Fighter's reliability and sustainment problems should be cleared up by end of 2005
New US Air Force test results portray the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22 Raptor as a vastly superior air combat fighter struggling with reliability flaws that should be fixed later this year. The new data comes as USAF and Lockheed officials scramble to defeat a $10 billion budget cut expected to be unveiled this week by the US Department of Defense.
The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) staged an almost five-month initial operational test and evaluation last year, flying six F/A-22s on a total of 192 sorties and amassing 507 flight hours.
This small force proved highly adept in multiple simulated combat scenarios, including dogfights with other fighters, protecting stealth bombers from airborne attacks and evading ground-based radars, according to the AFOTEC report.
"The Raptor conducted operations against adversary aircraft and air defences with virtual impunity. The ground defence systems could not engage the Raptor, and adversary aircraft were overwhelmingly defeated," the USAF says.
The F/A-22, however, had less success with meeting reliability and sustainment targets. For this category, the Raptor was graded as "potentially suitable", a term meaning "you have discrepancies, but have plans in place to address those discrepancies", the USAF says. The AFOTEC report blames the maintenance failings on "immature integrated diagnostics, evolving tech order data and parts reliability. Additionally, flightline procedures to assess aircraft radar signature need to improve and we need to correct some aircraft lighting deficiencies."
Larry Lawson, Lockheed vice-president and general manager for the F/A-22, says the programme is on track to resolve the reliability shortfalls before June, when the USAF launches a follow-on operational test and evaluation phase focused on testing the F/A-22's ground-attack mission capabilities. Lawson says the F/A-22's parts reliability performance is better than the Boeing F-15C, but still falls short of contract requirements.
USAF and Lockheed officials decline to disclose more information about the cause of an F/A-22 accident last December, during which a jet crashed on take-off at Nellis AFB, Nevada. But Lawson says there are "no restrictions on the aircraft and there are no emergency notices. F/A-22s are now flying with the exact same software we were flying before."
stephen trimble / washington dc
Source: Flight International
