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Nous publions ci-dessous quatre textes présentant divers aspects des derniers développements du sort du programme d’avion de combat USAF/Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor. Par ailleurs sur ce site, dans la rubrique Faits & Commentaires, on trouve une présentation et un commentaire de ces derniers développements, renvoyant aux textes cités ci-dessous.
(Nous présentons ces textes en consultation sur ce site, d’une part à cause de l’intérêt de les lire successivement, par démarche d’une comparaison éclairante ; aussi, d’autre part, parce qu’ils sont d’un accès difficile, sur lequel nous ne pouvons compter pour l’information de nos lecteurs.)
L’importance du programme F/A-22 est essentielle, notamment pour la mise en évidence des processus (réussis ou pas ?) d’intégration des technologies avancées ; d’autre part, pour la question de la maîtrise des coûts (maîtrisés ou pas ?) d’un très grand programme d’armement, exemplaire des développements technologiques d’armement.
Ce qu’il importe de montrer ici est la manipulation de l’information extrêmement visible par la comparaison des textes. L’évolution des programmes d’armement est devenue une bataille comme une autre, au même titre que les batailles sur les théâtres d’opération réels ; dans ces batailles, l’information est complètement une arme, utilisée comme telle, manipulée comme telle.
By Gail Kaufman, Defense News, 8 March, 2004
U.S. Air Force leaders may have saved the $72 billion F/A-22 Raptor program from extinction by giving the air-superiority fighter a ground-attack role in 2002. But the move now appears likely to mean more delays and fewer planes for the program.
Neither Air Force officials nor their civilian overseers at the Pentagon know how much it will cost to make the supersonic Raptor a ground-attack plane. One former senior Pentagon official predicted it will cost billions of dollars — likely coming from operations-and-maintenance funds — to build a true ground-attack Raptor.
And despite Air Force Secretary James Roche’s September 2002 declaration that the F-22 would become the F/A-22, the Air Force has yet to formally outline the new requirements for the plane. Raptor is to enter service in 2005 with both air superiority and limited ground attack capabilities in the form of two, 1,000-pound satellite-guided bombs.
While it remains unclear how much the strike Raptor will cost, what is clear is that as glitches in the stealthy fighter’s avionics software appeared in the past few years, the Air Force has robbed the production account to fix billion-dollar problems. That’s the main reason the planned purchase has slipped from 339 to 277. Defense analysts and Pentagon officials say the number could shrink to about 180.
The costs of adding ground-attack capabilities can only bite further into purchases because the program is under a $36.8 billion production cost cap imposed by an impatient Congress.
The service’s vision for the 20-year-old Raptor has morphed from a stealthy air-superiority fighter into a supersonic, networked attack plane that can drop eight 250-pound bombs and use a next-generation, all-weather radar to hunt down enemy cruise missiles.
“We only made the determination to do that 18 months ago,” Roche said. “We’re not in a panic. We will face bumps.”
Still, some speculate that Raptor will not survive the cost-benefit analysis ordered by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which is being led by the Pentagon’s office for Programs, Analysis and Evaluation. The other program under scrutiny was the Army’s Comanche helicopter, which the Army itself decided to cancel last month.
Killing Raptor now, its defenders say, would stop work just short of success.
“It would be an inordinately bad idea to stop F/A-22 completely,” said Ted Marz, an avionics expert who served on two panels convened by the Pentagon’s research chief to examine the plane’s avionics software troubles.
The Raptor represents revolutionary advances in computing size, weight, and power that are worth even the “hugely hideously expensive” cost of seeing them through their initial development and production purchase, said Marz, a senior technical staffer at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa.
“The Defense Department has skipped several generations of technology getting to the F/A-22. If they stop, and don’t finish this generation of technology and try to immediately progress along to the next-generation technology, they won’t have pressed out all the concerns,” he said. “You’re just going to end up with the same collection of problems six years down the road if they don’t see it out.”
A Tough Problemw
The F/A-22 Raptor is astoundingly complex, comprising 108 different systems built by 38 industry teams and 15 companies, driven and linked by nearly 3 million of lines of software code. And that’s just the baseline version.
Under Cold War rules, such an advanced plane required intense secrecy — a caveat that would cost billions of dollars. For starters, every computer and program aboard the plane must be certified secure by the National Security Agency, making changes lengthy and expensive.
