Did the F/A-22 Raptor turn the corner in 2003?

"Smartace11" wrote in message
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"Smartace11" wrote in message
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Not true. The final B-2 production run was to be 20 planes after
the program
was cut from 132 then to 75 and finally 20. AV--2 thru -6 were to
be flight
test assets

AV-2 thru AV-6 were flight test assets and were always intended to be
brought up to production configuration; I have the complte set of crew
shirts. Including my wife's, "ship from hell", crew shirt.

Still wrong.

No, the conversion of the 5 airframes to production configuration was
planned from the very beginning.

Beginning of what?

The decision was made before AV-1 ever flew that the next 5 airframes would
be converted to production. I know this because my wife took delivery of
the first three at Palmdale. She, having bought south base at Edwards as a
Captain, was then instrumentation FTE and instrumenter for AV-3, as a civil
servant.

I don't need to argue the pount becaue I was there when
the decision was made.

You know what you were instructed at the point where you needed to know.
Outside that criterion, you knew nada.

You are free to believe whatever you want. In truth
they are not production configuration to this day. They are opeational
but are
in varying degress of difference from the rest of the fleet, AV- being the
most
different.

Sure, they were full scale the development vehicles, as planned from the
beginning.

Mainly structural differences. Therefore they are not the final
approved (meaning accepted at the milestone called the Critical Design
Review)
"prduction configuration". Ditto with the early LRIP/test models of most
planes, including the B-1, F-117, and F-22, several of which are now at
the AF
Museum because thier configuration isn't easily supported. We had planned
to
either use AV-1 as a part task trainer at Whiteman or turn it over to the
AF
Museum. Theother planes were made operational because of cost - too
expensive
to use strictly as test assets.

The museum was the best place to go, as it would have been cheaper to
assemble another ship from the already delivered parts.

Under the 132 and 75 plane programs, pre 1991, they were the
pre-production LRIP (Limited Rate Initial Production) planes to be
used as
life cycle flight test assets. Possibly AVs 5 - 6 could be made
operational
because they were close to the rate production configuration but the
AVs 2-4
and especially AV-1 were so far from the production configuration that
they
wouldn't be supportable as they were.

The Government had no way of knowing that AV-1 would be drasticly
different,
until after first flight. You are shoveling bull****, my friend.

Youi obviously know little about the weapn system acquisition process.
The
plane went through numerous design reviews and flight test readiness
reviews
long before it flew and each change from AV to AV went through a
configuration
control review board so the design of AV-1 and changes incorporated in in
each
subsequent AV was well known as they were being built.

Let me say it for you once more, Lt. Col Couch rejected the 5 tube EFIS
Hughes delivered with AV-1 after first flight. There was no possibility for
Northrop, or Hughes, to have know that information in advance. The four and
four configuration is something we discussed after Couch made a presentation
to Reserve Officers at a dinner at Edwards. You may have found out what the
deal was the next day, but you cold not have known what Couch was going to
do, until after he did it. Deliver the package sinerios invalidated Hughes'
airliner type system.