The F-35 and F-22 Teach Each Other New Tricks
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2018/February 2018/The-F-35-and-F-22-Teach-Teach-Other-New-Tricks.aspx
Pihviä on paljon:
In the F-22, the key to employment is “managing signature, sensor, and what we refer to as ‘flow,’ ” which he explained is how the plane and pilot sense the battlespace, steer between threats, and get into the optimum position to engage. That same concept applies to the F-35, he said.
Though fourth generation aircraft pilots have to manage visual and infrared signatures,
“it’s not until you get in the fifth gen world that you really concern yourselves with radar signature management. … That is a core competency of any fifth gen platform, and that is a direct transfer over from the F-22 to the F-35.” Pilots of both jets must “manage our signature as we employ the aircraft and optimize our survivability and lethality,” Moga said.
In a fourth generation jet, a wingman must provide “mutual support” within visual range, “welded” to the flight lead just a few miles away. But “pretty early on in Raptor tactics development, we realized that, based on the capabilities of the airplane, we didn’t need visual mutual support. We needed a mutual support by presence, which, for us, can be upward of 10, 15, 20 nautical miles away from one another,” said Moga.
For a former fourth gen pilot who has always depended on someone close by having his back, “it takes a while to get used to that,” Moga said.
A lesson learned—and one certainly being applied on the F-35—is “the
importance of maintaining accurate and up-to-date mission data files,” Moga noted.
(F-22:sta tuleva kuski on kateellinen F-35:n kypärästä)
The F-35 helmet is “a game-changer,” Moga asserted. Besides offering the off-boresight shooting capability, “there’s also other utilities they can use it for now that they have an air-to-ground-mapping SAR (synethetic aperture radar) … capability.”
**
The stealth coatings transfer between the jets is “one of the larger success stories” in the crossplay of the F-22 and F-35, Moga said. “The coatings and surfaces on the F-35 are a direct result of the lessons we learned with the …LO (low observability) management on the F-22.”
The coatings on the F-22 were “very problematic” for a number of years because the F-22’s stealthy surfaces still require a degree of putty and tape to smooth the surfaces. On the F-35, though, the stealth treatments “are exponentially easier to maintain, sustain, and restore,” he pointed out.
“It’s easier for the maintainers to fix the aircraft, it’s quicker, and we have a much more accurate tool” to assess the normal degradation of stealth surfaces and its effect on signatures. Now, Lockheed is looking at ways that it can apply the F-35’s resilient stealth coatings to the F-22.
The F-35’s stealth coatings have held up far better than those of the F-22 in the “salt spray, ocean environment, high humidity” conditions of the Florida coast, said Ken Merchant, Lockheed’s vice president for the F-22 program, in an interview with Air Force Magazine.
“We’re looking at taking Jeff (Babione’s) topcoat from the F-35 and bring that over to the F-22,” he said. This would “add a bit of weight, because it’s a little heavier material, but it’s spread evenly over the airplane so it doesn’t cause me a CG (center of gravity) issue.” Whether the Air Force will approve the change in materials is still “pre-decisional,” Merchant said, but it offers a potential payoff in substantially reduced maintenance costs.
He sees opportunities in common software—made possible by an open systems architecture for both the F-35 and F-22—new common processors, the new radar waveform, and in economies-of-scale on parts.
“When I got to Raptor, if I go to a vendor and say, ‘Hey, I need 187 of these [parts], plus spares,’ I get a price tag that’s pretty high,” he said. “And when Jeff goes to them and says, ‘Hey, I need 2,000 plus spares, the price comes down a lot.’ ” Combining orders for parts on things like “auxiliary power units, … environmental control systems,” and many other basic utilities can save big dollars, Merchant asserted. (rip gripukka & co.)
!!! tutkat ja EW !!!
“The radar’s probably the biggest win we’ve had so far,” Merchant said. The two jets using a common waveform, but he could not go into detail except to say that they now share “some software and functionality” of the radars, particularly in ground-mapping mode.
The two jets still have different electronic architectures, but “the stuff that’s pumping out of those TR (transmit/receive) modules is very much the same.” Electronic warfare capabilities are similar and eventually could use the same hardware as well.
In self-protection, the aircraft can share common flares and magazines, “common EW,” or electronic warfare systems, but mostly in the utilities, such as avionics, subsystems, hydraulics, and interfaces for weapons.
EOTSia ei valitettavasti F-22 kykene saamaan.
Siis noiden Japanin "helikopterihävittäjien" todellista luonnetta. Saa Kiinakin välillä harmaita hiuksia naapureistaan, eikä vain toisinpäin.