Security concerns also led program officials to build the Raptor around the Intel 960 processor, a chip whose multi-layered security setup allows maintainers with varying levels of clearances to work on the plane. But when Intel’s plans to sell the 960 to the banking industry fell through, the Air Force — and the Army, which used the chip in Comanche — were left with orphaned technology. The U.S. military must pay to train every programmer, write every drop of software, and build every interface for the 960.
Similarly, the connections between the rest of the Raptor’s electronic parts were built to standards first set in 1989 by the Joint Integrated Avionics Working Group, a group of development contractors and DoD research organizations established to set norms for electronic-module interfaces in the F-22, the Navy’s soon-to-be canceled A-12 bomber, and what would become the Joint Strike Fighter. Those standards, however, were “not widely embraced by industry,” a program official said, and so became another example of orphaned technology.
All this hampered the Air Force’s unprecedented efforts to weave the fighter’s radar, other sensors, electronic warfare system, and communications and navigation equipment into a single tightly intertwined system, that would allow the pilot to keep tabs on essential information while simultaneously passing data — say, the electronic signature of an enemy ground radar — to battle management and intelligence networks.
Although the flight-control software generally works well, the program office is still trying to fix bugs; the avionics can’t run more than three hours without affecting the pilot’s mission. If that can’t be fixed by the end of March, the program will miss its deadline to begin the Pentagon’s initial operational test and evaluation and the schedule will slip further.
Fixing the avionics is now the Raptor program’s top priority.
“The intent is not to bypass the stability problem, it’s to fix it,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Welsh, who directs global power programs for the service’s acquisition office. Meanwhile, the security issues and orphaned technology keep program officials from making major changes to improve the processing speed and technology, say avionics experts from the Pentagon and the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm.
Even now, program officials say they could save money over the long run by making these changes. But the Congressional cost cap means that they don’t have enough money to make those changes now — unless they shrink the proposed purchase.
The Cost of Adding ‘A’
Adding the ground-attack capabilities will create a whole new set of problems.
“The addition of every unanticipated feature or extension typically is more difficult to add into the software, hence, it becomes brittle, difficult to maintain and harder to change over time,” said Daniel Plakosh, who has reviewed the F/A-22 program and works with Marz at Carnegie Mellon. “Also, these additions may not always work the way you really would want them to.”
“The changes they had to make to improve stability of the software to begin with depends on what types of mistakes they were correcting,” said Plakosh, a former lead software engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. “If they were architectural mistakes, you may have to compromise your architecture to get it to work right.”
Welsh contends it’s too early to tell strike Raptor’s pricetag.
“Talking about the cost of things is really premature,” Welsh said. “We have to start with what are the requirements? What is the actual capability you need to bring to the fight out there?”
Other Air Force officials said the service is currently developing air-to-ground requirements.
Among the improvements envisioned are adding a fourth-generation electronically scanned array in 2006, an all-weather air-to-ground radar in 2008, and advanced electronic warfare gear by 2011, said Lt. Col. Duke Richardson, program element monitor for the F/A-22.
Richardson said that while the F/A-22’s current architecture has enough processing power to accommodate the array and radar, adding the electronic warfare gear will require improving the plane’s information architecture. Lockheed Martin officials and their suppliers are reviewing several options to increase the processing power of F/A-22, perhaps by borrowing technology for the Joint Strike Fighter.
Whatever they decide, the Air Force needs to find money in the 2006-11 spending plan now under construction, and that starts with deciding exactly what they want.
Of course, changing requirements leads to all sorts of problems — including those with the Raptor’s avionics.
“Requirements and design changes accounted for 37 percent of the critical problem reports leading to avionics shutdowns in the F/A-22,” said a March 1 GAO report.
A congressional staffer with knowledge of the F/A-22 says additional changes are “clearly going to be more money. If you don’t have the requirements set from the start, how are you going to achieve your goal of getting the capability out to the warfighter?”
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reusters, 15 March, 2004
The U.S. General Accounting Office on Monday blasted Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F/A-22 fighter jet, saying the Pentagon should weigh the high risk of future cost increases and program delays before deciding in December to start full production.
The investigative arm of Congress said costs for the program that began during the Cold War era were expected to grow to $80 billion from an Air Force estimate of $72 billion, and the Pentagon had not explained why it still needed the pricey fighter in a changed military environment.
