ricnunes wrote:disconnectedradical wrote:Why would they retire the F-22 in 2030 if upgrade funding goes to 2031? Again, it doesn’t matter how good you think the F-35 is because it’s not a replacement for the F-22 and is not as good for air to air. The F-22 is getting a long range IRST, EW, and ComNav upgrades and will be the first to integrate the AIM-260 JATM, and it has superior air to air missile capacity.
The only replacement for the F-22 is the NGAD, the F-35 doesn’t matter in this. The F-35 won’t match an upgraded F-22 in air to air especially once it gets its IRST, so there’s no way they would retire it before NGAD becomes operational. The USAF doesn’t consider it to be an F-22 replacement, period.
I don't agree that the F-35 is not as good for air to air as the F-22 at least in the wide concept of "air-to-air role".
Even if the F-22 gets an IRST and this is a very big IF (apparently nothing is written on stone as we speak, regarding this) there may not be enough internal space in the F-22 in order to be equipped with an (internal) IRST. This can be read here:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4 ... y-promisedBack in 2017, Ken Merchant, who was then Lockheed’s vice president for the F-22 program, told Air Force Magazine that “we really don’t have the real estate” to fit an internal IRST in the jet, at least in an installation comparable to the Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) in the F-35.
The F-22 will get an IRST, this is literally called out in FY23 USAF budget documents where long range advanced IRST is specifically spelled out under the sensor enhancement program of record.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f ... ts-testershttps://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/Portals/84/ ... Y3kw%3d%3dVol 3 Page 665 is F-22 Sensor Systems
As part of the F-22 Rapid Prototyping Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) program, previously known as the Capability Pipeline, Sensor Systems improves sensor capabilities to maintain air superiority and preserve first look, first shot, and first kill capability. This includes developing and maturing advanced Infrared Search & Track (IRST) sensor capabilities to provide the F-22 with an asymmetric sensing advantage against potential adversaries while continuing to deliver on its unmatched maneuverability.
The F-22 Sensor System programs utilize a rapid acquisition construct leveraging commercial best practices such as agile and lean. This allows the F-22 Raptor enterprise to develop, test, and field software/hardware from multiple programs (product lines) using a scheduled cadence for capabilities as they mature.
Don’t know why there’s so much doubt about the F-22 IRST when it was explicitly called out in budget documents and we’ve seen the actual pods themselves tested and they’re clearly a stealthy design. An internal IRST is better but it’s probably too expensive and if the pods can house IRST and also have other capabilities like ESM/ECM and CommNav, it may end up being much more powerful overall. With these upgrades the F-22 will be clearly be superior in air to air than F-35, since it will have the IR sensor and other enhancements while having tremendous performance.
ricnunes wrote:So basically in order to equip the F-22 with an IRST which could be as good as the one fitted in the F-35 you'll have to equip it with an external/pod IRST which would obviously increase the F-22's RCS. Or, instead with an IRST that could eventually be fitted internally in the F-22 but would always be inferior to the F-35 IRST.
And this not to mention the integration of the IRST with the sensor fusion which in the F-35 would always be superior. So here's something (IRST + sensor fusion) that the F-22 would never be better than the F-35.
It will be a podded solution, but the pods are carefully carefully shaped for VLO and likely have other functions like ESM/ECM, CommNav, and will be no worse when it comes to stealth than the wingtip AIM-9X/ASRAAM that F-35 carries for air to air mission. For a marginal increase in RCS it will get a bunch of additional capability, including IRST that was specifically called out in FY23 budget. The pods are quite slick and low profile that they’re practically the drag equivalent of an F-16 with a pylon mounted AIM-120, which is about DI of 30 so quite minimal impact.
Also this is a dedicated IRST, so I don’t know how you can say it will be worse than the F-35’s EOTS, or that the fusion will automatically be worse. Once the upgraded F-22 gets the IRST and other improvements, the F-35 won’t match it or replace it in air to air, and that’s not what it’s designed for anyways.