Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

"SECDEF orders new F-22 safety measures"
By
Dave Majumdar
on May 15, 2012 11:43 PM

Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/05/secdef-orders-new-f-22-safety.html

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has directed the some additional safety measures for the US Air Force's fleet of Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors.

1) Pilots operating the stealthy twin-engine air dominance fighter must remain close enough to an airfield to recover the aircraft quickly in case they encounter problems with their oxygen system.

2) The USAF is directed to speed up the installation of an automatic backup oxygen supply into the entire F-22 fleet. The USAF should complete testing of the automatic backup oxygen system by the end of November. Installations should begin in December with 10 Raptors being retrofitted with the system per month.

3) The USAF will provide the SECDEF with monthly updates on the service's progress in determining the root cause of the jet's oxygen system maladies.

The Secretary did not, however, reverse the USAF's decision to defer installation of an Automatic-Ground Collision Avoidance System in the forthcoming Increment 3.2B upgrade for the Raptor.

Meanwhile, the USAF hasn't ruled out decompression sickness, but the current thinking is that the problem is related to either a toxin or it's an oxygen quantity/quality issue. A very knowledgeable source suggests that the problem could be related to a form of hyperventilation. More on that later...

The service has 185 operational jets left after two losses. There were also eight developmental jets, but how many of those are left flying is unclear, some of them are either in museums (like 4003 at Wright-Patterson) or used as maintenance trainers (like 4005 at Langley and another at Tyndall--the tail number of which I can't immediately recall).
 
The F-22 and Clout Deficit:


The Air Force lobbied former Defense Secretary Robert Gates several years ago for more than the 187 F-22s it ultimately was allowed to buy, but service leaders chose to give up the fight rather than expend all their clout to save a single program. So said outgoing Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz in a mid July exit interview. "We in the Air Force took the position to the [Defense] Department’s leadership that the right number of F-22s was 243," said Schwartz. When the leadership did not accept that argument, "it was our feeling that the Air Force had invested all the capital it could afford to invest in that program at that time. And it was time to move on," asserted Schwartz. The argument for more F-22s was "analytically based," Schwartz contended, but all the studies and logic cut no ice with Gates. Dropping the fight, Schwartz maintained, "was the right conclusion at the time. And given where we are today," with severe restraints on defense spending, "there's no chance of revisiting that decision," he observed. Given "no chance" to restart the line, was it pointless to retain the F-22 tooling? "No," said Schwartz. Preserving the tooling will make it possible to fix F-22s that have been badly damaged in accidents, he said.
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So the Air Force asked and Gates (DOD Leadership from above bolded section) said no so they stopped asking?
 
What that mean when Schwartz say " its time to move on", the time to launch a new fighter program?
 
dark sidius said:
What that mean when Schwartz say " its time to move on", the time to launch a new fighter program?
Click to expand...

No. There is no program to replace the F-22.
 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/24/pentagon-oks-plan-lift-f-22-flight-restrictions/
 
bobbymike said:
So the Air Force asked and Gates (DOD Leadership from above bolded section) said no so they stopped asking?
Click to expand...

Well, remember in 2008 Gates very publicly executed the CSAF and SecAF, who were quite vocal about extending the F-22 buy. The announced reasons were the failures of control in the nuclear enterprise and thus perhaps the firings were justifiable, but the signal was clear -- public support for the F-22 was a career-ending move ("next war-itis"). Although, in hindsight it is hard to see how the Air Force's advocacy of the F-22 was any different from the other services' enthusiastic support for their key programs.

So, it is perhaps not surprising that the current USAF leadership is practicing doublethink where the F-22 is concerned.
 
George Allegrezza said:
bobbymike said:
So the Air Force asked and Gates (DOD Leadership from above bolded section) said no so they stopped asking?
Click to expand...

Well, remember in 2008 Gates very publicly executed the CSAF and SecAF, who were quite vocal about extending the F-22 buy. The announced reasons were the failures of control in the nuclear enterprise and thus perhaps the firings were justifiable, but the signal was clear -- public support for the F-22 was a career-ending move ("next war-itis"). Although, in hindsight it is hard to see how the Air Force's advocacy of the F-22 was any different from the other services' enthusiastic support for their key programs.

So, it is perhaps not surprising that the current USAF leadership is practicing doublethink where the F-22 is concerned.
Click to expand...

One can only wonder how much Gordon England whispering in Gates' ear had an effect on his decision.
 