In an annual report to Congress, GAO said the Pentagon estimated it would cost $11.7 billion to expand the air-to-ground attack capability of the F/A-22 ''Raptor,'' of which only $3.5 billion had been earmarked through fiscal 2009.
Keith Ashdown at Taxpayers for Common Sense said the new data put the per-unit cost of each F/A-22 ''into the realm of absurdity'' at $330 million, up from $257 million last year.
''This is a damning report,'' he said, predicting intense debate in Congress, although he acknowledged it would be tough to cut the program, which has subcontractors in 44 states.
Critics decry the F/A-22 as a Cold War relic, a stealthy jet initially designed for air-to-air combat with Soviet MiGs, and the program has come under increasing scrutiny by lawmakers and the White House in the wake of rising federal deficits.
The White House Office of Management and Budget in February ordered a comprehensive study of the F/A-22 and the Army's Comanche helicopter program, which has since been canceled .
GAO said the U.S. military has already spent $40 billion on the F/A-22 over the last 18 years, but now faces decisions on $40 billion more as the F/A-22 moves toward full production, especially given continuing reliability and avionics problems.
''Based on current design problems and the development efforts that remain, the F/A-22 program's affordability is uncertain,'' the report concluded, noting that avionics upgrades the Air Force says it needs would drive costs even higher.
The GAO report follows testimony this month from Christopher Bolkcom, chief military aviation analyst of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, who said the Raptor should be scaled back in favor of cheaper alternatives.
Bolkcom said recent conflicts have required no real air-to-air combat capability, and unmanned aircraft could help the U.S. dominate the skies more affordably than the F/A-22.
The Air Force estimates it will be able to buy just 218 fighter jets — down from the 277 currently planned — if Congress maintains the $36.8 billion production cost cap it imposed in 1998 in the wake of ballooning program costs.
The Air Force, which initially planned to buy 750 Raptors, insists it needs 381 to accomplish its mission goals, and effectively fought off an internal Pentagon initiative two years ago to trim the total purchase to 180 fighter jets.
Loren Thompson at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said the Air Force would likely accept a cutback to save the program. He said there was ''zero likelihood'' of cancellation.
The Air Force says it remains committed to the F/A-22, meant to replace the F-15C as the top U.S. air-to-air fighter.
''The F/A-22 is an insurance policy for our nation's defense and will serve not only the Air Force, but also ground, sea and special operations forces,'' said Maj. Cheryl Law.
Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky said the F/A-22 was on track to meet its target of going operational in December 2005, meeting key parameters on stealth, speed and sensors.
Senior military acquisition officials are due to review the program and approve the operational testing on March 22, with a decision on moving into full production due in December.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
By David A. Fulghum & Robert Wall, Aviation Week & space Technology, 22 March, 2004
Confusion surrounds Raptor's air-to-ground upgrade program as congressional investigators predict cost increases
There are signs the F/A-22 Raptor program is running into the same lethal combination of financial pressures, uneven progress in development and intensified congressional scrutiny that led to the cancellation of the U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche.
In the stealth fighter's defense, advocates point to major differences between the two programs that were both started in the early 1980s. Army officials were apathetic, almost weary, of Comanche and for years had given higher priority to heavy armor and other non-aviation efforts. In contrast, the Air Force's senior leaders continue to press for the supersonic fighter, both within the Pentagon and in its dealings with Congress, and they have stripped other projects to keep F/A-22 alive.
However, with defense budget growth expected to peak in Fiscal 2005 (with a significant slide to quickly follow) and with newer, perhaps more transformational, programs being moved forward such as unmanned and long-range strike aircraft, the Air Force again will have to defend the F/A-22 program vigorously against the kind of criticism that killed Comanche.
Right now, the F/A-22 has a total program cost that could top $300 million per aircraft, but a $120-million flyaway cost for the next production lot, said Air Force Secretary James Roche. The price may drop further to $110 million, he said. A new General Accounting Office report contends that the Air Force says it can afford only 218 of the fighters. ''It's a new number to me,'' Roche said in answer to a question about the report's accuracy. ''In terms of production, we still, so far, see around 275-277.'' Congress has waived cost caps on the development, which is expected to be about $28.7 billion.
