JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - JUNE 02, 2004
Dawn rises for Raptor
MICHAEL SIRAK JDW Staff Reporter
Marietta,Georgia; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; and Washington, DC
Lockheed Martin and US Air Force (USAF) officials say they are working at a resolute pace to achieve the service's long-sought goal of having the F/A-22 Raptor multirole stealth fighter - the USAF's first new fighter design in about 25 years - ready for combat by the end of 2005.
Debates continue in some military and political circles over the Raptor's relevance and worth versus its price tag. However, Lockheed Martin officials say that developmental hurdles have been overcome and that a number of tasks are in progress to deliver the aircraft in time to meet the USAF's schedule.
"The programme is healthy, it's solid and it's moving forth with all the right vital signs," said Ralph Heath, Lockheed Martin's executive vice president and F/A-22 general manager.
The USAF says the aircraft is proving its merit in operational testing, which began on 29 April, and that it is impressing veteran fighter pilots who flew it in the evaluation trials at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB), California, and in training exercises at Tyndall AFB, Florida.
The Raptor's combination of advanced avionics, agility, robust sensors and around-the-clock stealth, as well as its ability to supercruise - to fly at supersonic speeds without afterburners - and a new paradigm in reliability, supportability and maintainability, will usher in a new way to conduct war from the air, USAF sources say.
"We're just scratching the surface of what this aircraft can do," said Lt Col Mike Stapleton, operations officer of the 43rd Fighter Squadron at Tyndall AFB. His unit is training a cadre of F/A-22 pilots, pilot instructors and maintainers with the first production-version Raptors coming from Lockheed Martin's production line in Marietta, Georgia.
USAF officials say, for example, that a single Raptor aircraft has been able to destroy multiple adversaries in mock engagements during operational trials. "We had five F-15 Eagles against one Raptor" in one exercise, Secretary of the Air Force James Roche said on 14 May. "The engagement was over in three minutes. None of the F-15s even saw the Raptor."
Raptor pilots are also discovering that attributes of the aircraft may change the manner in which they operate, said Col Stapleton, noting that they realise they have much more time to plot strategy and plan attacks since they receive an immediate consolidated picture of the battlespace via a single intuitive cockpit display that fuses all the aircraft's sensor data. In contrast, Col Stapleton said, the disparate sensors in legacy fighter cockpits demanded most of the pilot's attention just to acquire situational awareness.
The USAF intends to have two squadrons of Raptors - more than 50 aircraft including spare assets - operational around December 2005 at Langley AFB, Virginia. These aircraft will be able to engage aircraft and less-sophisticated cruise missiles with two AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles and up to six AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs), all carried internally. They will also be able to carry two 1,000 lb (454kg) Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) in place of four AMRAAMs and deploy them at subsonic speeds. Software upgrades will allow for a 'supersonic drop' capability about one year later. The Raptor also carries an internal M61A2 gun with 480 rounds.
The aircraft will operate at around 45,000- 55,000ft at a speed of around M1.5 without the need for afterburners, according to the USAF. Top speed is expected to be about M2.
Service elite
As JDW went to press, five Raptors were at Tyndall, with an additional 18 expected there by the end of 2005. Col Stapleton said that Raptor pilots are being chosen initially from among the service's elite. They will undergo three months of operational conversion training to learn to fly the aircraft. New air force pilots, who will be phased in at later times, will undergo a five-month instructional programme. The USAF would like to achieve a pilot-to-aircraft ratio of three-to-two, he noted.
Lockheed Martin says that aircraft production continues to ramp up at its Marietta facility. As JDW went to press, the company had 25 Lot 2 and Lot 3 low-rate initial production (LRIP) aircraft on its manufacturing line with tail numbers 4031 to 4055. Eight more have come off the line but are awaiting modifications and checkout before flying to Tyndall.
The company is adapting the line to incorporate these modifications, which were identified after the delivery of the initial production-version aircraft. To date the upgrades have been carried out at Tyndall.
