主题：F－22在阿拉斯加演习中取得144比0胜利(转贴) (上) -- 韩亚梓

依照晨枫同志的指示, 我把这篇AWST的文章转贴于此. 此文在网上有一个不太精确的译文版, 待会也一并贴出.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_defense_story.jsp?id=news/aw010807p1.xml

Raptor Scores in Alaskan Exercise

Jan 7, 2007

By David A. Fulghum and Michael J. Fabey

As the F-22 begins its operational life, interest has turned to assessing just how well suited the stealthy Raptor is to its role as the premier air-to-air fighter, while taking a peek at some of the surprises for pilots and maintenance crews as they explore what the aircraft can do. As part of the research for this series of articles on the F-22, Michael Fabey flew in the back seat of an F-15D while the Eagle and Raptor pilots demonstrated their aircraft's capabilities in the air-to-air ranges at Tyndall AFB, Fla. (For additional details of the Raptor's unique air-to-air capabilities, see AW&ST Sept. 6, 1999, p. 84.)

The F-22 is proving it's a dogfighter after all.

While it wasn't part of a hard-turning furball, an F-22--with its Amraams and Sidewinders expended--slipped into visual range behind an F-16 and undetected made a simulated kill with its cannon during the stealth fighter's first large-scale exercise and deployment outside the continental U.S.

Those and other revelations about the F-22's emerging capabilities are increasingly important as the first combat unit, the U.S. Air Force's 27th Fighter Sqdn., begins its initial Air Expeditionary Force deployment this month to an undisclosed site. And the first F-22 unit, the 94th Fighter Sqdn., will participate in Red Flag in February.

The gun kill is a capability Air Force planners hope their F-22s won't use. The fighter is designed to destroy a foe well beyond his visual and radar range. Within visual-range combat and, in particular, gun kills are anachronisms. In amassing 144 kills to no losses during the first week of the joint-service Northern Edge exercise in Alaska last summer, only three air-to-air "kills" were in the visual arena--two involving AIM-9 Sidewinders and one the F-22's cannon.

The 27th Fighter Sqdn. aircraft--on deployment from Langley AFB, Va.--didn't get to show off their J-Turn and Cobra maneuvers or their high-angle-of-attack, high-off-boresight (which actually will arrive with the AIM-9X) and unique nose-pointing capabilities. The reason, those involved say, was because the victims of the three encounters, flying conventional fighters, never had a clue they were being stalked by F-22s until they were "killed."

Raptor pilots agree that their preferred location for the fighter while in the battlespace is at high altitude, well above the other fighters, where they can adopt a fuel-efficient cruise, sweeping both the air and ground with radar and electronic surveillance for targets. From a superior altitude, the F-22 used sustained supercruise to range across hundreds of miles of airspace before an enemy fighter could threaten friendly high-value surveillance, command-and-control and tanker aircraft.

Perhaps the most important revelation by the 27th Fighter Sqdn. was demonstrating the F-22's ability to use its sensors to identify and target enemy aircraft for conventional fighters by providing information so they could engage the enemy sooner than they could on their own. Because of the advanced situational awareness they afford, F-22s would stick around after using up their weapons to continue providing targets and IDs to the conventional fighters.

"We always left F-22s on station to help, but we didn't designate any one aircraft to provide data," says Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, the unit's commander. "It was critical that every F-22 out there provided all the data he had."

With its high-resolution radar, the F-22 can guarantee target altitudes to within a couple of hundred feet. Its ability to identify an aircraft is "sometimes many times quicker than the AWACS," he says. "It was a combination of high-resolution sensors and being closer to the targets."

The F-22's radar range is described only as being more than 100 mi. However, it's thought to be closer to 125-150 mi., which is much farther than the standard F-15's 56-mi. radar range. New, active electronically scanned radar technology--optimized for digital throughput--is expected to soon push next-generation radar ranges, in narrow beams, out to 250 mi. or more.

The ability to close on the enemy without being targeted also allowed the F-22s to operate in threat areas where conventional fighters could not survive. This enabled the Raptor to engage targets at a greater distance from the aircraft and homeland they were defending.

Raptor pilots had all the available data on the airspace fused and displayed on a single, easy-to-read screen.

"When I look down at my scope and put my cursor over a [friendly] F-15 or F/A-18, it tells me who they are locked on to," he says. For example, "I could help them out by saying, 'You're double-targeted and there's a group over here untargeted' . . . to make sure we got everybody." F-15 targets will be latent because of the radar sweep.

However, these messages are less and less verbal. "When you watch [tapes of the Alaska] exercise, it's fairly spooky," says Gen. Ronald Keys, chief of Air Combat Command. "There's hardly a word spoken among Raptor pilots." That silence also previews some of the fighter's possible future capabilities.

"Because of the way the aircraft was designed, we have the capability to do more," Keys says. "We can put unmanned combat aircraft systems in there with Raptor. You've got three fairly low-observable UCAS in the battlespace. An air defense system pops up, and I click on a UCAS icon and drag it over [the emitter's location] and click. The UCAS throttles over and jams it, blows it up or whatever."

In Alaska, because the F-22 remained far forward at high altitude, with an advanced radar it could monitor rescue missions that the AWACS 150 mi. away could not. "We could see the helicopters down in the valleys and protect them," Tolliver says.

In addition to AWACS, the F-22 also can feed data to the RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft to improve situational awareness of the battlespace.