Recently, a Raptor training flight was delayed for a day when a faulty sensor was discovered on one of the two planes now housed at the base. The replacement took only a few hours, but because it involved removing a panel on the jet's outer surface, part of the plane had to be repainted in Daig's shop and allowed to dry overnight. Any such piercing of the plane's smooth exterior must be carefully repaired, including applying a new coat of paint, to ensure it retains the stealth quality that lets it avoid radar detection.
A recent Government Accountability Office report said test officials identified reliability and maintenance issues with the plane's "critical low observable," or stealth, characteristics. The Air Force said it has fixed those problems.
"There is not a pilot who has flown the Raptor that isn't in love" with it, says Lt. Col. James Hecker, 27th Fighter Squadron commander.
(Jay Paul For The Washington Post)
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In this video, see the F/A-22 in flight and meet Lt. Col. James Hecker, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, the first operational F/A-22 Raptor squadron in the Air Force.
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Watch the F/A-22 Video
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The Raptor's Long Journey: This graphic timeline traces the 20-year history of the F/A-22 program.
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Transcript: Washington Post staff writer Renae Merle was online to answer reader questions about her article on the F-22 Raptor program. She was joined by Air Force Maj. Charles Corcoran, a pilot training to fly the new jet.
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During a training flight the next day, Hecker faced another problem, a glitch in the complicated software system that pilots say they notice when the radar freezes or a screen goes black. It is more an annoyance than a danger, they said.
Hecker had predicted it during a pre-flight briefing: "If I have to do an avionics restart, realize it will be a few minutes" before the systems are working again.
While earlier versions of the software sometimes needed to be restarted every two hours, the Air Force says such problems can be expected in any new plane, and the latest version operates at least eight hours without glitches. The new software, expected to be in the Langley fighters soon, is more reliable, Hecker said later. "In two months, we'll be really happy."
The Raptor has proved survivable in Washington's bureaucratic wars. Conceived in the 1980s after President Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union the "evil empire," its justification seemed to collapse along with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet state.
In a sneak attack in 1999, the House Appropriations Committee blocked nearly $2 billion in production funding for the plane after leaders expressed concern that the Air Force was spending too much on tactical aircraft while shortchanging other service priorities. The plane's supporters won that year, but the road since has been marked by delays and technical problems.
In 2002, the Air Force gave the Raptor a makeover, adding the "A" to F-22, and touting added capabilities for attacking ground targets. The changes are estimated to add billions to the program's cost and take years to complete.
The Raptor's new focus opened a new line of criticism. "It appears by making the F/A-22 more of a multi-role combat aircraft, the Air Force is blurring the distinction between the Raptor and Joint Strike Fighter," a recent Congressional Research Service report on the program noted. In fact, the cheaper F-35 strike fighter will have a "superior payload," carrying 14,600 pounds of bombs compared with the Raptor's 2,000, the report said.
As the number of Raptors expected to be purchased drops -- from 750 to as few as 178 -- the price has escalated dramatically from the original price tag of $35 million. That has prompted some to advocate the continued purchase of F-15s.
The Air Force dismisses that option as uneconomical. But officials working on the Quadrennial Defense Review, a major rethinking of U.S. military strategy that will help determine how many Raptors are produced, have asked Boeing how much it would cost to build more than 100 new F-15s, according to sources familiar with the process.
Jumper acknowledges that the Air Force has made mistakes with the Raptor, including not setting aside enough funds for developing its software. "I think we've got to take these lessons and apply them to the Joint Strike Fighter, so we don't make the same mistakes again," he said. The Raptor and the strike fighter share elements of their avionics, engines and stealth capabilities.
The cost of the strike fighter program, the largest in Pentagon history, has increased to $240 billion for more than 2,000 planes and has fallen a year behind schedule.
To watch an interview with an F/A-22 pilot and to see the plane in flight, go to www.washingtonpost.com/cameraworks. Staff writer Renae Merle will be online at 11 a.m. today to discuss this article. Go to www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