Two new cost issues have emerged. The first may involve confusion and some conflict of priorities between development of a ground-attack capability for the F/A-22 and research into a FB-22 bomber version of the low-observability design. The second is growing congressional concern about the cost of adding precision and standoff weaponry to the F/A-22 as well as a radar that may offer resolution of as little as 1 ft. Service officials worry that some lawmakers and their staffs are confusing the two issues. As a contributing factor, the GAO report contends that adding an air-to-ground attack capability to the F/A-22 will cost $11.7 billion. (The GAO serves as Congress' investigative arm.)
''I would like to know what they're adding to the account that suggests that [additional cost],'' Roche said. ''The biggest thing we are doing is changing the radar. In changing the radar, the price falls 40%. We have some technology we're trying to integrate for catching moving targets that we're pressing. That may require more computing power . . . at some point in the growth of the airplane. That's all within the budget.''
The huge F/A-22 cost increase suggested by the GAO has many in the Pentagon searching for its origins.
''THE FB-22 [BOMBER] CONCEPT has taken off, but some people think it's an extension of the F/A-22 [program],'' said a senior Air Force official. ''The FB-22 is [one candidate for] an interim solution to the long-range strike requirement and not a strike version of the F/A-22. It's a new and different aircraft. But a lot of people in the Defense Dept. and Congress think we've got another $5-10-billion addition to the F/A-22 program. That's not the case. The F/A-22 is fully budgeted through development of a robust air-to-ground capability.''
There also appears to be some tension within Lockheed Martin. The advanced development programs (Skunk Works) group is promoting FB-22 in an attempt to capture some of the $45 million that Congress has provided for future bomber efforts. But F/A-22 officials don't want anything to threaten their funding by creating confusion over the program.
Roche tried to define the three programs that are involved: an F-22 air-to-ground upgrade, a future long-range strike program and a near-term bridge between the two concepts.
Military and aerospace leaders say they are clueless about suggestions that huge cost growth is likely in ground-attack upgrades for the F/A-22.
''We're kind of running out of ideas on [introducing new weapons on old bomber aircraft], so you want to think about new platforms and what's appropriate for long-range strike,'' he said. ''In the very long run [2025-30], we don't know what that means. But it appears that if we're going to augment [the existing bombers with a bridge aircraft] then we want an aircraft that's stealthy [and] can be used in daylight as well as at night. That means it can defend itself [and] maneuver quickly. When you try to put all that together . . . you come to what I refer to as a 'regional bomber' that might have range that is something like 75% of the B-2. The FB-22 is in that class. We'd like to explore an FB-22-like animal.'' Roche said he expects concepts from the three major contractors within a year. Demonstrations of advanced concepts could be slated as early as 2012-15 (AW&ST Mar. 8, p. 59).
THE UPGRADED F/A-22 air-to-ground capability will produce a stealth aircraft able to ''defeat modern surface-to-air missiles'' like the SA-20 or S-400 family and to track and attack moving targets, he said. It also will be a key to cruise missile defense because with super-cruise speed it can position itself for both a ''first and second shot,'' Roche revealed, which is difficult ''because a cruise missile can come from any direction.''
''The Skunk Works is trying to get some of the long-range strike money and move up [the initial operational date for a new bomber],'' the Air Force official said. ''But now people are confusing that [effort] with the F/A-22 program because [the bomber version] hasn't been identified well enough.''
The F/A-22 upgrades now encompassed by the program's projected budget include an increased weapons payload, precision delivery capability and the ability to launch new standoff weapons. Improved bombing accuracy would result from installation of a ground moving-target indicator and the high-resolution synthetic aperture radar.
The FB-22 bomber controversy aside, Congress is still critical of the projected costs for improving the F/A-22's ground-attack capability. The GAO says the Air Force has not made a ''business case'' for why multibillion-dollar upgrades are warranted.
''THE F-35 [JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER] aircraft is also expected to have an air-to-ground role, as are planned future unmanned combat air vehicles,'' the GAO said. ''These could be viable alternatives to this additional investment in F/A-22 capability.'' Investigators call for the Pentagon to rationalize spending plans for F/A-22.
Roche deflected the suggestion by saying any aircraft newer than the F/A-22 is going to have its own delays and problems. ''If you think the F-35 is going to go through this [kind of development and testing] like a hot knife through butter, you're crazy,'' he said. ''This is a plane that after two years is already in trouble. We are making such demands of these very complicated systems that already [problems are] showing up in the F-35.''
