From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V2 #62 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Monday, 25 January 1993 Volume 02 : Number 062 In this issue: RE: F-22 Sidewinder Firing IR Seekers See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gt6745b@prism.gatech.edu (Michael David Knight) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 17:02:57 EST Subject: RE: F-22 Sidewinder Firing > Nice. But, the way Sidewinders are used on today's aircraft is that the > seeker acquires a target *before* it is launched. I guess the F-22 will > need to download targeting data into the missile before firing. It would > also require the aircraft to have its own IR seeker. > > - -dean > I realized that Sidewinders aquire their targets with their own seeker heads before launch, but I don't know what provisions will be made for internal carriage. I haven't seen any evidence of an IR seeker on the F-22, but I could be wrong. This summer at the airshow at NAS Atlanta (Which shares a runway with Dobbins AF Base and Lockheed Marietta) one of the YF-22's was on display. It was the one originally fitted with GE engines and was the "non-flying" test aircraft after the fly-off. I looked over the whole thing carefully for sensors/avionic antennas but the only things readily obvious were the RWR and the usual pitot tubes. There was certainly no FLIR or DLIR as on the F-117. Does anyone know whether the F-22 will be fitted with IR avionics/sensors. Nothing I've seen or heard would suggest such. I can't see downloading info to the seeker head before launch. The IR seeker on a Sidewinder is a pretty simple electronics package. To add capabilities for complex information transfer would increase the weight and would negate the KISS philosophy of the experienced Sidewinder. How to get the target aquired before launch would certainly be an interesting problem. Any answers/speculation/ideas (bright or otherwise)? -Michael Michael David Knight gt6745b@prism.gatech.edu * COMBAT AIRCRAFT: A mix of * Georgia Institute of Technology * sharp teeth, cold steel, * Atlanta, Georgia 30332 * cosmic warlords, and evil * Aerospace Engineering (404)676-0520 * spirits. * ------------------------------ From: kuryakin@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Rick Pavek) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 17:47:21 PST Subject: IR Seekers I'd doubt that all of the production systems would find their way to a preproduction prototype, so if there is an internal IR sensor it could merely be absent from the YF-22. Lots of a/c have them, though. F-14, F-101B, etc. Even the YF-12A. I don't personally know where it would go, but it's obvious that since the weapons are stored and fired from an internal configuration, there must be an IR device on the a/c somewhere. Rick ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V2 #62 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "listserv@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@ecn.purdue.edu". A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).