The whole avionics suite of the F-22 is now obsolete, and will cost
another $3.5 Billion to 'upgrade' thats the cut from the $11.7 Billion
thats been bandied about.

Do you have anything to support that contention? There is a bit of a
difference between wanting to improve the computers during the spiral
development process and claiming that the "whole avionics suite is
*obsolete*", isn't there?

I quote the GAO-04-597T report directly

"The basic mission of the F/A-22, initially focused on air-to-air
dominance,has changed to include a significantly greater emphasis on
attacking ground targets. To accomplish this expanded mission, the
Air Force will need additional investments to develop and expand
air-to-ground attack capabilities for the F/A-22. Moreover, the
efforts to expand its capability will also add risks to an already
challenged program. To accommodate planned changes will also require a
new computer architecture and processor to replace the current less
capable ones."


Now thats hardly ambiguous is it.....



Let's see, 155 out of a possible total buy of some 269 aircraft, or a more
likely buy of 200-220, would seem to indicate that the first few *years* of
production are covered. Nor has it been conclusively demonstrated that these
processors are incapable of handling the aircraft's air-to-ground strike
needs during it's initial gestation; more in the form of not being able to
handle the *ultimate* (post spiral) capability that is envisioned.


Conclusivly demonstrated!!!!, it can't demonstrate stability yet

The Glabal Strike Ehanced program is slated to start in 2011, thats
when the Raptors system architecture is officially obsolete, the
Global strike Basic is due (with current cpu architecture + systems)
in 2007(read end of development cycle for the old stuff), one might
well ask is 2007 too ambitious for a system that still a tiny bit
'buggy', Thats four years of use from your 'its not obsolete its
proccessor challenge' system. providing its reliable enough to pass
the review.....

I quote again the GAO-04-597T report directly


"The stability and performance of F/A-22 avionics has been a major
problem causing delays in the completion of developmental testing and
the start of IOT&E. Because the F/A-22 avionics encountered frequent
shutdowns over the last few years, many test flights were delayed. As
a result, the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center wanted
assurances that the avionics would work before it was willing to start
the IOT&E program. It established a requirement for a 20-hour
performance metric that was to be demonstrated before IOT&E would
begin. This metric was subsequently changed to a 5-hour metric that
included additional types of failures, and it became the Defense
Acquisition Board’s criterion to start IOT&E. In turn, Congress
included the new metric, known as Mean Time Between Avionics Anomaly
or MTBAA, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2004.5 As of January 2004, the Air Force had not been able to
demonstrate that the avionics could meet either of these criteria.
Testing as of January 2004 showed the program had achieved 2.7 hours—
54 percent of the 5-hour stability requirement to begin IOT&E. While
the Air Force has not been able to meet the new criteria, major
failures, resulting in a complete shutdown of the avionics system,
have significantly diminished. These failures are occurring only about
once every 25 hours on average. This is the result of a substantial
effort on the part of the Air Force and the contractor to identify and
fix problems that led to the instability in the F/A-22 avionics
software. However, less serious failures are still occurring
frequently."



Now the Raptor can't run the software to do its air to ground mission
for the same reasons what would you call it?. "processor
challenged???"

"Can't run the software" to do the air-to-ground mission? Odd, as the USAF
claims that at present, "The F/A-22 also has an inherent air-to-surface
capability." It can already lug a couple of JDAM's. So how does that even
*require* an optimized ground mapping radar to allow it to strike ground
targets with significant precision?


Dropping a couple of JDAMS whohooooo!!!,
Cutting edge that... well worth the money of investing in a system
thats equivelent of a couple of cray supercomputers.

one wonders what there using that processing power for?. must be a
very nice graphical interface....


what the USAF have stated they want is, but cant have because of the
limitations of the system are :-

2011
Improved radar
capabilities to seek and destroy advanced surface-to-air missile
systems and integrate additional air-to-ground
weapons.

2013
Increased capability to suppress or
destroy the full range of air defenses and improve speed and
accuracy of targeting.

2015
Capability for full intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
integration for increased target sets and lethality.


Out of curiousity, why do you have this visceral hatred of the F/A-22?
Does
it perhaps stem from the fact that you know your own nation can never
afford
it, or what?

I don't hate it, I just think its not worth the money, if it had been
half the price and worked as advertised I would be impressed.
As it is the price is $150M and development is not mature, production
has started, How would you describe the F-22 process?.

LOL! By your definition, no aircraft would ever enter service, as
"development is not mature". I guess you have kind of missed out on the
*continuing* development of the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18, huh? I'd describe it
as about par for the course, especially when viewed against contemporaries
like the Typhoon and Raptor,

Difference is they have demonstrated their requirements and have been
accepted, now they are in production.

compare the F-22 which is in production and hasn't demonstrated it

Do you see the difference?.

I'll ask you again How would you describe they F-22 process??

If 10 is a perfect development program, and 1 is an utter fiasco that
results in over priced, marginalised product thats ripe to be
cancelled, whats the Raptors score?

which are also entering service while
development continues. You really need to get your head out of the WWII era
in terms of fighter development--heck, even before that, as we saw with how
both the P-47 and P-51 gestated (recall the original P-51's were purchased
and produced with less-than-optimal engines, to boot).


Its not a model that every industry is adopting is it.

Looks an awful lot like the same model the Europeans are using, based upon
where they are with Rafale and Typhoon.

Yes the Typhoons processors are old, but they work as advertised now
and are in production - tranche 2 models are being negotiated with
the updated systems included, as per the original plans, with a
federated architecture its relatively simple in comparison.


I do not doubt that Australia can't afford it, however its looking
increasing likely that the US may join us in that.

I think you can probably count on seeing that "Silver Bullet" force enter
into service...

You might be right, it may go into service, and if reports are to be
beleived - despite the cost, despite the reliability problems, despite
the obsolete architecture, the only credable justification is avoiding
an embarrising procurement fiasco, 200 odd hanger queens.....
astounding...


Cheers

John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

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