F-22 Raptor; Jet

10th of March, 2010.

The F-22 Raptor, the best of the best?

            The F-22 is a multirole fighter jet capable of performing air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The F-22 has many other qualities though, capable of  outstanding feats for a aircraft of its size and role. Besides what some critics have to say about the F-22 not being worth its price, it has been proven to have an outstanding test record. With an equivalent radar reflection of a steel marble and extremely high tech avionics system, the F-22 has been able to achieve a 221-0 kill/death ratio (F-22 Raptor 3.3). Stating an argument that it could be worth its $142.6 million price tag (F-22 Raptor 1.3)

            The F-22 is a fighter jet capable of more then a few roles. Designed during the cold war, the F-22 Raptor didn’t see actual combat till the 22th of November, 2007 (F-22 Raptor 3.3) (A Fighter Jets Fate Poses A Quandary for Obama).Lockheed Martin has bases in 44 states and supplies 25,000 jobs and is the F-22s main contractor( F-22 Fighter Jet). The United States Air Force originally planned to order seven hundred and fifty F-22s, and begin production in 1994.This number dropped after the 1990 Aircraft Review changed the number to 648 and planned to begin production in 1996. When 1994 came around they again changed their order number, this time to 442, but a 1997 Department of Defense report put the purchase at 339. In 2003 the congress made a cost cap, limiting the perchase to 277 and by 2006 the Pentagon said that they would only be able to buy 183 aircraft. These acts would save $15 billion but raise the price on each perticular F-22 which “was assessed by the Government Accountability Office to be $361 million per aircraft” . By 2006 the total cost of the program had reached $62 billion (F-22 Raptor 1.3).

            With all these prices the F-22 is sure to seem overpriced. But think of the jets advantages. The F-22s has extreme radar capabilities “allowing the pilot to track, identify, shoot and kill air-to-air threats before being detected”(U.S. Airforce).The F-22s radar information is powered by “two Raytheon Common Integrated Processor (CIP)s”.Each CIP is capable of computing 10.5 billion commands per second, making it one of the fastest processors in the world.along with being fast this radar system has a very low interception rate–changing its frequencie 1,000 times per second. The Raptors system has 1.7 million lines of code, mainly processing information gathered from the radar. The radar has a range of 150 miles and planned upgrades will “allow 250 miles or more in narrow beams”. It has a WiFi access point capable of tansmitting at 548 Megabit/sec and receive at Gigabit speed. This is far faster then the speed of WiFi on other US and allied aircraft, which are capable to transmit at just over 1 Megabit/sec (F-22 Raptor 2.2).Its airframe is made of carbon fiber, a material that has does a better job at scattering enemy radars-rays then other–heavier–material, making the jet more stealthy.( U.S. Air Force at War).Stealth is a major factor in modern aircraft! And the F-22s stealth is among the best to date. Even comparing with that of stealth bombers. Stealth on a aircraft is based on many items, “including the overall shape of the aircraft, the use of radar absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and pilot helmets that could provide a radar return”. The F-22 has amazingly been designed to hide its infrarred emissions to make it less possible for air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles to track. Designers also made it a lot harder to see with the naked eye, and lowered radio and noise emissions. The F-22 has a under bay carriage made to “hide heat from missile threats” such as those from surface-to-air SAM sites. Unlike most stealth aircraft, the F-22 “relies less on maintenance-intensive radar absorbent material and coatings than previous stealth designs like the F-117″. These material caused problems. They were very prone to taking weather damage which made them harder to deploy in adverse weather conditions. And unlike the F-117 or B-2 Spirit, the F-22 does not require “climate-controlled hangers” and can “undergo repairs on the flight line or in a normal hangar”. Along with these repair advantages, the F-22 has a “warning system” which will tell when and if the jet requires maintenance.(F-22 Raptor 2.6).