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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. Email Address :- Spam trap - please remove (trousers) to email me Eurofighter Website :- http://www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk |
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