Просто для напоминания: Ф-22, мечты и реальность.

THE DREAM — THE FICTION

Primary Mission—To Conduct Offensive Counter-Air Operations deep in Russia—
(400 NM Combat Mission—100 NM subsonic cruise to the point of penetration, 300 NM supersonic ingress, substantial aerial combat, and 300 NM supersonic egress, with landing fuel reserves)

To provide 750-800 Aircraft to replace the aging F–15/F-16 Air Superiority Fleets

To be designed to a Unit Flyaway Cost Limit in 1982 dollars of $35 Million

To control cost by conforming to a Weight Limit of 50,000 lbs[With Cost and Weight comparable to the old F–15, the ATF/F-22 was clearly bargain]

THE REALIZATION
Summary Conclusions— Impact of the F–22 on ACC and The USAF

The dreams of Stealth, Supercruise, Ultra-High Climb, Acceleration, and Maneuvering Performance have not been realized. The Outstanding Avionics will not be properly tested before purchase and possibly not even before combat.

The number of F–22s purchased will not provide a critical mass of fighters.
The “Dream” of 800 fighters initially promised for $40B and later for $70 Billion, fell to 648 F-22s for $64.2B after the 1992 SAR, to 442 for $64.2B after the BUR, and to 339 for $64.2B after a QDR. Study groups and the Congressional Budget Office seeking responsible funding are considering options of 175 and even 100 F–22s. At 339 this is a unit program cost of $190M per aircraft—1/3 the cost of the B–1 (predicted in 1976), this cost is utterly obscene. AT 175 aircraft the cost becomes an insane $370B. Thus—
Prediction—Despite high funding levels, the future size of ACC will see further reductions.

The low number of F–22s will not rejuvenate the aging F–15, F–16 fleet.

A mix of F–22s and JSFs cannot be a High-Low Mix.
It will be An Ultra-High—High Mix of non-comparable, incompatible aircraft. The complementary F–15 and F–16 do both the air superiority and air-to-surface missions and can support each other. The F-22 does only day air superiority—the JSF will do only night bombing of static targets. Both have deserted our US Army.

The few F–22s possessing quasi-F-15 performance will severely degrade the air superiority capability of ACC. Decision-makers have (again) opted for unilateral disarmament in the face of their perceived threats.

Validation of the Summary Conclusions

Stealth

The F–22 is not a Stealthy Aircraft. Stealth means the proper suppression of all its important signatures—Visual, Radar, Infrared (IR), Electromagnetic Emissions, and today, even Sound.

Visually—Since the F–22 is the world’s largest and very identifiable fighter, it will be seen first.
Its role is in daylight. Stealth operations are night operations. Unfortunately design for radar stealth invariably increases the size of a fighter making it more visible, and hence is counterproductive.

The radar signature of the F-22 is improperly reported to the GAO and The Congress.
Only a single data number is provided to congressional committees and the GAO—the average radar signature in the level forward direction within 20 degrees off the nose, presumably to enemy fighter radars. One cannot design an aircraft to hide from low and medium frequency ground radars and from high frequency airborne fighter radars, all of the time. Properly, radar signatures should be portrayed and reported for all aspects—all azimuths, and all “latitudes”—and for all radar frequencies. Single data suggest mendacity by incompleteness.

Fighters cruising supersonically are beacons in the sky to the various infrared sensors. Ramming the air at high speed and generating supersonic shock waves creates temperature differentials impossible to hide.

Fighters, with radar to search for and find enemy fighters autonomously, at long ranges, cannot hide their high powered electric emissions to modern, sophisticated, Russian equipment. The Russians excel at this art and export their equipment to many nations. Further, F-22 detection of enemies by radar is an inverse fourth power phenomenon, while detection of the F-22’s radar is an inverse square phenomenon, giving the advantage to the enemy.

The Sound Signature—Modernity and the sound of a booming supersonic F-22 allow high-speed computers to identify it and (given an integrated net of sensors) provide sufficiently accurate position location and prediction.

It is clear that designing air superiority aircraft for radar stealth
is a counterproductive error.


Supercruise

The F–22 has not yet demonstrated effective supersonic cruise, nor will it. The USAF has never appreciated that speed without persistence is meaningless.
Proof—Six USAF aircraft capable of Mach 2.2 never exceeded 1.4 Mach in combat over North Vietnam in 10 years of combat, in hundreds of thousands of sorties. The F–15 has never demonstrated its performance guarantee of Mach 2.5 flight in a combat configuration on a realistic combat mission profile.

