Question about the F-22 and it's radar.

"John Cook" wrote in message
...


There is where you go wrong--accepting the GAO report at face value.
Don't
you know they have a well known reputation for shading things in the
direction they want, or just plain ol' incompetency in some cases? What
they
are describing is the spiral development program that the USAF has
already
articulated--nothing new about it, and nothing shocking.

OK don't like the GAO? ..... fine! How about Lockheed or the
USAF who have a IPT team to find the obsolete items, and find Form Fit
and Function replacements using 'commercial products' where they can
(Note the COTS reference).

General Musala lamented in 1998 that non of the 339 F-22 will be
built the same because at least 500 parts are already obsolete!!!
(As quoted in 1998!! use your imagination in regard to that number
today, Oh thats right! in your world its probabley been dealt with
already and only minor issues remain like coffee cup holders etc. )

No, in my world the folks that are managing this program, and who are
confronting the very real challenges inherent to developing and fielding the
most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, are more capable of handling
these developmental issues than some amateur rotten tomato tosser who has
amply demonstrated that despite his attempts to sound as if he has a real
grasp on the issues, doesn't. You earlier posted a long-winded diatribe
including "calculations" which were purported to support the claim that the
F/A-22 has insufficient range/endurance capabilities to perform its
originally intended air-to-air role; when a gent with an obvious real
understanding (i.e., a design engineer) of issue countered your argument,
IIRC you ignored his trashing of your faulty assumptions and merely shifted
your anti-F/A-22 rant into a new direction. You obviously are a rather
intelligent fellow, and your arguments would be taken with a bit more
seriousness if you had not established such a firm record of trying to
oppose the program on each and every level, in regard to every issue; as is,
it just sounds like more shrill, "I don't like it, no how, no way" ranting.


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

Uhmm..you missed the USAF statement that it can indeed carry and deliver
JDAM's? What, you think JDAM is some kind of air-to-air weapon?! And that
is
with the current processors--I believe Harry Andreas has already
addressed
that particular issue much better than I can...and oddly, you don't seem
to
have replied to his comments...

Its all very well that it can drop a couple of JDAMs around a target
area, but it does need to have a running system to perform this
rudimentary function, something which is not happening at present.

"Drop a couple of JDAM's around a target area"? LOL! The JDAM's record for
accuracy/precision has been rather well proven--mate it to the survivability
capabilities inherent to the F/A-22 and you have a system that can go deep
early and take out critical targets with great precision. Hardly a
"rudimentary" capability. You see, this is what i mean; first you said it
has NO ground attack capability, and when corrected, instead of just saying,
"Oops, yeah, it does indeed have a precision deep strike capability in its
present form", you instead head off on this ridiculous, "Being able to stike
a target with a JDAM does not really mean anything" crap--thus destroying
any credibility you may have had in terms of offering an unbiased critique
of the system.


You are sytil avoiding the question of how you rate the F-22
development? well whats it to be..... paragon of industrial/military
cooperation or balls up......

how would you describe it....?
.







The Glabal Strike Ehanced program is slated to start in 2011, thats
when the Raptors system architecture is officially obsolete,

Uh, what?! "Officially obsolete"? And where do you come up with *that*
little factoid? never heard of any US program going forward with an
already
"officially" established date of obsolescence...

The current processors can't handle the workload, they need to be
replaced before the F/A-22 can do the job, from the data supplied by
the USAF they expect it to be able to 'do the Job' from 2011.

what would you call a system that can't do the job, come on its an
easy question!!

Show me where the USAF has said, the F/A-22 "can't do the job" in terms of
either air-to-air or precision deep strike with internally carried JDAM's.





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

You just never learn, do you? GAO does not equal either competence or
accuracy in terms of military developments, organizations, etc.

At least there getting their figures from the team thats testing the
F-22, where are you getting your figures from?.

And they then twisted them--read your own GAO report; their commentary
seemed to indicate that the $11 billion was required in order to give the
F/A-22 a strike capability, but the actual explanation of the breakdown of
that $11 billion made it plain that it was instead the total estimated cost
for the program's spiral development. It ignored the fact that the existing
F/A-22 coupled with JDAM (and later with SDB) is indeed capable of
performing the strike mission.


What figures are you putting into this debate, whats your assesment of
MTBAA??, Go on I'm interested.

Talk that over with Harry--he actually knows what he is talking about,
instead of spouting off acronyms he has recently read about. Oh, that's
right...you have not addressed Harry's comments about your claims, have you?