Lockheed Martin is under contract up to Lot 4 LRIP production, which will encompass 22 aircraft commencing with tail number 4062. Rob Weiss, Lockheed Martin's deputy vice president of F/A-22 customer requirements, said that the company is presenting its Lot 5 proposal to the USAF. The service wants to purchase 24 Raptors in this lot, contingent on the level of funding that the US Congress approves for the programme in Fiscal Year 2005.
Full-rate production is expected to start with Lot 7 at rates of 32 aircraft per year.
Lockheed Martin officials project that the aircraft's average unit flyaway cost will be $125 million with engines and sensors and avionics over the life of a 277-aircraft procurement. Costs are sinking as the production rates grow, the company said, noting that Lot 3 aircraft cost about $130 million apiece.
As work on the Raptor continues, Lockheed Martin is also offering F/A-22-derivative concepts to the USAF as part of a request for information (RfI) on a next-generation 'global strike/global persistent attack capability' that the service issued on 29 April.
This capability, which could be fielded as soon as 2015, would serve as an interim solution until a future long-range strike system comes along decades later.
The USAF had stated previously that an enticing option would be a medium-sized bomber aircraft with a range of around 1,600nm, a large payload capacity and the ability to penetrate enemy airspace, operate in it and defend itself from other aircraft and surface-to-air missile threats while it attacks its targets.
In 2002, Lockheed Martin unveiled a concept, at the request of Secretary Roche, for a medium-sized bomber called the FB-22. While leveraging the Raptor's avionics, communications suite and radar, it featured a longer fuselage and delta wings (JDW 25 February 2004, 12 March 2003 and 29 May 2002). The FB-22 has a larger internal weapons bay for up to 30 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) compared with the eight that the Raptor will carry.
J R McDonald, Lockheed Martin's F/A-22 programme director, said that the company is presenting options in response to the RfI that maintain the Raptor's stealth and speed while potentially sacrificing some agility in favour of a larger payload capacity. These concepts are not limited to the original FB-22 proposal, he said. They include single- and two-seat aircraft with delta-wing and diamond-shaped- wing configurations. Options include longer bomb bays or converting the Raptor's side internal missile bays to carry SDBs.
There is also a concept that entails creating a low-observable bulge in the doors of the Raptor's main internal weapons bay underneath the centre fuselage so that the aircraft could carry two 2,000 lb (908kg) JDAMs.
JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - AUGUST 25, 2004
Northrop to build X-47B combat drone prototypes
ANDREW KOCH JDW Bureau Chief
Washington, DC
Additional Reporting Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC
Northrop Grumman assured its place in the battle for the US version of an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) on 18 August when it received more than $1 billion in funding to build three prototypes of its X-47B.
The contract, from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is for a Northrop-led team to develop and flight-test at least three full-scale flight-prototypes over the next five years.
Northrop is joined in the effort by Lockheed Martin and Pratt and Whitney. Boeing is already developing another UCAV called the X-45C under the same DARPA-led operational assessment phase of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) demonstration programme.
The J-UCAS is intended to field a stealthy UCAV with integrated sensors, navigation and communications capable of operating in the network-centric battlefield expected to emerge in the coming years. Key missions envisioned for the vehicles include suppression of enemy air defences, the ability to conduct surveillance deep into an enemy's denied airspace and precision-strike.
The vehicles, capable of operating from land bases or aircraft carriers, will have a combat radius of 1500nm, a weapons payload of 2025kg, an electronic warning system and integrated synthetic aperture radar.
In a related effort, the US Air Force's SensorCraft technology development programme plans to conduct a demonstration of an X-band radar antenna panel that is integrated into the structure of the J-UCAS air vehicle.
The initiative, dubbed the X-band Thin Radar Array advanced technology demonstration, envisages an operational assessment around 2007 of a 4ft2 (1.2m2) radar panel that will probably be integrated on both the Boeing and Northrop Grumman air vehicles, an air force official said.