On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 16:20:41 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Scott Ferrin wrote:

On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 19:33:30 -0400, Air Force Jayhawk
wrote:

On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 16:23:33 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

AIM-9X

"Integration of the missile on the Lockheed Martin F/A-22, which
requires internal carriage of the missile, has been delayed at least
until the spiral three (developmental) stage of the program around
2011."

SEVEN Y-E-A-R-S???? What's the holdup? They've already fired guided
-9Ms.

AIM-9X is a whole new animal with it's High off boresight capability.

Yeah, I understand all that but seven years? Doesn't that seem a tad
excessive?

Due to the smaller fin size of the -9X, the F-22 should be able to carry
two per side, instead of the one per side with the previous Sidewinders.
Which means they're going to have to redesign the outside missile bays
to *carry* two of them along with the hardware and software controls for
the bays and missiles (two ejectors per side instead of one, or a double
rack on a single ejector).


Are you just speculating or is that in fact what they are going to do?
I've posed the question here several times about the 2 -9X fit thing
but all it ever was was speculation.