The USAF has the wrong definition of supercruise! Cruise means covering distance efficiently. Fighters, with wings properly sized for subsonic maneuvering achieve efficient supersonic flight at altitudes above 60,000 feet requiring partial afterburning thrust. The proper cruise condition may remain unknown to the testers since the test program currently limits testing to below 50,000. All supercruisers cruise at very high altitudes using some afterburning (i.e. ramjet) thrust—MiG–31, SR-71, and the many designs that I have studied, generated, or supervised.


The report that the F–22 has demonstrated supercruise is specious and misleading. The report merely stated that the F–22 flew at 1.6-1.7 Mach flight speeds in pure turbojet (dry) thrust. The distance traveled and persistence at those speeds on its design mission were not provided. Supersonic speed at 1.6 Mach in dry thrust bodes well, but this capability is not sufficient to achieve supercruise. The need is to report the percentage of the dream mission accomplished.

TheF-22’s Fuel Fraction is insufficient for pragmatic supersonic cruise missions.
Fuel Fraction, the weight of the fuel divided by the weight of the aircraft at take-off, impacts cruise-range, be it super or subsonic. At today’s state of the art, fuel fractions of 29 percent and below yield subcruisers; 33 percent provides a quasi–supercruiser; and 35 percent and above provides useful missions. The F–22’s fuel fraction is 29 percent equal to those of the subcruising F–4s, F–15s and the Russian MiG-21, Flanker. The Russian medium range supersonic cruise interceptor, the MiG-31 Foxhound, has a fuel fraction of over 45 percent. Supersonic cruise fighters require higher fuel fractions since they must have excessive wing for effective subsonic maneuvering.

Proper data are global radius of action and global persistence plots as functions of speed and altitude, for rational missions. These data must be then compared to those of the F–15 and the ancient F–104-19 to establish progress. For example—the 40 year old F-104A-19 has twice the supersonic radius of the 20 year old F-15C at 1.7 Mach, and out-accelerates it at Mach 2.2. Compare! In comparison lies the proof of progress Prediction—These comparison plots will never be shown to The Congress.

The “dream” 400 NM radius design mission was continually redefined and degraded to—a) conform to physically reality, and—b) to reduce the uncontrolled cost and weight. The goals have not been met.


Ultra-High Performance

The F–22 does not provide a Great Leap Forward in performance relative to the F–15C or MiG-29.
At 65,000 lbs, with 18,500 – 18,750 lbs of fuel, with two nominal 35,000 lb thrust engines—it has the thrust to weight ratio of the F–15C, the fuel fraction of the F–15C, and a wing loading that is only slightly inferior to that of the F–15C, so it will accelerate, climb, and maneuver much like the F–15C for reasons of basic physics.

There are two differences from the F–15—thrust vectoring and supersonic speeds in dry thrust. The thrust vectoring being in only one dimension, does not augment slow speed maneuvering; it serves another purpose.

The flight test program to validate maneuverability is utterly inadequate. Using a single number—the maximum steady-state G at 30,000 ft at 0.9 Mach, for an aircraft that operates from stall speed to beyond Mach 2, from sea level to above 60,000 ft, is a throwback to the Dark Ages of aircraft evaluation. Proper presentations are global, all-altitude all-speed plots at the two major power settings. Further, they must be compared with friendly and enemy aircraft. Comparison reveals progress, the whole truth, and even allows the formulation of battle tactics.


Advanced Avionics

The expectations for the avionics are to provide great battle awareness and effective weapons management. The F-22 is to autonomously identify (ID) the enemy from friend, and from neutral, regardless of the country that produced the aircraft. Such refined identification capability has never been achieved though frequently promised. Given failure and dependence on visual identification, the F-22 will be at the level of the F–15 and F–16. The inability to fulfill the requirement for visual ID made the USAF AIM-7D/E missiles, the long range Talos ship-to-air missile, the complex multi-mode long-range Phoenix missile, and Aegis missile cruisers relatively useless in combat.

But, testing will not be fully completed before going into production! The pressure is on to meet production schedules and to do incomplete testing to save time and money. Incomplete testing is fatal and extremely wasteful. B–1 avionics, similarly treated, still do not function in the aircraft after 2 decades, despite large transfusions of funds.

Most likely result—The F-22 will be declared combat ready much before it is.