F-22 Raptor

www.popsci.com...
Check out the behind the scenes at Lockheed.Some cool pix.

[Edited on 6-5-2004 by John bull 1]

F22= FRED-22 (Finacial Rediculous Economic Disaster)



[Edited on 27-10-2003 by SectorGaza]

nice ride...120m$ seems too high a price

Originally posted by SectorGaza
F22= FRED-22 (Finacial Rediculous Economic Disaster

)



[Edited on 27-10-2003 by SectorGaza]

As you may think it is Sector...so be it....I'll respect that non-factual statement.
But lets look at the bright side shall we........
1) its currently under production....
2) currently has 12 already, built, and assigned and in use by the Air Force.
3) steadily rolling of the assembly lines and in numbers....
4) The "Raptor" will not be matched by any foreign aircraft for the next 15-25 years. Air dominance will and is assurd.
5) Russia can only sit back and build what their budget will allow....most of the current 4th and 5th Gen fighters are "side-lined" due to "lack of funds." Besides that, the Russian Air Force is undergoing a massive, enormously expensive moderization......I would hazard to say that by the time that Russia seriously fields a 5th Gen fighter such as the "Raptor", the kinks will have been worked out of the "Raptor" and the Air Force will be working on 5.5 and 6th Gen fighters.

You can call it what you will, but the current productions speaks loudly enough for itself......getting the message yet?


regards
seekerof

[Edited on 27-10-2003 by Seekerof]

come on.. how many will be pruduced? 100? 150?

[Edited on 27-10-2003 by SectorGaza]

I should think at least 600 for the US Air Force. Overseas... dunno. Not many.

It aint' the quantity,its the quality that matters.

The Raptor Is Great Nuthin more needs to be said

Oh yeah baby.....
The "Great Nuthin" is steadily rolling off the assembly lines and becoming the "Great Sumthin".......

Link to 24 assembly line pictures...:
www.popsci.com...




regards
seekerof

Originally posted by Lampyridae
I should think at least 600 for the US Air Force. Overseas... dunno. Not many.

Only country overseas I have heard of that are going to get the Raptor for sure is Israel.

The amount to be purchased at this time for the USAF is somewhere around 339

Only Isreal no one else.

Originally posted by PARALYZ
It aint' the quantity,its the quality that matters.

quantity has its own quality

If the Us buy 750( that was the original plan) they will only cost as much as a f-16, But if they only buy 300-400 it will cost much more.

www.f22-raptor.com...

[Edited on 28-10-2003 by Raptor]

Production "learning curve" and R&D costs. Economy of scale, my friend.

Heres a bit more against that philosophy of "quantity and quality"......

"In 1980, the USAF initiated the Pave Pillar program. The Pave Pillar program had the goal of developing an advanced avionics architecture that could be built out of standard modules containing next generation digital integrated circuits. This approach would allow navigation, communications, sensors, weapons systems and management subsystems to interact with each other over a local area network (LAN). This would allow processed information to be presented to the crew upon request. Instead of managing complex sensors which can overload the pilot with data, the pilot could concentrate on flying the plane and achieving the mission. Pilot workload can be dramatically reduced in this fashion. Luckily, the F-22 will be the first aircraft to benefit from the Pave Pillar program and increase computer processing power in leaps and bounds. In fact, the F-22's common internal CIP's (Common Internal processors) will be as much as 100 times faster than the most modern avionics suite on the F-15 E Strike Eagle.

Amazingly, the F-22 will come equipped with two Hughes CIP's, with additional space for a third if necessary. Accommodating the CIP's will be an increased data bus bandwidth. The DBB will be able to transfer 50MB per second, in comparison to the meager 1MB max transfer rate on the F-15 Strike Eagle. Unlike previous generations of fighter aircraft radar, the F-22's APG-77 radar is not a stand alone system. The radar antenna will be one of many sensor arrays, including the threat warning system and the electronic warfare equipment. The information from these sensors will be processed by the CIP's, and relayed to the pilot via fused, flat, color LCD Multi Function displays. The F-22 will contain no less than six of the color LCD's, with only 3 backup analog displays for emergencies. The color MFD's will give the pilot a "God's eye" view of the battle situation unlike any modern fighter jet.

Mentioned in the above paragraph, the APG-77 radar is unlike any other fighter radar in the skies. It cannot be rivaled. The radar antenna is a elliptical, fixed active array which contains 1,500 transmit & receive (TR) modules. A individual TR module is essentially a mini radar in its own right. In comparison to an object, each TR module is about the size of an adult finger. A remarkable feature of the APG-77 radar is that it contains no mechanical linkages. Anotherwards, the actual antenna does not move. This does not have any effect on the performance be warned! It is able to sweep 120 degrees of airspace maximum, at 6 bar levels (change in altitude) instantaneously! In comparison to the F-15 Strike Eagle's APG-70 radar, it takes 14 seconds to scan that amount of airspace. The APG-77 is capable of performing this feat by forming multiple radar beams to rapidly search the airspace.

The Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) capability is without a doubt the most impressive feature of the APG-77 radar. With conventional RWR/ESM systems, it is extremely difficult to detect LPI pulses. This translates into a advantage for the F-22. The F-22 will be capable of performing an active radar search on equipped RWR/ESM equipped fighter aircraft without the target knowing he is being illuminated. The APG-77 does not emit high energy pulses in a narrow frequency band like conventional radars. Instead, it emits low energy pulses over a wide frequency band. This is called spread spectrum transmission. The way it works is, when multiple echoes are sent back to the radar, the radar's signal processor converts the signals together instead of individual pulses. The amount of energy reflected back to the target is about the same as a HPI radar, but because each LPI pulse has considerably less amount of energy and does not necessarily fit the normal frequency pattern, the target will have a difficult time detecting the F-22. This becomes more evident in a BVR engagement. In fact, the F-22 can launch an AMRAAM missile without even establishing a lock-on. The unfortunate target won't even receive a missile inbound warning until the missile has activated its own radar and is on final intercept. By this period, it is almost impossible to evade the missile. The pilot will have no other choice but to eject.

The F-22 and its APG-77 radar will also be able to employ better Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR). This is accomplished by forming incredibly fine beams and by generating a high resolution image of the target by using Inverse Synthetic Aperture radar (ISAR) processing. ISAR uses Doppler shifts caused by rotational changes in the targets position to create a 3D map of the target. The target provides the Doppler shift and not the aircraft illuminating the target. SAR is when the aircraft provides the Doppler shift. Thus, the pilot can compare the target with an actual picture radar image stored in the F-22's data base. This ingenuitive process is possible courtesy of the F22's CIP's.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, listen up. The F-22 will have the first integrated avionics suite ever flown on a combat aircraft. The Northrop/Grumman-Texas Instruments APG-77 radar, Lockheed Martin electronic warfare suite and the TRW communications/navigation/IFF subsystems are all included. Over one million lines of computer code will comprise the system. The electronics will be liquid cooled, an much lighter than the old electronics found in fighter a/c such as the F-14, F-15 & F-16. The F-22's CIP's will process 700 million operations per second, which is roughly equivalent to four Cray supercomputers. An integrated countermeasures set will be controlled by the CIP's. Rapid systems programming and upgradeability are available in the time of a crisis. The onboard jammer, communication, navigation, & IFF antennas, in addition to the RWR is contained on smart skins on the wings.

Included in the Communications/Navigation/Identification system is an Inter/Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL) that allows all F-22s in a flight to share target and system data automatically and without radio calls. One of the original objectives for the F-22 was to increase the percentage of fighter pilots who make 'kills'.With the IFDL, each pilot is free to operate more autonomously because, for example, the leader can tell at a glance what his wing man's fuel state is, his weapons remaining, and even the enemy aircraft has targeted. Classical tactics based on visual 'tally' (visual identification) and violent formation maneuvers that reduce the wing man to 'hanging on' may have to be rethought in light of such capabilities. This link also allows additional F-22 flights to be added to the net for multi-flight coordinated attack."

Article:
"F-22 Avionics" ---- at least what has been revealed anyhow...
Link:
f22rap.virtualave.net...


Sweet dreams...sleep tight.....



regards
seekerof

[Edited on 31-10-2003 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Abrams

Originally posted by Lampyridae
I should think at least 600 for the US Air Force. Overseas... dunno. Not many.

Only country overseas I have heard of that are going to get the Raptor for sure is Israel.

The amount to be purchased at this time for the USAF is somewhere around 339

That number may go up in a short while.

I'm not so sure of that tbh, but I think they should buy the numbers the Airforce wants. They would be a lot cheaper per plane that way too.. but the tanker deal getting hung up in a compromise will mean the Airforce will lose some money they thought they were going to have so I am not hopeful of extra purchases down the road as tankers are actually more of a priority at this moment.

[Edited on 2-11-2003 by Abrams]

you know what is the mayor problem with this plane it is not the plane itself but if it has to be refilled with fuel then it is furnable because the US airforce uses adepted commercial planes and not an own design. What I am trying to say is what is the big deal if the refueling aircraft isn't stealty. What they need now is a stealth refueling craft.

I think it's the coolest plane out. too bad they are not going to build enough of them. Someone said Isreal was going to get some?
morphious

[Edited on 2-11-2003 by Morphious]

Originally posted by PARALYZ
It aint' the quantity,its the quality that matters.

ditto