In 1981, the Air Force developed a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Fighter as a new air superiority fighter. It would take advantage of the new technologies in fighter design on the horizon including composite materials, lightweight alloys, advanced flight control systems, higher power propulsion systems and stealth technology.
Air Force leaders believed these new technologies would make aircraft like the F-15 and F-16 obsolete by the early 21st century. In 1985, the Air Force sent out technical requests for proposals to a number of aircraft manufacturing teams.
The two competitors were Northrop-McDonnell Douglas' YF-23, and the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics YF-22, which was turned over for display to the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on March 31, 1998.
Like the YF-22 team, the Northrop team built two YF-23 prototypes, one with General ElectricYF-120 engines and the other with Pratt & Whitney YF-119 engines.
After extensive flight testing the YF-22 was selected for production.
Prior to its selection as winner of the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition, the F-22 team conducted a 54-month demonstration/validation (dem/val) program. The effort involved the design, construction, and flight testing of two YF-22 prototype aircraft. The dem/val phase of the program was completed in December 1990.
The engine
Two prototype engine designs, the Pratt & Whitney YF119-PW-100 and the General Electric YF120-GE-100 were also developed and tested during the program. The Pratt & Whitney F119 was selected by the Air Force to power the F-22.
Much of the dem/val work was performed at Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) in Burbank, Calif.; at General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems) in Fort Worth, Texas; and at Boeing in Seattle, Wash. The prototypes were assembled in Lockheed’s Palmdale, Calif., facility and made their maiden flight from there.
Since that time, Lockheed Martin's program management and aircraft assembly operations have moved to Marietta, Ga., for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development and production phases.
On Sept. 7, 1997, the first Lockheed-Boeing F-22 was flown for the first time, taking to the skies over Marietta and north Georgia. This was followed by several airworthiness flights prior to the ferry flight to the the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB.
Ferry to California
The F-22 was transported in sections to Edwards AFB in the early months of 1998, and is now being reassembled in anticipation of the flight testing, which is scheduled to begin at the end of April. The F-22's performance will be measured at all required flight regimes.
The first aircraft will undergo roughly 50 test flights prior to delivery of the second aircraft to Edwards in mid-1998. The second aircraft is now in final assembly at Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems in Marietta and is scheduled for completion in late spring 1998.
Five years of tests
The test program runs for five years and consists of approximately 2,700 flights and 7,800 hours. The first three F-22 aircraft are essentially engines and airframes and do not have the full-up tactical avionics and sensors. They will be used for envelope expansion, structural loads, propulsion, and weapons and other flight test areas such as high angle-of-attack flights and arresting gear tests.
The remaining six F-22s are interchangeable avionics test aircraft. The avionics suite will mature through four stages or ‘blocks’ of avionics, however, each of the six avionics aircraft will all carry the same configuration of avionics at the same time. This allows any airframe to be used for any avionics test and not lose a test flight maintenance down days or modifications on a particular airframe.
The workforce
The combined test force (CTF) will start at about 290 people and build to a maximum of 650 in 2001. Initially the CTF will comprise a sixty-forty percent mix of contractor and Air Force personnel. As testing progresses, the mix will shift to a fifty-fifty mix.
The organization will be commanded by an Air Force officer, with a contractor deputy. The internal organization is built around the Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) that produce the flight test product – data.
The IPT approach was used to develop the F-22.
Under the IPT concept, each of the more than 80 permanent teams was completely responsible for its 'product' (i.e. avionics, cockpit, airframe, utilities and subsystems, etc.) – from engineering a part or system, controlling its cost and schedule and insuring that it can be manufactured and supported once in use.
The Air Force's F-22 System Program Office (SPO) has teams that mirror the organization on the contractor side, improving communications across the team.
Information from the web sites of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney were used in this story.