The US Department of Defense (DoD) has forced the US Air Force to rejig the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor fighter programme in an attempt to accommodate flight test delays.
Flight testing scheduled originally to begin in May 1997 was delayed until six months September. The DoD is now proposing to use what were originally intended to be the first two low rate initial production (LRIP) aircraft as additional flight test aircraft to get the programme back on track.
The Pentagon move is in response to a March recommendation from the General Accounting Office (GAO) that the $62.1 billion Raptor programme be delayed by a year because of the hold-ups in the flight test schedule.
Jacques Gansler, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, says that following the GAO recommendation would disrupt the programme and add an estimated $4 billion to the final cost.
Gansler, however, does want at least 200h of flight testing LRIP is approved. "What we're trying to do is gain higher confidence in the product," he adds.
As a result, the two initial LRIP aircraft due for fiscal year 1999 production have been redesignated as "production representative test vehicles". The LRIP decision has been delayed by a year, until November 1999, when the Pentagon is scheduled to sign off on the first six production aircraft, which represent the fiscal year 2000 purchase.
Funding for engineering and manufacturing development of nine F-22s has been approved. The USAF is to buy 10, 16 and 24 F-22s in the three fiscal years 2001-3.
The Quadrennial Defense Review reduction shrank F-22 procurement from 438 aircraft to 339. Lockheed Martin and the USAF harbour ambitions of moving back towards the original procurement figure, so that the aircraft could also be used as a Boeing F-15E replacement.
Source: Flight International