News on the OBOGS problem from Flightglobal:

The US Air Force has officially settled on the root cause of a series of "hypoxia-like" incidents that have been plaguing the service's fleet of Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors.
The USAF had earlier narrowed down the potential root cause to either contamination or an air quantity problem. "We have eliminated one of the hypotheses that the air force scientific advisory board postulated as a potential root cause for the hypoxia-related incidents and that was contamination," says USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz. "We have the data that has confirmed that."
The USAF has also gathered data that indicates that the problem has to do with the amount of oxygen that is reaching the pilot, Schwartz says. Based on tests conducted inside an altitude chamber and a centrifuge, the USAF has concluded that a combination of hardware defects with the pilot's life support gear contributed to the problem.
"Part of that is the upper pressure garment of the g-suit assembly," Schwartz says. "Part of that has to do with hose and valve and connection hardware in the cockpit."
The USAF has a deliberate plan to modify and test that equipment under the "most demanding conditions," the general says. "That will begin to hit the field in September," he adds.
Click to expand...
 
But Schwartz can't be right, because none other than St Robert Gates said:

"The military advice that I got was that there is no military requirement for numbers of F-22s beyond the 187."

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/04/gates-us-air-force-advised-hal.html

Of such stunning honesty spring good decisions. Of course, even Gates didn't understand the depth and breadth of the porkies that he, in turn, was getting from his immediate subordinates...
 
LowObservable said:
But Schwartz can't be right, because none other than St Robert Gates said:

"The military advice that I got was that there is no military requirement for numbers of F-22s beyond the 187."

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/04/gates-us-air-force-advised-hal.html

Of such stunning honesty spring good decisions. Of course, even Gates didn't understand the depth and breadth of the porkies that he, in turn, was getting from his immediate subordinates...
Click to expand...

I wonder who he got this "military advice" from and if it came after he canned the two who refused to be yes-men.
 
More news on the OBOGS problem from Flightglobal:
IN FOCUS: F-22 pilots and engineers not convinced USAF has found root cause of Raptor's oxygen woes
By: Dave Majumdar Washington DC 04:07 30 Jul 2012

A number of pilots and engineers are not convinced that the US Air Force has found the root cause of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor's oxygen woes despite the service officially naming the Combat Edge upper pressure garment and its associated systems as the culprits.
"There's one thing I know for certain: The Combat Edge isn't the culprit," one F-22 pilot says. "But they're trying to show positive momentum."
On 24 July, USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz told reporters that the Combat Edge upper-pressure garment and its associated breathing regulator/anti-g (BRAG) valve, hoses and connectors are to blame for the a series of "hypoxia-like" incidents have plagued the service's F-22 fleet since 2008.
Schwartz added that the service must pay more attention to man-machine interfaces. He further added that the USAF's physiology expertise has atrophied over the course of the years.
Schwartz said that the service's experts did not fully understand the stresses on the human body at the altitudes and g-forces where the Raptor operates. Moreover, during the Raptor's original developmental and operational testing, important details were missed, Schwartz said.
But despite publicly disclosing what it believes to be the root cause of the Raptor's problems, the USAF says that it has not yet finished a written report that summarizes all the various tests, analysis and findings to support its conclusions.
Kevin Divers, a former USAF rated physiologist and F-22 flight test engineer, disputes Schwartz's assertions. Divers was the life support test-pilot vehicle interface officer responsible for testing and certifying both the original contractor furnished flight gear and the current flight gear on the Raptor fleet.
"To assume that important details were missed in the original developmental and operational testing is a very ignorant statement to make when I have approached the air force many times to give them insight into important details from that timeframe. If they had taken me up on my offer to help it should have made this whole investigation faster and cheaper for the USAF and the taxpayer" Divers says. "It is fair to say things were missed, but it isn't fair to give the Secretary of Defense and members of Congress the impression that the air force has used all of its available and capable resources to get to what I believe is a very flawed and misdirected conclusion. The USAF is still missing important details by ignoring those of us who believe in the airplane and know that we can help."
...
Click to expand...
 
From The DEW Line
Settlement reached in Haney F-22 crash lawsuit
The contractors who built the F-22 Raptor have reached a settlement with Anna Haney, wife of the late Captain Jeff "Bong" Haney of the 525th Fighter Squadron/3d Wing at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. The details of the settlement are not being released.
Click to expand...
 
I believe IRST and separate cheek radars were originally included in the production configuration, but dropped before actual production to save money.
Where we're the cheek radar and IRST located? Is there any drawings or photos showing these features? I like to build a model of f-22 with these originally intended features, so I like to know where the dielectric panels for the cheek radars were going to be, what shape they were, and where the ports for IRST would have been, and what shape those were.
 
A requirement for thrust reversers for STOL was part of the original ATF requirement but was dropped before the YFs were built. For other ideas, I'd suggest a cruise through the Piccirillo book, which has a good discussion of the ATF planning and development phase.
 
