By Graham Warwick at Farnborough
Lockheed Martin found itself having to argue the case for its F-22 and F-35
Lockheed Martin laboured at Farnborough to convince a sceptical European aerospace press corps of the superiority of its F-22 and F-35 fifth-generation fighters over even the latest fourth-generation aircraft, including its own F-16 Block 60.
While the doubts expressed, sometimes vocally, could be dismissed as merely a product of effective marketing by Europe's fighter manufacturers, the issues run deeper and are tied to European suspicion of US military-industrial motives.
Those issues could surface as each of the eight international partners in the US-led Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme seek to gain national political approval to sign up for the production and sustainment phase by December. Although signing the memorandum of understanding will not commit a country to buying the F-35, those inside and outside the programme recognise the step as being almost irreversible.
With everything to play for over the next few months, Lockheed brought its fifth-generation fighter message to Farnborough, but was hobbled by its inability to give specifics on the capabilities of the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II because of US export restrictions. This led to carefully coded conversations, and sometimes prickly exchanges, on the sidelines as officials tried to convince a sceptical press of the superiority of the US fighters.
Lockheed defines fifth generation as a combination of "advanced stealth, fighter agility, integrated information and sensor fusion, and a new level of reliability, maintainability and deployability" unique to the F-22 and F-35, according to vice-president for business development Rob Wiess. Euro-sceptics argue only stealth sets these aircraft apart from the latest fourth-generation fighters, and they question its value against current threats and relevance against future threats.
With the F-22 just into service and the F-35 yet to fly, hard data is scarce. During June's Northern Edge exercise in Alaska, the US Air Force says, the F-22 achieved an 80:1 air-to-air kill ratio compared with 8:1 for the Boeing F-15 and F/A-18, against an opposing force with a four-to-one numerical advantage flying "legacy fourth-generation fighters" - F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s simulating Sukhoi Su-27s and Su-30s.
Claims for the F-35 are by necessity based on campaign simulations, but include a reduction in loss rate relative to fourth-generation fighters of 4:1 in air-to-air engagements, 8:1 in air-to-ground attacks and more than 3:1 on reconnaissance and air-defence suppression missions. The analyses assumed more capable air-to-air and surface-to-air threats than faced today, says Lockheed.
"We are at parity today. If we do not go to the fifth generation, we will have losses. We are losing the advantage of superior training," says Weiss. "Even the best fourth-generation fighter on the table today is not near the fifth generation in terms of very low observability, flight performance, integrated avionics and sustainment."
With a unit cost of $130 million, the F-22 is unlikely to be a major player on the export market, and although Congress is moving towards rescinding the prohibition on overseas sales of the Raptor, the US government will still have to decide what technology is releasable. With production set to end in 2012 after just 183 aircraft, less than half the USAF's stated requirement, exports could keep the line open, but Japan is the only realistic prospect.
Exportable F-22
Repeal of the so-called Obey amendment would allow the US Air Force to fund Lockheed to develop an exportable configuration for the F-22, but the aircraft would still have to compete for any Japanese order against the latest F-15 and F/A-18 variants, as well as the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon - all fourth-generation fighters by Lockheed's reckoning.
Where any claims of a fighter generation gap have real relevance is in the battles now under way in the JSF partner nations between the F-35 and the Rafale, Typhoon and Saab Gripen. While participating nations will not have to commit to buying F-35s until four years before first delivery, which in practice means 2008 at the earliest, the analyses of alternatives now under way will shape their future fighter purchases.
While hard-ball negotiations over industrial returns have dominated discussions so far, nations considering signing up for the F-35 production and sustainment phase will also have be sure they are getting an aircraft that meets their military requirements. The desire for interoperability with the USA, and promise of access to US technology, could end up trumping any "fourth versus fifth" arguments.
"The stealth of the F-35 as exported will be the same as for the US," Weiss says, in a bid to tackle Euro-scepticism head on. But how the stealth intrinsic to the aircraft at delivery will be maintained throughout its life is an issue yet to be resolved to the satisfaction of the international partners, although there were signs at Farnborough of progress on the thorny issue of technology transfer. ■
Source: Flight International
