By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
As fervor regarding the F-47 and soon to emerge F/A-XX surges throughout the military world, the famous F-22 Raptor is quietly thriving and improving beneath the threshold of visible enthusiasm for 6th-gen platforms. The existence of the F-22, its history, and perhaps of greatest importance its modernization, represents a significant element of any US Air Force fighter fleet. It is a large reason why it is a near certainty that the F-47 and F/A-XX will operate with new generations of networking transport layer communications technology. The idea is to engineer data links, interfaces and protocols sufficient to enable otherwise incompatible transport layer technologies to share information with one another in real time.
What this suggests is that the F-47 and F/A-XX will be engineered with an ability to share real-time information with the Air Force’s current fleet of 169 F-22s. This will be particularly true over the next several decades as the F-47s continue to arrive in impactful numbers and the F/A-XX arrives. The F-22 has in recent years been engineered to fly into the 2050s and beyond. Any ability for F-22s, F-35s, F-47s and F/A-XXs to share real-time intelligence and targeting data with one another would prove extremely critical in a great war scenario wherein the Air Force needed to deploy a large, wide formation of attacking stealth aircraft.
F-22 Modernization
The US Air Force has for years intended to fly its F-22 Raptor well into the 2050s and even 2060s through an ambitious and continued modernization program, an effort likely gaining even more traction now as the fate of the service’s 6th-gen stealth fighter lingers in a haze of uncertainty.
Proponents of the F-22 have for decades argued that indeed the Raptor is the best air-supremacy platform in the world due to its stealth, speed, aerial maneuverability and weapons systems. Years ago, the potential superiority of the F-22 seemed to lodge itself in the minds of senior weapons developers for a number of key reasons. With round nozzles, the F-22 reportedly flies with the best “thrust-to-weight” ratio in the world at 1.37. This means it can vector, accelerate and maneuver in the air like no other aircraft.
The closest competitor in this area would appear to be Russia’s upgraded Su-27 called the Su-35 which has a “thrust-to-weight” ratio of 3.0. However, even the advanced Russian Su-35, which has been upgraded with 4th-gen “plus” technologies, is not as stealthy as an F-22. At Mach 2.25, the F-22 appears tied with the very capable Su-35 for speed, yet there may be differences in sensing and weapons capacity that are hard to determine.
The F-22 has also received radar upgrades and a next-generation targeting technology called Infrared Search and Track (IRST), which help sustain targeting in a higher-threat, EW environment.
First Shot-First Kill
Regarded as the ultimate “first shot – first kill” weapons platform, the F-22 had its combat debut against ISIS in 2014 and has consistently been deployed throughout the world as a forward-positioned rapid-response attack platform.
Years ago, the Air Force started an intense “Rapid Raptor” program which placed F-22s, crews and maintenance and sustainment support in strategically vital areas of the world with the idea that F-22s could get anywhere in the world, anytime within 24 hours in the event of a crisis.
F-22 Modernization
Part of why the F-22 is so valued is in large measure due to the success of its long-standing, ambitious modernization program. The Air Force has worked with Lockheed repeatedly over the years to maintain and even improve the aircraft’s stealth coating and made a number of software, hardware and weapons upgrades to the plane in recent decades.
One of the largest and most successful F-22 modernization efforts was a now-operational, fleet-wide software upgrade called 3.2b; this initiative accomplished many things for the Raptor’s avionics, software, command and control and weapons systems.
In particular, the 3.2b software upgrade greatly enhanced the lethality and combat capability of the air-launched AIM-9X and AIM 120D missiles. Range, guidance and precision were all improved through this upgrade, and the weapons’ guidance system was “hardened” against enemy jamming.
This 3.2b upgrade became operational across the fleet many years ago, and in subsequent years the Air Force and Lockheed have improved the F-22s sensors, radar, antennas and communications technologies. For example, the F-22 can not only exchange two-way information with 4th-generation aircraft but also securely exchange two-way data with F-35s.
Not Enough F-22s?
One of the biggest challenges with the F-22 is simply fleet size, meaning the original plan for a fleet of 750 aircraft was abruptly truncated in 2009 down to 195. This is something many US military leaders and weapons developers have, in retrospect, come to regret.
In fact, several years ago there was a decided effort to resurrect an F-22 production line, an initiative which was ultimately cancelled by Senior Air Force decision-makers who cited “budget considerations” at the time. Many are also likely to lament this decision as well, particularly given the liminal cloud in which the service’s 6th-gen plans seems to exist.
Why was the F-22 fleet plan reduced by so much? Why wasn’t the F-22 production line re-started? There are a variety of variables which may have impacted these questions, the most prominent of which may simply be timing in 2009. Not only had the Cold War, resulting in a diminished Russian threat, but the US military was entirely absorbed in counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Decision makers may have simply been overly distracted with pressing counter-terrorism challenges and lacked the necessary “long-term” vision to accurately anticipate the threat environment of the 2020s and 2030s. This seems to be the most plausible argument, despite the fact that it indicates a disappointing lack of a longer-term vision regarding future challenges to the US military. The full extent of the F-22s superiority may not have been fully understood either, and senior weapons developers may well have assumed a manned 6th-gen stealth fighter would be emerging in coming years as an F-22 successor.
Air Frames Can Survive
There is a key lesson here which weapons developers definitely do understand about aircraft modernization, as evidenced by platforms such as the B-52 and F-16. Airframes can remain structurally sound, viable and effective for decades after a platform is built, yet weapons, software, electronics, computing, propulsion and avionics upgrades can make an aerial weapons platform an almost entirely different aircraft than it was at its inception.
The B-52, for instance, has received a new engine, internal weapons bay, intelligence data communications technology and weapons enhancements such that it remains an extremely critical part of the Air Force’s modern fleet. Sure enough, the iconic B-52 has catapulted beyond its carpet bombing Vietnam-era tactics and is now able to fire long-range precision air-dropped bombs and cruise missiles. The aircraft also now has an advanced, real-time radio and communications network able to update target specifics “in-flight.” Moving forward, the B-52 could be used as an arsenal plane to transport weapons and even launch drones.
There is a similar story with the 1980s-era F-16, as it has been massively upgraded through various “Service Life Extension Programs,” many of which have completely reshaped the aircraft’s attack capabilities. Not only has the F-16 received structural support and weapons upgrades but many F-16s have been retrofitted with F-35 technologies such as AESA radar.
The same can be said of the F-22, given its successful modernization campaign, which is likely why the Air Force plans to fly the attack platform into the 2060s. As part of this, the service has ambitious plans for the Raptor to include an ability to, among other things, control drones from the cockpit. The Air Force should have “more” F-22s to be able to scale its capabilities in a great power engagement.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