The GAO cites a Pentagon cost estimate for enhancing ground attack that totals about $11.7 billion at the completion of a five-step process projected to run through 2015. The capability would be introduced gradually, with the capability by 2007 to deliver bombs at higher speeds at longer ranges. Better radar performance and new weapons would follow in 2011. Further enhancements to speed-of-delivery and accuracy are planned for 2013, with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance performance to improve in 2015.
However, not all of the improvements and upgrades are optional. Among the key enhancements is replacement of the computer architecture and avionics processors. The latter has to be updated anyway, since the current generation (the Intel i960MX) is no longer being manufactured and USAF has supplies for only 155 F/A-22s, not the 277 fighters the service wants to buy. The new architecture is to be ready in 5-6 years, the GAO was told.
The GAO also warns that ''extensive integration and operational testing'' will be needed to avoid incurring the same type of avionics problems that currently hamper the fighter's development. Avionics stability (now measured as mean-time between avionics anomaly, or MTBAA) in January was 2.7 hr. versus the goal of 5 hr. to start operational testing. Air Force officials contend that since January, the MTBAA has surpassed 5 hr., although verification depends on data gathered over additional flight hours. The Defense Acquisition Board was to meet Mar. 22 to determine whether the F/A-22 is ready to begin operational test and evaluation.
The aircraft is also still much more maintenance intensive than it should be--a problem exacerbated by the fact that technicians are getting false problem reports from the maintenance support system. Nevertheless, the GAO's verdict on the F/A-22 wasn't entirely bleak. A vertical fin buffeting problem appears to have been cured by strengthening fin and hinge assemblies. Overheating in the rear portion of the aircraft also has been addressed.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
By Reuters, 23 March, 2004
The U.S. Air Force has agreed to buy 22 more F/A-22 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin Corp. for less than $110 million per plane, Air Force acquisition chief Marvin Sambur told Reuters on Tuesday.
Sambur told Reuters in an interview that the terms agreed by the Air Force and Lockheed were ''exactly on the target price curve'' and would allow the Air Force to buy a total of 277 F/A-22s by 2013 -- and possibly more.
He confirmed that top Pentagon officials on Monday approved the start of operational testing of the F/A-22 at the end of April after the Air Force and Lockheed showed progress in improving the stability of the plane's avionics.
Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's acting chief weapons buyer, was ''very encouraged by the progress so far,'' said his spokeswoman, Cheryl Irwin.
''We've turned this program around,'' Sambur said of the $72 billion radar-evading multirole F/A-22, which was designed to replace the F-15C as the top U.S. air-superiority fighter.
Critics decry the F/A-22 as a Cold War relic and say it should be trimmed back significantly.
Sambur said he still expected the Pentagon to decide in December on whether to move into full production of the F/A-22s from the current low-rate initial production schedule, despite a month-long delay in the start of operational testing.
''We're still on track for that,'' he said.
Sambur did not specify the total price tag for the 22 ''Raptor'' jets, which were approved by Congress in the 2004 defense budget, but said the two sides negotiated a price of just under $110 million per plane.
That price excludes $28.7 billion the Air Force has already spent on research and development, as well as maintenance, training and logistical support for the new planes.
The Air Force earmarked $4.2 billion for F/A-22 procurement in the budget for fiscal 2004, which began Oct. 1, 2003, including $3.7 billion for up to the 22 aircraft, and $500 million to buy certain manufacturing items for the next batch.
The Pentagon in November gave the Air Force the go-ahead to start negotiations with Lockheed for the next order of 22 warplanes, but the discussions dragged on for months while the two sides haggled about the price, defense sources said.
''These were tough negotiations,'' said one source.
Sambur said the Air Force and Lockheed were able to lower the per-unit cost of the next batch of planes because of increased stability in the program and hard work by both sides to trim production and development costs.
''We're getting production costs under control and we're certainly getting control of development,'' he said.
Lockheed officials had no immediate comment.
Loren Thompson at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the F/A-22 was now meeting or exceeding performance standards, and at the current price the Air Force could afford nearly 300 aircraft under a 1998 congressional cost cap.
But Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the Air Force was being ''hopelessly optimistic'' about the costs of the program, noting the General Accounting Office just this month predicted total program costs could reach $80 billion.
However, he conceded Congress was unlikely to make major changes to the program -- which has parts made by more than 1,400 suppliers in 46 U.S. states -- before the 2004 election.
The Raptor is built by Lockheed in partnership with Boeing Co., and is powered by engines made by Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. unit.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
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