USAF awards Raptor sensor upgrade contract
September 4, 2024
RTX‘s Raytheon has been awarded a contract to upgrade sensors for the F-22 that could be worth more than $1 billion. Work will reportedly be performed in McKinney, Texas, and is expected to be completed by 8 May 2029.
With the US Air Force’s manned Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter programme seemingly delayed by budgetary issues, the USAF faces a shortfall in Air Dominance capabilities, and some believe that the combination of F-35As and F-15EXs now being procured do not adequately meet the requirement.
Though the F-35 has formidable airborne sensor capabilities (thanks to the sophisticated fusion of onboard and offboard sensors and data-processing), it remains first and foremost a strike fighter and ISR aircraft, whereas the Raptor is a pure air dominance interceptor, with as yet unmatched capabilities in degrading enemy air power, primarily through long-range BVR (Beyond Visual Range) engagements.
The Raptor combines stealth, supercruise, and manoeuvrability, with integrated avionics, and is optimised to project air dominance, rapidly and at great distance. It also has formidable precision air to ground capabilities.
Efforts are underway to bridge the air dominance gap. Previous plans to start retiring the F-22 from 2030 seem to have been set aside, and even the plan to retire 32 older ‘Block 20’ variants is now in doubt. The Air Force requested congressional approval to retire the Block 20s to generate support savings, and estimated that it would cost $3.3 billion to upgrade the early Block 20s to the later standard Block 30/35 configuration.
“The F-22 is our bridge to fielding NGAD, which will represent, in terms of NGAD family of systems, another generational leap in technology over the F-22 and our ability to achieve air superiority in the future highly contested environment,” one senior officer said. Air Force General Kenneth Wilsbach, the head of Air Combat Command, has said that he favours keeping the Block 20 F-22s, as “they give us a lot of training value and, even if, we had to, in an emergency, use the Block 20s in a combat situation, they are very capable. Right now, there frankly isn’t an F-22 replacement and the F-22 is a fantastic aircraft!”
In saying so, Wilsbach was contradicting Air Force Brigadier General Jason Voorheis, the programme executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, who said that “There’s retaining the Block 20s in a training capacity, which ACC are doing today, but it’s quite a different story using them in operations. Retaining the Block 20s is a different question than modernizing them,” Voorheis said.
Instead of retiring the F-22, a US $4.3 billion F-22 upgrade programme will be undertaken between fiscal years 2023 and 2029, with a further $3.1 billion allocated for research and development over the same period.
The latest contract forms one element in this wider upgrade. The Raptor team has recently conducted six flight test ‘efforts’ to demonstrate and assess advanced sensors on the F-22, using rapid prototyping under a so-called Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) programme. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, an F-22 was recently photographed carrying stealthy external pods carrying a new IRST (Infrared Search and Track) sensor.
This wider upgrade will see some 154 F-22 Raptors being upgraded with an expanded open architecture mission system, with GRACE (Government Reference Architecture Compute Environment) software that will allow “non-traditional F-22 software” to be installed on the aircraft while also providing “additional processing and pilot interfaces.” The F-22s will receive advanced radar Electronic Protection, and (under ‘Project Keystone’) an advanced threat warning receiver. The aircraft will also receive a new cryptographic communications system, Mode 5 Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), a Multifunction Information Distribution System Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS JTRS), and an Embedded GPS/Inertial Navigation System (INS) Modernization (EGI-M), as well as new weapons.
A new helmet is also being tested under the Next Generation Fixed Wing Helmet programme. This would finally allow the introduction of helmet-mounted sights and/or displays, which have previously not been available thanks to the tight confines of the Raptor’s canopy, and difficulties in ‘mapping’ the cockpit.
Some of the F-22 upgrades may also be applied to the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) family of systems.
Jason Voorheis, the program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft said that: “The F-22 team is working really hard on executing a modernization roadmap to field advanced sensors, connectivity, weapons and other capabilities that are relevant to the INDOPACOM theatre. We’re executing that successfully, and that will lead to a rapid fielding in the near future.” He went on to say that: “From an F-22 sunsetting perspective, I don’t have a date for you. What I can tell you is that we are hyper-focused on modernization to sustain that air superiority combat capability for a highly contested environment for as long as necessary.”
