Latest F-22 upgrade brings ability to jam enemy radars

Flight Global ^ | 3/3/2012 | David Mujumdar

[U-238]

This year, the US Air Force started fielding the Increment 3.1 upgrade to its Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fleet.

The modifications add a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capability to the fighter's Northrop Grumman APG-77 radar, plus electronic attack, better geo-location capabilities to find enemy radars and the ability to carry eight 113kg (250lb) small diameter bombs (SDBs), for use in pairs against four ground targets.

Introduction of an SAR mode will assist during the manual targeting process, which is an improvement over the previous Increment 2 configuration's use of two 454kg Joint Direct Attack Munition satellite-corrected, inertially guided bombs against individual targets.

The USAF has not been forthcoming about the precise details of the Raptor's new electronic attack mode.

Starting in 2014, the USAF will also field a series of Increment 3.2 upgrades split across three packages. Aircraft would start to enter the second of these in 2017, and while the third package has yet to be fully defined, the service wants to add open-architecture hardware and software during this phase.

[Rannug]

Can anyone tell me why F-22 production was halted, and everything involving construction was destroyed? What is wrong with the Lightning II development? Seems like there is one heck of a lot of bugs to work out. I realize it still is in development, but how long has it been so?
Just concerned for our Nation’s future, that’s all.

[rmlew]

Cost. The Bush-Cheney* administration decided that it would be decades before any adversary had a Fifth Generation fighter and that the F-22 was too expensive ans a pure fighter. Of course now that Russia and China are testing their own Fifth Generation fighter bombers, this decision should have been re-evaluated, but we are talking about the Obama regime, which wants us weak.

* Cheney was also the man behind killing the F-14.

[Jack of all Trades]

The last F-22 was completed in December of 2011. The tooling has not been destroyed.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awx/2011/12/13/awx_12_13_2011_p0-405930.xml&headline=U.S.%20Mothballs%20F-22%20Production%20Gear%20for%20MRO

[Rannug]

Thanks for that info. Glad to find that what I read previously was incorrect.