The Lockheed Martin F 22 Raptor is considered to be the most potent fighter in the world.
But it had one major flaw - it couldn’t communicate with other platforms seamlessly.
The US military is very much aware of it and things are now going to change.
13 years after entering service with the U.S. Air Force, the F-22 Raptor will be able to
voicelessly communicate with warships, ground forces and other jets.
The U.S Air Force and Lockheed Martin plans to start installing Link-16 datalink to Raptors
in 2020.
The full fleet of F 22, roughly 180 will have this installed in a phased manner.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why adding Link-16 datalink to F 22 Raptor will
be a game-changer for U.S Military?
Let’s get into the details.
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Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth
tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF).
The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed
primarily as an air superiority fighter, but also has a ground attack, electronic warfare,
and signal intelligence capabilities.
F 22 Raptor is the first operational aircraft to combine supercruise and super-maneuverability.
Supercruise is the ability to have sustained supersonic flight without having to use the
highly inefficient afterburners.
With this F 22 can intercept targets which subsonic aircraft would lack the speed to
pursue and an afterburner-dependent aircraft would lack the fuel to reach.
F 22 incorporates super-maneuverability which makes it a capable dogfighter.
Its agility can be gauged from the fact that it can pull off highly demanding areal maneuvers
like Pugachev’s Cobra.
This is possible due to very powerful dual Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 after-burning
turbofan engines.
The engine can be considered as an engineering marvel since American rivals are still finding
it difficult to develop something like this.
Russian Su 57 is facing issues in this department and using the AL-41F1 engine used in Su 35.
The serial production of more powerful engine known as the Izdeliye 30 has seen multiple
delays.
Even with that, it may not be able to super-cruise at more than Mach 1.6.
Chinese J 20 uses Russian AL-31F engines which is the predecessor of AL-41F1 and has till
now struggled to make an indigenous engine suitable for a 5th generation aircraft.
F 22 Raptor is developed from grounds up to be stealthy.
F22 is the stealthiest fighter ever build & has very low RCS (Radar Cross Section) of
only 0.0001 m2.
It achieves this due to its structural design as well as the use of Radar Absorbing Materials
(RAM).
It can’t be detected by most radars.
So, it can strike without the enemy knowing it is there in the first place.
China and Russia have found it very difficult to master stealth even today.
Reports have emerged that a Sukhoi Su-30MKI of the Indian Air Force managed to detect
the Chinese Chengdu J-20 jet fighter.
To know more, check the video on the above card.
This elevates doubts about the Chinese fighter, which was already regarded as a decorated
4++ generation fighter by many experts.
India last year decided to stop working with Russia on the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft
program, or FGFA.
FGFA was deemed to be an improved & customized variant of Su 57.
One of the main reasons for this is that the Su 57 was found to have suspect stealth capabilities
that can't be fixed with small changes.
As per some analysis, Su 57 has an RCS of 0.01 m2 which makes it around 100 times larger
on the radar when compared to F 22.
One of the most important aspect of a fighter aircraft is its radar.
Radars are like the eyes for them.
There was no budget limitation when the AN/APG-77 radar was developed for F 22 Raptor.
No compromises were made and this keeps it at the top even today.
The AN/APG-77 radar features a low-observable, active-aperture, electronically scanned array
that can track multiple targets under any weather conditions.
It has a range of around 400 km against 1 m2 target.
This radar can also be used for electronic-attack by focussing its signals on the enemy to overload
their sensors.
The radar changes frequencies more than 1,000 times per second to resist jamming and has
Low Probability of Intercept meaning that the enemy has no warning that a radar lock
has been achieved against it.
With AN/APG-77, F 22 Raptor can gather a lot of data and some experts have said that the
Raptor pilot has "God’s Eye View” of the battle-space.
But Raport can’t share this view with other platform and this is where Link-16 comes in.
Link 16 is a military tactical data link network used by the U.S, NATO and nations allowed
by the MIDS International Program Office (IPO).
Its specification is part of the family of Tactical Data Links.
With Link 16, military aircraft as well as ships and ground forces may exchange their
tactical picture in near-real-time.
Link 16 also supports the exchange of text messages, imagery data and provides two channels
of digital voice (2.4 kbit/s and/or 16 kbit/s in any combination).
Link 16 data communications standards and technology were developed in the U.S. JTIDS
program, which began in 1975.
The first JTIDS terminals or Class 1 terminals were large and were installed only on AWACS
and in U.S., U.K., and NATO ground-control facilities.
Smaller JTIDS terminals (Class 2) were also developed.
But these were still bulky and pretty costly which prevented wide-scale deployment - only
a few fighters were equipped with these.
Then the MIDS program was created to put small, lightweight Link 16 terminals on the U.S.
and participating allies’ fighter aircraft.
Under MIDS, Low Volume Terminal (LVT) and Fighter Data Link (FDL) terminals were acquired
and this provided the ability to have Link 16 in fighters like F-15, F-16, and F/A-18.
Link 16 is a TDMA-based secure, jam-resistant, high-speed digital data link which operates
in the radio frequency band 960–1,215 MHz
With the Link 16 Raptor will be able to share the data it is capturing with other platforms.
The Air Force was looking to resolve the data-link problem issue for some time now.
But complex procedures and technicalities prevented a quick move.
The breakthrough came in 2017.
Till then the US Air Force was using the ‘Waterfall’ model of development.
It the conventional approach in which large changes are made in one go after every component
is ready.
For 2017 onwards, ‘Agile’ development methodology was embraced.
It allowed for small incremental updates to be pushed quickly.
Upgrades that could take decades or longer can now be accommodated in years with this
approach.
The agile approach has removed the bottleneck paving the installation of Link 16.
It is to be noted that even today F 22 can’t be exported to any country as per American
Federal Law which is a stark contrast to other fighters including the F 35.
It still possesses many secrets.
F-22 will now be used to the fullest of its potential and it will also take up the role
of a force multiplier.