----- Original Message ----- From: Pakito Arriaran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 6:49 AM Subject: [MLL]US fighterplane to dominate the next 30 years Soon in Colombia: --------------------------------------- National Post October 19, 2000 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/ A hawk among pigeons The United States Air Force has developed a new high-tech jet fighter that will make all other warplanes obsolete and dominate the skies for decades to come Joseph Frey National Post A quiet revolution in aviation technology is taking place at a remote airbase in the Southern California desert. The product of the Air Tactical Fighter Program of the United States Air Force (USAF), the F-22 Raptor embodies a radically new philosophy of fighter design. The aircraft combines stealth, supercruise (supersonic cruising speed), agility and fully integrated avionics in one aircraft, making all other jet fighters obsolete. So far, the only three F-22s in the world are located at Edwards Air Force Base. Edwards is the centre of jet aircraft experimentation and development. Here, test pilots such as General Chuck Yaeger broke the sound barrier, and speeds of up to Mach 6 have been achieved. The first aircraft flights into space were taken from here, too. Edwards is named after Captain Glen Edwards, a Canadian aeronautical engineer who was a U.S. pilot in the Second World War. He was killed in 1948 while test-flying an experimental flying wing. "When USAF takes delivery of the first of its 339 operational F-22 Raptors in 2003, it will have an aircraft that will catapult the United States from having one of the best air superiority fighters, the F-15C Eagle, to owning the world's premier air dominance aircraft," says Randy Neville, a Boeing test pilot who has flown 80 aircraft types including jet fighters from the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Italy. The F-22's agility in close combat clinched the Air Tactical Fighter Program contract for the Lockheed Martin/Boeing consortium over Northrop's FY-23. Previous stealth aircraft such as the SR-71 spy plane, F-117 fighter and B-2 bomber were not very nimble. In fact, the F-117 and B-2 are subsonic and can fly only at night, while the F-22 is a supersonic, all-weather, day-and-night fighter. "The F-22's stealth technology reduces its radar signature to the size of a tennis ball allowing it to remain undetected for longer periods of time," says Joe Oberle, director of development for Lockheed Martin. "The F-22 was 15 years in the making. Instead of using the traditional brute force principle of jet fighter design consisting of increased speed, improved turning performance and better weapons, we decided to design the F-22 around the principles of exploit information, deny information to the enemy and overwhelming lethality." As well as carrying out air dominance missions, it will be able to attack ground targets and penetrate enemy air defences as they evolve. The F-22's weapons systems are a 100% improvement over the F-15C. The F-22's computers, equivalent to two Cray computers, combined with its integrated avionics suite, will ease the pressure on its pilots "and minimize their housekeeping chores," says Neville. At present, air force pilots have to absorb vast amounts of data on a heads-up display, making complex calculations in their heads, setting priorities and tracking other aircraft, and sometimes pulling 5Gs upside-down during an attack -- as I have observed while flying in a Canadian Air Force CF-18B during a live fire exercise. "The F-22 is the first aircraft to have three-sensor data fusion, fusing communication, navigation and information (CNI) with electronic warfare and radar sensors," says Michael Harris, Boeing's manager of F-22 avionics development. "No other aircraft has true sensor fusion." Boeing has been integrating the F-22's advanced avionics, both in one of its labs and on board its flying test bed. Developed for the F-22 project, the FTB is a modified Boeing 757, which, according to Harris, "allows you to have 30- 35 high-tech engineers who can evaluate problems and successes, to modify the test sequences in real time, and its success has been outstanding. We found difficult problems in the avionics that could not have been found anywhere else except up in the air using the FTB. It's been so successful we plan to use it in developing future aircraft." When fully tested, the integrated avionics will be built into the fourth F-22 this autumn. Some Canadian pilots who flew in last year's air war over Yugoslavia point out in conversation that it has become crucial for aircraft to exchange messages during combat missions without using detectable voice communications. Several F-22s will be able to silently communicate, as well as exchange data gathered by their sensors through Inter/Intra Flight Data Link (IFDL). IFDL can also download data gathered by AWACS aircraft and satellites. Using IFDL, two F-22s flying a combat mission will be able to silently pass information about their fuel status, speed and ammunition load. The F-22's sensors can detect hostile aircraft and identify their models, their numbers, speed, distance and altitude. The Situation Display will also show which enemy planes the pilots intend to fire upon, so that they don't waste missiles firing at the same aircraft. "Fusing the information collected from the F-22's sensors gives the pilot a simple intuitive picture on a multi-coloured display," says Neville, "providing a God's-eye view of the tactical situation, while denying the same information to the enemy. This gives our pilots a situational awareness at a glance, tracking and identifying all targets, allowing the pilot to be a tactician and employing his weapons rather than being a sensor operator and a data analyst." The F-22 does not have radios, navigation equipment, instrument landing systems or radar in the traditional sense. These functions are performed by common integrated processor (CIP) modules. These can imitate any electronic function through automatic reprogramming, which makes the F-22 resistant to combat damage. If the CIP module acting as the radio is hit by enemy fire, one of the other modules will automatically reload the radio program and take over the radio function. The use of CIP modules will also allow the F-22's systems to be easily upgraded during its planned 25 years of service. The F-22's twin Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines with afterburners and two-dimensional thrust-vectoring nozzles will deliver an incredible 35,000 pounds of thrust per engine, outperforming current aircraft by 10,000 pounds. "These engines have been a true strong point in the test program," says Neville. "They have delivered remarkable power, response and almost flawless operation during demanding flight profiles." The F119 engines include integrated flight-propulsion controls and two-dimensional, thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, enhancing the plane's agility and allowing it to stand vertically on its tail and rotate to a 60-degree angle of attack. "Other jet fighters stall out at 28 to 30 degrees," Oberle observes. "I have been continuously impressed," says Neville, "to see this airplane flying with almost no air speed, and have the pilot abruptly put in aggressive, full deflection control inputs, and the aircraft responds benignly, with no hint of going out of control." The Pratt & Whitney F119 supercruise engines are designed for efficient supersonic operation without fuel-guzzling afterburner use. An F-22 will be able to supercruise into combat zones with sustained speeds up to 1,200 miles per hour. "The F-22 stealth aircraft flying at Mach 1.5 will be able to pass by enemy radar and fly through their air defences before they can lock on to the Raptor and fire off a missile," comments Oberle. The United States is three decades ahead of other jet fighter manufacturing nations such as Russia, Britain, France and Sweden in stealth technology. On top of that advantage, the F-22's supercruise and integrated avionics will let it fly in a combat environment where it will clearly dominate the aerial battlefield with its "first look, first shot, first kill" capability. A hawk among pigeons, the F-22 is likely to dominate the skies for decades to come. _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