"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."


snip

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.

All of that computing power helps it get to the target area so it can
drop
those "whohooo" JDAM's. And last i heard the JDAM was judged a
particularly
accurate and lethal munition. Now, I do believe you were crowing that the
F/A-22 is incapable of performing the ground attack mission? How do you
like
your crow, rare or well done?

Listen Matey don't put words in my mouth, the F-22 can drop JDAM's, it
can also strafe the ground with its cannon, But a ground attack
aircraft it ain't, and won't be until an upgrade to the avionics
occurs.

Listen up yourself, "Matey" (who the hell are you, Popeye?); you said quite
clearly that it is incapable of performing the ground attack mission, and
the fact that it can indeed deliver JDAM, in a stealthy manner to boot, and
the inherent accuracy of that munition, lays that particular claim of your's
to rest. Now what you *may* have meant was that the initial gestation of the
F/A-22 won't be able to handle independent retargeting while in-flight due
to its radar not being optimized for the terrain mapping role--but that is
not what you said, nor does that equate to not being able to conduct the
ground attack mission, period.


My point is the super duper cray like performance that has be repeated
touted can't hack a AtoG mission, don't you see anything wrong with
this??? why 11.7 billion what that for then? if everythings fine and
dandy why would you want to spend 11.7 billion on a perfectly capable
AtoG aircraft.

The $11.7 billion is for spiral development; it includes upgrades to both
the air-to-air capability and the ISR capability as well. Reading
comprehension problem?



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.

Gee, can't have any of that, huh? And why not?

Because it would cost 11.7 billion to get it, If they pay they get it.
(or at least some of it, I'm not that confident of their cost
projections. Are you?.)

I am quite confident that we will continue to provide spiral development
funds to support F/A-22 during its lifetime; how many billions have we
dedicated in the past to further development of the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18
(heck, in the latter case we even developed the Super Bug...)?




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.

Have they now? rafale was in production while its ground attack
capability
was in the pure ghostware stage--which is why the French Navy went to sea
with them being capable *only* of performing air-to-air missions. The RAF
wants to retune the Typhoon to perform in the multi-role strike manner
before they had originally planned--meaing that their aircraft were not
optimized for that mission when Typhoon went into production. Sounds a
bit
like the F/A-22, doesn't it?

Planned being the operative word here, they planned to have an Ato G
capability for a number of years, they developed the systems as per
that plan, and produced them.

The fact that they can pull forward the requirements to an earlier
date seems to prove the systems are capable of doing the job,
Actually _Doing_the_Job_ and not - 'give us 11.7 billion and we will
see what we can do'..

Uhmmm... you think those programs did not require additional R&D funding,
and won't require additional future R&D fundiing, to bring them to actual
fruition? Take a gander at that whole Nimrod R&D program and its costs...


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

Like most current advanced aircraft projects--that you still can't see
that
is hardly surprising, given your obvious bias and reliance upon the *GAO*
as
your primary source.


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?

Your evading the question!!!, whats its score?.

Only you want to play this ridiculous "give it a score!" game. You want a
score? OK. The USAF is fielding the most advanced and capable fighter
aircraft in the world--how do you score that?




Yes, it is amazing--you, Cobb, and Tarver are the only ones gifted enough
to
realize what a true dog it is, huh? All of those blue-suited folks being
too
darned dumb to figure it out, right?

Some of those blue suited folks are questioning its utility, stop
trying to evade the real question by comparing my opinion to others,
Is the F-22 program value for money? and if you think it is (why
bother to ask I thinks to myself) at what point in your mind does it
become too expensive to field?. dollar values are fine by me!.

I have seen only one former blue-suiter come out against the F/A-22--and his
record is a bit spotty, as he seems to have a certain well-demonstrated bias
towards "lightweights only". Name of Ricconi, IIRC.


Again, thank goodness you are not in the decisionmaking chain.

From your view point I can see why you said that, but that doesnt mean
your view point is correct.

The F-22 program is in trouble, the system is very very expensive,
the system has been so long in development that the ambitious system
it pioneered have become obsolete, the program needs addition funds
and also input from the JSF program to make it more reliable and
update its avionics.

That would be the same JSF program that you have also attacked? It appears
there is only one advanced fighter program that truly meets your approval,
and that is Typhoon...

Brooks


I could equally say the Nimrod AEW project would have been the best in
the world if only the Software would run and the equipment had of
worked, But then again I know that having the software run and the
equipment work is the 'project'.......

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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