F-22 AIRST installation (bottom of the forward fuselage, seems to be quite close to F-23A design)

F-22A-EO-Fairing-AEDC-1S.jpg



USAF photo courtesy Dr.Kopp

side arrays schematics from AN/APG-77 paper (proportions shown to main array is questionable, I think they should have been way smaller). you can use your deduction now thinking where provisions were left for side arrays installation
 

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Are the longish objects behind the chines or the one of the boxes underneath the chines the AESA antenna?
I have no idea where the space reservations were.
 
me too
obviously not inside the racks with electronic modules which are shown above. here go forward compartment


fef2716a3597.jpg
 
flateric said:
F-22 AIRST installation (bottom of the forward fuselage, seems to be quite close to F-23A design)

F-22A-EO-Fairing-AEDC-1S.jpg



USAF photo courtesy Dr.Kopp
Click to expand...

So the model is flipped upside down, and the IRST window is intended to be on the bottom in the production aircraft? However, the model of radom looks to have a totally different shape from that in the production aircraft.

I also read somewhere the IRST window was at one point located at the wing roots. Was that before or after the bottom configuration shown here?
 
One more question. The unpainted F-22 surface shows lots of area colored a very light green. What are those?
 
chuck4 said:
One more question. The unpainted F-22 surface shows lots of area colored a very light green. What are those?
Click to expand...

Could you be more specific? (Post a pic if possible.)
 
Yes, thr panel just above the edge of the chine is one example. there are panels of that color all over the upper surface.T
 
Well the teal is just primer. So I'm guessing teal means, "not a removable panel or radome".
 
LowObservable said:
even Gates didn't understand the depth and breadth of the porkies that he, in turn, was getting from his immediate subordinates...
Click to expand...

Like How the F-22 would be grounded for months? How it would poison its pilots? How its operating costs would be astronomical? How US Pilots would be on 60 minutes publicly refusing to fly? How the F-22 could only datalink to other F-22s? How its air to ground utility was very limited? How even now its not allowed to be 30 minutes from a friendly airfield and restricted from flying above 44,0000 feet? How the Air Forece impaled itself to get more of them? canceling worthwhile projects and retiring scores of other aircraft?

Those Porkies?
 
Is the F-22's supercruise speed declassified yet? I noticed that it has climbed up over the years.

1.5 - requirement
1.72 - General Jumper
1.78 - AvWeek article
1.82 - I see this floating around but I don't know the source.
 
Probably has to do with different altitude, mission profiles, and load out requirements.


I suspect accurate performance data meaningful for useful comparison won't be released until after f-22 leaves service in 30 years or more. Until then chinese and russian intelligence services and airforces will know much more about the true capabilities of the f-22 then typical American enthusiasts.
 
Radical said:
Is the F-22's supercruise speed declassified yet? I noticed that it has climbed up over the years.

1.5 - requirement
1.72 - General Jumper
1.78 - AvWeek article
1.82 - I see this floating around but I don't know the source.
Click to expand...

1.82 is from Jay Miller's F-22 book. I've seen a pilot quoted as Mach 1.9.
 
I think "cruise" is by definition not an all out race to see how fast the plane will go, but a optimization of getting far enough fast enough with necessary reserves and other mission considerations. So it might be true that under certain circumstances the F-22 can hit Mach 1.9 for a time without afterburner, but that is by no means the same as saying that on any mission the F-22 can really be counted on to average Mach 1.9 during super cruise phase.
 
chuck4 said:
I think "cruise" is by definition not an all out race to see how fast the plane will go, but a optimization of getting far enough fast enough with necessary reserves and other mission considerations. So it might be true that under certain circumstances the F-22 can hit Mach 1.9 for a time without afterburner, but that is by no means the same as saying that on any mission the F-22 can really be counted on to average Mach 1.9 during super cruise phase.
Click to expand...

The same could be said of any number so what's your point?
 
Whether the number is 1.5 or 1.9 is nothing but a minimally informative factoid, provided the particular number even has any basis in fact.
 
chuck4 said:
Whether the number is 1.5 or 1.9 is nothing but a minimally informative factoid, provided the particular number even has any basis in fact.
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True, it could be 1.1, 0.5, or 3.2 for all we know. ::)
 
Thanks for the video Triton.

Man we should have more of these, like the orginal 700 or so :D You want to talk conventional deterrent?
 
bobbymike said:
Thanks for the video Triton.

Man we should have more of these, like the orginal 700 or so :D You want to talk conventional deterrent?
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We don't need 700. 15 aircraft can cover the world ya know. (Don't ask me how it's suppose to be in 20 places at once. That's for the doves to explain.)
 

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