-capable."[82]

LMAO @Tinito! Sure thing. I know for fact now that you aren't experienced in any way with real life engineering processes. Simple software update? Okay, tell me what kind of software update would make an iPhone work with Verizon or Sprint? Do you get it now? And you completely missed the structural issues. It's much more than just software. There are component and even structural changes that need validation. What, you thought the tens of billions was just for code? Please.

FYI I have an iPhone. It's true you can't make it run on Verizon thru software, because the signal is in a frequency the iPhone's radio chip cannot "hear". An F-22 has got an AESA radar capable of operating in multiple frequencies and which is probably the most advanced radar in a production fighter. Quite a comparison, isn't it?

http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solut ... _paper.pdf

Structural issues? SOME F-22's have structural issues, mostly the first that came off the line. These have been addressed as they affected the lifetime of the aircraft, not the effectiveness. But as far as upgrades go, even the iPhone can get a new chip and get signal from Verizon. It's just a question of replacing the chip.

So, you think Apple can just put a CDMA chip in their HW and go just like that right? There is a reason I'm dumbing this down to a comparitively simple cell phone FYI. Do you get it yet?

-DA

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-101 ... subj=Crave

If these guys can unlock the chip just like that, it should be pretty academic for the folks at Cupertino to put CDMA in the iPhone. Why haven't they done it? E-X-C-L-U-S-I-V-I-T-Y. They have a contract with AT&T. But who did Apple go to first, before actually releasing the iPhone? Verizon. They didn't think it was hard to make it CDMA then, and evidently they didn't think functionality would have been much different than it is now with AT&T. The fact is it isn't all that hard to change the baseband chip (and whatever other dependant architecture) to suit CDMA, just like it isn't so hard to ugrade our existing fleet of F-22's. Your dumbing down did not change that your argument is wrong.

Thanks for making my point Tinito.

-DA

Ok DA, keep drinking that Kool-Aid. Must be some good stuff.

Did you bother to actually read that article you googled? Notice something about what it took to make it work and the cost... Smile

Quote:

you are just plain misinformed about the F-35 and it's certainty

With all due respect to the F-35 Program line engineers - as it does not reflect them; but what exact 'certainty' is this... you lost me. In truth, the definition of certainty is continuously being modified virtually every year. The goal posts are being moved intra-Fiscal year.

The true drivers: Strategic, Economic, financial, Technical and political variables are the constantly developing factors affecting and determining the changing (reducing) procurement outlook both short-term and long - by default! Hence, it does NOT have to do with shrewd, calculating revised requirements, which are changing the estimates. And therefore, it (the Program's schedule/pricing) is fluid and NOT nearly certain... hence the risk and 'gamble' factor, various critics/analysts are vehemently calling into check, see??

Now, I know you and I apparently have an ego clash of sorts and perhaps part of this is mere intellectual contest or personality, which is OK... but please, let's try to keep things respectful, keeping pompous, snide remarks from tainting the discourse and not look for cheap shots?

As for your 'question'....

Quote:

On what bases are you able to say that the current fighter force through 2020 will not be able to adequately deal with threats

I honestly have to challenge your core premise, i.e. that mere 'adequacy' is or should be the national strategic requirement. I would think many observers here would agree that this focus is flawed and even counter to security/deterrence posture. Why? In part because if you (i.e., JPO/DoD) artificially fiddle around too much with some form of a notional 'adequacy' quotient in order to 'stay the course', by definition you are just multiplying unacceptable risks and asking for major 'whoops', down the line.

The question which should be asked therefore, should be more 3 dimensional in scope, and of a more strategic paradigm. That is, to treat today's USAF air power posture as a perceived (or misperceived), overwhelmingly superior, uncontested deterrence value in some kind of national defense bank, which can simply be drawn down over the next decade or so as an expended asset, is a flawed, troubling perspective IMHO. The consequences of which, could likely result in unintended, miscalculated and potentially irreversible destabilization and strategic weakness (going forward according to the QDR, in a FAR more lethal and capable threat matrix, than anytime post-cold war).

What I'd like you to focus on then, as to your very legitimate 'question', would be: "how should and can DoD/USAF best maintain its current perceived Air power balance-of-power and global deterrence value, vis-a-vis its tacair recapitalization strategy and plan over the next 10 years." My direct, calculated answer to this: definitely not by 'staying the course' via the current, well-intended but errant, JPO/DoD acqusition scheme. Major red flag for Congress here. (e.g. This will most probably produce a capability gap far greater than currently estimated).

Now you, I and 10 others here might have 12 different answers to THAT question, and of course, there is not necessarily a SINGLE right answer being implied... but I would only like to reframe the paradigm in that perspective and feel that is one of the fundamental flaws in the current approaches.

GeoGen again, you are trying to obfuscate things with wordy post filled with $5 words. The bottom line is that while YOU may not like the use of the word adequate in the context that I used it, it is exactly the appropriate context. As a warfighter who has had to fight wars, about the best any warfighter can say or hope for in war is to have tools that are adequate. Adequate is a well enough understood word and the context is clear. I told you that the force is adequate. It's very much a binary value in this context. If we war sometimes between now and 2020 for instance, whether we win or lose, it won't be because of our fighters or lack thereof of a specific type. We have the most technologically advanced and best trained pilots in the world fighting within a system that's many leaps and bounds beyond the nearest rival. Quite suitable for the specified task. IOW adequate. Back your assertion to the contrary minus the editorializing. In fact it's much more likely that a bottleneck to operationally available fighters would come from insufficient tanker assets rather than fighter numbers when you consider the mis manages USAF procurement strategies. Speaking of which, F-35's can be built as rapidly as 200-300 per year with ease. The rate that they enter the force is not a fixed value and as much as some of it's detractors would like otherwise for various reasons the USG will have the option to get them as fast as it wants. That's an issue of politics and management and has nothing to do with a specific fighter being prefered over the other.

From: http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041151

But the overall expected result for the F-22's involvement at Red Flag is to foster and maintain an "unfair advantage" over the enemies of the United States, said Major Miller. "Our joint forces don't want a fair fight," he said. "We want every fight we enter to be patently unfair - to the other guy."

This doesn't sound like we are going with adequate.
fisk Smile

fiskerwad wrote:

From: http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041151

But the overall expected result for the F-22's involvement at Red Flag is to foster and maintain an "unfair advantage" over the enemies of the United States, said Major Miller. "Our joint forces don't want a fair fight," he said. "We want every fight we enter to be patently unfair - to the other guy."

This doesn't sound like we are going with adequate.
fisk Smile

It's possible to make fighters fly at M3.0+ yet the F-22 doesn't have that listed as a requirement. I suppose someone thought sub-M3.0 was adequate. CONTEXT. Not to mention that the word adequate has a very binary meaning. Something is either adequate or it is not.

smh
-DA

Numbers don't really mean much. If I am a sniper well camofluged(stealth), and I can pick off targets at will then it is a moot discussion. Obsessing with numbers is silly when you constantly have the tactical advantage and standoff range to deal with threats. It allows you to engage or disengage at will. This is where most posts are shortsighted and paradigm locked. It has been said many times before that the F-22 is a new beast, and that new tactics have to be employed in order to exploit it's capabilities. Same will be of the F-35. These ain't your daddies old guns.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Russian Stealth Fighter and premature shutdown of F-22