T
HE RAPTOR TEST fleet,
managed under the 411th
Flight Test Squadron (FLTS)
at Edwards AFB, California,
continues to fly some of
the early Engineering and
Manufacturing Development (EMD)
aircraft. The oldest flying F-22 was Raptor
07 (serial 91-4007), which completed its
1,000th sortie on April 19, 2013, piloted by
Boeing test pilot Steven ‘Steve’ Rainy. The
sortie was one of the first flight tests of
Increment 3.2A, a major software upgrade
to the aircraft. However, the USAF was
adding an additional F-22A to its test fleet
by the end of 2017. EMD Raptor 91-4006
is being brought back to flying status. It
was equipped with Block 10 avionics but
will be upgraded to Block 20 standard at a
cost of $25 million. The Raptor’s hydraulic,
electrical, and flight control systems will
also be upgraded before it returns to
service with the 411th FLTS.
The test fleet at Edwards is largely
responsible for the realisation of new
spiral upgrades for the F-22. The Air Force
Operational Test and Evaluation Center(AFOTEC) completed Final Operational
Testing and Evaluation (FOT&E) of
F-22A Increment 3.1 in November 2011,
an upgrade that provided enhanced
air-to-ground mission capability, to
include geo-location of selected emitters,
electronic attack, air-to-ground synthetic
aperture radar mapping and designation
of surface targets, and GBU-39 Small
Diameter Bomb (SDB). Increment 3.2A
was a software modification that started
fielding in 2014 to provide improved
electronic protection, Link 16, and combat
identification capabilities.
Increment 3.2B followed and is a
hardware and software upgrade to
fully integrate AIM-120D and AIM-9X
missiles, and provide ‘additional
electronic protection enhancements
and improved emitter geo-location
capability’. Increment 3.2B includes the
Enhanced Stores Management System
(ESMS), as well as an Intra-Flight Datalink
(IFDL) improvement to increase datalink
bandwidth and enable co-operative
functions required to realise Increment
3.2B candidates.The F-22 is
subject to a
spiral upgrade
programme. It
is what keeps
the fighter
relevant,
until its
replacement
comes along...RAPTOR^9594-98 Latest test C.indd 95 28/09/2017 15:38