F/A-22 Raptor

Categories: Stealth aircraft | U.S. attack aircraft 1990-1999 | U.S. fighter aircraft 1990-1999

The F/A-22 Raptor is a highly maneuverable stealthy fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. It was originally envisioned as an air-superiority aircraft, but is equipped for ground attack, electronic attack, and signals-intelligence roles as well.

Development

Intended to be the leading United States advanced tactical fighter in the early part of the 21st century, the Raptor is certainly the most expensive fighter ever. As of April 2005 the total development and production cost of the program is at least $70 billion, and the number of planes to be built has dropped to 180, raising the cost per plane to several hundred million dollars each [1] [2] (Some say the estimate should be somewhat lower because some research and development support the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well.)

The prototype YF-22 Lightning II, nominal successor to the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, won a fly-off competition against the Northrop/McDonnell-Douglas YF-23 for the Advanced Tactical Fighter contract. In April 1992, during flight testing after contract award, the first YF-22A prototype crashed while landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The test pilot, Tom Morgenfeld, was not injured and the cause of the crash was found to be pilot-induced oscillation. The name “Lightning II” persisted until the mid-1990s, and for a short while, the plane was also dubbed “Rapier”.

The F-22 became the “Raptor” when the first production-representative plane was unveiled on April 9, 1997, at Lockheed-Georgia Co., Marietta, Georgia. First flight occurred on September 7. In 2002, Air Force leaders changed the Raptor’s designation to F/A-22. The new designation, which mimicked that of the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet, indicated that the Raptor would have ground attack capability.

The first production F/A-22 was delivered to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, on January 14, 2003. As of late 2004, 51 Raptors are in service, with 22 more ordered under fiscal year 2004 funding. F/A-22 DIOT&E (Dedicated Initial Operational Test and Evaluation) occurred on October 27, 2004. The first production F/A-22 crash occurred at Nellis Air Force Base on December 20, 2004, during takeoff. The pilot ejected safely moments before impact. As of April 2005, the accident is still under investigation but investigators are pointing to a software malfunction, not pilot error. Initial Operational Capability (IOC) is scheduled to occur around December of 2005.

The dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofans with afterburners incorporate supercruise and thrust vectoring. Thrust vectoring is in the pitch axis only, with a range of ±20 degrees. The maximum thrust is classified, though most sources place it at about 39,000 lb_f (173 kN). Maximum speed is estimated to be Mach 1.72 in supercruise mode; with afterburners, “greater than Mach 2.0” (2,120 km/h), according to Lockheed Martin. The Raptor can easily exceed its design speed limits, particularly at low altitudes; max-speed alerts help prevent the pilot from exceeding the limits. Gen. John P. Jumper, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, flew the Raptor faster than 1.7 Mach without afterburners on January 13, 2005. The absence of variable intake ramps may make speeds greater than Mach 2.0 unreachable, but there is no solid evidence for this. Such ramps would be used to prevent engine “flame-out”, which is caused when too much air extinguishes the engine’s “pilot light”, but the intake itself may be designed to prevent such flame-outs. Former Lockheed Raptor chief test pilot Paul Metz says the Raptor has a fixed inlet.

Avionics include Raytheon and Northrop Grumman AN/APG-77 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.

General information

Procurement

The United States Air Force originally planned to order 750 ATFs, with production beginning in 1994. The 1990 Major Aircraft Review altered the plan to 648 aircraft beginning in 1996. The goal changed again in 1994, when it became 442 planes entering service in 2003 or 2004. A 1997 Department of Defense report put the purchase at 339. In 2003, the Air Force said that the existing congressional cost cap limited the purchase to 277. In 2005, the Pentagon is saying it will buy 180 aircraft, which would save $15 billion but raise the cost of each plane. This plan, which has yet to receive Congress’ approval, would deliver the final aircraft in 2008 and hold open the possibility for new orders up to that point.

Unlike past tactical fighters, the opportunity for export is virtually non-existent. Very few allies would even be allowed to import such a high-tech weapon; fewer could afford it.

It is believed that the Australian government considered the F/A-22 as a replacement for Australia’s F/A-18 and F-111s. Several independent defense and strategic policy advisory groups are pressuring the government to procure the plane, hoping that the government will think along the same lines as the Australian government in the 1960s did when it was the only country besides the U.S. to order the similarly high tech and expensive F-111. However given that the government has already committed financially to the F-35 JSF project, it is unlikely that they would also seek to purchase F/A-22s.

Variants

Based on the F/A-22, the swing-wing NATF was proposed for the U.S. Navy to replace the F-14 Tomcat, though the program was subsequently cancelled in 1993. Another more recent proposal is the FB-22, which would be used as a deep strike bomber for the USAF. There has yet to be any word on whether the USAF plans further development of the program.

Combat systems

The Raptor’s combat computer systems and power are unmatched by any other fighter planned to be developed by 2020. The AN/APG-77 AESA radar, designed for air-superiority and strike operations, features a low-observable, active-aperture, electronically-scanned array that can track multiple targets in all kinds of weather. The AN/APG-77 changes frequencies more than 1,000 times per second to reduce the chance of being intercepted. The radar can also focus its emissions to overload enemy sensors, giving the plane an electronic-attack capability.[3]

The radar’s information is processed by the two Raytheon-built Common Integrated Processor (CIP)s. Each CIP operates at 10.5 billion instructions per second and has 300 megabytes of memory. Unprecedented amounts of information can be gathered from the radar and other onboard and offboard systems, filtered by the CIP, and offered in easy-to-digest ways on several cockpit displays, enabling the pilot to remain on top of complicated situations. The Raptor’s software is composed of over 1.7 million lines of code, most of which concerns processing data from the radar [4].

