SU-35 vs F-22

[USARStarkey]

Its not so much red tape as logistics. The center wing of the F-22 was built in Everett, WA. at the boeing plant, while the wings and other stuff were put together at Ft Worth. The cockpit was built, and the ships were assembled here at Plant 6. Logistical nightmare :cry:

 

 

That was done by choice to protect the f22 financially by appeasing senators who would have an investment politically in the airplane by making it in as many states as possible. One would hope that during ww3 the industry would be somewhat nationalized like in ww2 to avoid this type of shit.

[Invader ZIM]

It seems they didn't completely throw away all options of restarting F-22 production. The option might be there in an emergency I guess.

 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL31673.pdf

 

This July 2013 congressional research service paper says the following on page 2.

 

Production Shutdown

On May 3, 2012, Lockheed Martin delivered the 195th F-22 to the Air Force, completing the

fleet.10 That final aircraft had come off the Lockheed Martin production line in Marietta, GA, on December 13, 2011.11 Following its assembly, Lockheed Martin had begun to store “a total of more than 30,000 jigs, fixtures and other ‘tooling’ used to build the plane” in order to “leave open an option to restart the premier plane’s production relatively cheaply.” Lockheed Martin had also documented the assembly process, including videotaping each step of assembly, in order to more quickly train workers to assemble F-22s in the event of a production line restart.

 

 

About 5,600 Lockheed employees worked on the F-22 program at its peak in 2005, including

944 in Marietta. The current number is 1,650 companywide, 930 in Marietta.... However,

600 Marietta employees will handle technical support and modernizations for the existing F-

22 fleet.

 

Potential Production Restart

Conscious of DOD’s having preserved the F-22 production tooling and Lockheed Martin’s

actions to ease a potential restart, a number of commentators have posited that the F-22 could be returned to production, whether to enable foreign sales, increase fleet numbers, or act as a hedge against difficulties in the F-35 program.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Invader ZIM

[USARStarkey]

It seems they didn't completely throw away all options of restarting F-22 production. The option might be there in an emergency I guess.

 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL31673.pdf

 

This July 2013 congressional research service paper says the following on page 2.

 

Absolutely. Even if no precautions had been taken, F-22's could still be produced in the even of a war large enough to warrant the need. There was no basis for Raptor production before the first one was built, so there doesn't need to be any to start anew. However, the precautions that the report you posted detail, mean that retooling to make F-22's anew would be a much faster and less costly process than if nothing had been saved.

[SkateZilla]

The Line was preserved, and production can be resumed fairly easily if needed, but dont expect it to be a force of 4000 people showing up and having it started in a month. it will take longer than that.

 

They tore down the assembly lines for the F-22. The tooling has been disassembled and placed in storage. The planes arent made in just one location either. It would take nothing short of a miracle to bring the line back up to speed within a year...not to mention they are in the process of demilitarizing spare canopies for the F-22. If anything, the F-16 would be called upon to be built en-masse first.

 

Most likely, with the F-16 being Cheaper and the Line still Active and producing aircraft.

Edited May 20, 2014 by SkateZilla

[USARStarkey]

Moving away from stealth, does anyone know if the su35 can super-cruise while carrying a full load of AAM's

 

Seriously, does anyone know the answer to this?

[NineLine]

Everyone might be spent from the stealth portion of this "discussion" ;)

[SkateZilla]

Seriously, does anyone know the answer to this?

 

Accelerates Through M1.1/1.2 without AB and Gets to 1.3, Without Stores..

 

Add Drag, and I Doubt it.

[USARStarkey]

That's what I was thinking. Which be a huge advantage for the raptor

[SkateZilla]

They'll be getting Engine Upgrades soon, which is "Supposed" to change that, if they havent already.

 

pretty sure the AL-41F1A engines can do it, which SU-35 are you asking about?,

Wasnt there like 2 SU-27 Modernizations into SU-35s? ('88 and '07) with Earlier ones using older AL-31F Engines?

Edited May 20, 2014 by SkateZilla

[TAW_Blaze]

Depends how you take the term supercruise. According to LM it's 1.5M+ AB off IIRC. No externally loaded aircraft can do that today, and you can bet an engine upgrade isn't going to help it by a lot.

[USARStarkey]

Yeah, assuming its accurate, a fully loaded eagle in dcs at 35k can only manage near 700knots at full after burner. You'd need a hell of a lot of thrust I'd think to go even faster

[SkateZilla]

pylon and stores drag...

[USARStarkey]

Yeah I just wanted to confirm. Not something I had thought about before.

[hitman]

It seems they didn't completely throw away all options of restarting F-22 production. The option might be there in an emergency I guess.

 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL31673.pdf

 

This July 2013 congressional research service paper says the following on page 2.

They also ship the body parts by truck from state to state. They arent flown in by C-5, there are no corporate jets for stuff like that. Not really feasible to do that anyways. IIRC, at the height of production, they were pumping out an F-22 every 7 weeks or so (and that was just here at plant 6). Flight testing usually took about 30 days afterwards, then they would send it to the paint shop, hook the airframe to a pinnacle and test the actual RCS with an active radar system in an anechoic chamber. You cant just pump these things out.

 

And if anyone is curious, the actual painting isnt done by human hands; its all robotics.

[Invader ZIM]

Thanks for that info hitman, yea it's definately not a quick process when you factor in all of the steps for production.

 

CASPER painted the F-22's, amiright? Computer Aided Spray Paint Expelling Robot.

 

Tell me they don't have a sense of humor with these things. :D

[hitman]

Thanks for that info hitman, yea it's definately not a quick process when you factor in all of the steps for production.

 

CASPER painted the F-22's, amiright? Computer Aided Spray Paint Expelling Robot.

 

Tell me they don't have a sense of humor with these things. :D

Think so, never got the acronym for the system. They call it HAVE GLASS on the few select F-16s that were test beds for it.

[Invader ZIM]

I thought Have Glass was the paint itself, and other modifications. It came in different specifications like Have Glass IV, Have Glass II, Have Glass V etc.

 

There's a neat public paper on the robots used for the F-35, when you see the tolerances and specs for the paint it's really amazing what goes into the aircraft.

 

http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/2010/3/Seegmiller_SAE-2010_Precision_Robotic_Coating.pdf

 

Stealth requires a lot of attention to detail.