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The F/A-22 Raptor is a highly maneuverable stealthy air dominance jet aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. It is intended to be the leading United States advanced tactical fighter in the early part of the 21st century. It is also the most expensive fighter ever; the Pentagon concluded in 2004 that the total development and production cost of the currently planned 279 aircraft will come to $71.7 billion, or $256.9 million per plane.[1] (http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL31673.pdf) The prototype YF-22, later designated as the "Raptor", won a fly-off competition against the Northrop/McDonnell-Douglas YF-23 for the Advanced Tactical Fighter contract. In April 1992, during flight testing after contract award, the first YF-22A prototype crashed while landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The test pilot was not injured. The first flight of the production-representative F/A-22 Raptor occurred on September 7, 1997 at Marietta, Georgia. The first production F/A-22 was delivered to the Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, on January 14, 2003. Fifty-one F/A-22s are in service, with 22 more ordered under Fiscal Year 2004 funding. F/A-22 Initial Operational Capability (IOC) occured on October 27, 2004. The first production F/A-22 crash occured at Nellis Air Force Base on December 20, 2004, during takeoff. The pilot ejected safely moments before impact. The accident is still under investigation but investigators are pointing to a mechanical malfunction, not pilot error, which was blamed for the April 1992 crash.
General informationProcurementThe United States Air Force originally planned an order of 750 ATFs, with production from 1994. Following the 1990 Major Aircraft Review, production was to begin in 1996 for a total of 648 aircraft. By 1994 the figure stood at 442 planes for service entry in 2003/2004. A DoD report in 1997 stated that 339 was the final number. Currently there is significant debate over the exact number of units affordable, though in 2003 the USAF said that it could buy 277 given a $43 billion cost limit. In 2005, for the fiscal year 2006, under further DoD cost cutting measures, is forecasting the number of aircraft procured at 180 saving an additional $15 billion but raising the per unit cost. Congress must approve the new proposal that would complete the program in 2008 after all units are delivered, though with a possibility of more orders being placed in the future as need be. VariantsBased on the F/A-22, the swing-wing NATF was proposed for the U.S. Navy to replace the F-14 Tomcat, though the program was subsequently cancelled in 1993. Another more recent proposal is the FB-22, which would be used as a deep strike bomber for the USAF. There has yet to be any word on whether the USAF plans further development of the program. Combat systemsThe Raptor's combat computer systems and power are unmatched by any other fighter planned to be developed by 2020. The AN/APG-77 AESA radar is designed for air-superiority and strike operations and features a low observable, active aperture, electronically-scanned array with multi-target, all-weather capability. The AN/APG-77s radar beam works in parallel with the CIP that operates at 10.5 billion instructions per second and have 300 megabytes of memory to change frequencies at more then 1000 times a second to reduce the chance of being electronically intercepted, while offering the pilot unprecedented amounts of information in easy-to-digest ways. This information is gathered from onboard and offboard systems, calculated by the CIPs and displayed on the many cockpit displays, enabling the pilot to remain on top of even the most complicated of situations. WeaponsThe Raptor is designed to carry its air-to-air missiles in internal bays to avoid disrupting its stealthiness. The missiles are launched by hydraulic arms that hurl them away from the jet so quickly that the weapons-bay doors pop open for less than one second. It can also carry bombs such as the large JDAM and the new Small-diameter bomb GPS-guided bombs to attack enemy air defense radars and systems. It can accept non-stealthy weapons on up to four external hardpoints, but this vastly increases the plane's radar signature. Specifications
✝ This figure includes R&D cost which perhaps should be shared with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. See alsoExternal links
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