Weapons

The Raptor is designed to carry air-to-air missiles in internal bays to avoid disrupting its stealth capability. Missiles are launched by hydraulic arms that hurl them away from the jet so quickly that the weapons-bay doors pop open for less than one second. The plane can also carry bombs such as the large JDAM and the new Small-Diameter Bomb. It can carry non-stealthy weapons on four external hardpoints, but this vastly increases the plane’s radar signature. The Raptor carries a General Electric M61A2 Vulcan 20mm Gatling cannon in the right wing root.

Testing

In mock combat the F-22 Raptor showed that it would be a very effective fighter, taking on up to eight F-15s at once and easily winning. In one well publicized incident, an F-15 pilot flying against the Raptor located his F-22 adversary only after the Raptor flew directly over his cockpit. In real combat this pilot would probably be dead, as the Raptor’s pilot had no trouble locating and locking on to the F-15 with his powerful radar.

The extremely high cost of the F-22 is not as high as it may seems when one realizes that the B-2 Spirit costs approximately US$2.2 billon per plane. Also, less use of radar absorbent materials on the F-22 means the maintenance costs of the F-22 should be less then that of the B-2 or the F-117. So the F-22 could be considered a less expensive stealth aircraft, or a very expensive fighter. Whether the F-22s superior survivability will outweigh its cost remains to be seen.

Comparisons

For a detailed comparison of the Raptor and other fighters, see Comparison of 21st century fighter aircraft.

The F/A-22 is claimed by many sources to be the world’s most effective air-superiority fighter; however, government secrecy makes comparisons with other aircraft difficult. Among its advantages are its sustained high speed, thrust vectoring, sensors, stealth features, advanced avionics, and ability to exchange data with other U.S. systems.

While making a complete assessment is impossible based on publicly available information, there is a study by the UK's DERA comparing the Eurofighter Typhoon to other contemporary fighters; in it, the F/A-22 significantly superseded all other types (including the Typhoon) in combat performance.

Maneuverability in real-world combat is hotly debated, with some experts claiming it is inferior to the Typhoon. It is not known whether USAF claims about Raptor’s superior maneuverability are accurate; many argue that, in any case, today’s anti-air missiles make maneuverability less important. In March 2005, USAF Chief of Staff General John P. Jumper, then the only person to have flown both the Typhoon and the Raptor, talked about these two aircraft. He said that "the Eurofighter is both agile and sophisticated, but is still difficult to compare to the F/A-22 Raptor".

Initially, its rising cost had forced the USAF to buy fewer F/A-22s than planned, and seemed likely to slow or curtail other programs, such as air-superiority unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). But since the aircraft has become operational, and production normalized, costs have now gone down, whilst UCAV development and testing has proceeded at a rapid, unabated pace.

Specifications (F/A-22 Raptor)

General characteristics

• Crew: 1
• Length: 62 ft 1 in (18.9 m)
• Wingspan: 44 ft 6 in (13.6 m)
• Height: 16 ft 8 in (5.1 m)
• Wing area: 840 ft² 78.04 m²
• Empty: 31,670 lb (14,365 kg)
• Loaded: 60,000 lb (27,216 kg)
• Maximum takeoff: 80,000 lb (36,500 kg)
• Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofans, 35,000 lb_f (156 kN) thrust each

Performance

• Maximum speed: Mach 1.8+ (USAF [5]), 2+ (Lockheed [6])
• Cruising Speed: Mach 1.5 (USAF [7]), 1.72 (Lockheed [8])
• Range: miles ( km)
• Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,288 m)
• Rate of climb: ft/min ( m/min)
• Wing loading: lb/ft² ( kg/m²)
• Thrust/weight:

Armament

• Gun: 1× M61A2 Vulcan 20 mm Gatling gun with 480 rounds
• Missiles: 6× AIM-120C AMRAAM, 2x AIM-9 Sidewinder
• Bombs: 2× 1000 lb JDAM
• 4× external hardpoints can be fitted to carry weapons or fuel tanks, each with a capacity of 5,000 lb (2,270 kg)

Popular culture

The F/A-22 Raptor made an appearance in the 2003 Marvel comic based movie Hulk and as the new body for Starscream in Transformers: Energon.

The F/A-22 Raptor appeared in Matthew Reilly's 1998 novel Ice Station.

The F/A-22 Raptor is used in the Westwood Studios/EA game Command & Conquer: Generals and its expansion pack Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour.

The F/A-22 Raptor is the signature jet in the popular jet fighter game Ace Combat 04 (as "F/A-22A"). The jet and its bomber counterpart, the FB-22, appears in Ace Combat 5.

External links

• F/A-22 Raptor Congressional Research Service report, 5 January 2005
• History of the F-22 program
• Stealth fighter crashes, a December 2004 article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal
• [9] (PDF). Lengthy critical commentary on the Raptor from a former Air Force Colonel involved in aircraft development projects.

Related content

Comparable aircraft: Mikoyan Project 1.44 - Sukhoi Su-47

Designation series: F/A-18 - F-20 - F-21 - F/A-22 - YF-23 - F-35

See also:

• FB-22
• List of military aircraft of the United States
• List of fighter aircraft
• X-44 MANTA

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