The disconnect extends deep beneath the titanium and steel skin. Major subsystems for both aircraft are based on different computing architectures. So improving hardware or software on the F-35 yields no benefit for the F-22, and vice versa.
No decisions have been made, but Lockheed officials at the F-22 factory are asking if that should change, only 16 months before the production line is shut.
The concept involves installing the F-35 computing architecture and certain hardware in the F-22. Even Lockheed acknowledges the idea would require "significant initial investment", but could yield "some cost savings" in the long-term. Discussions with the US Air Force are underway.
"Say, if we want to add something to [the F-22] CNI suite, F-35 could take that wholesale with minimal modifications," says Jeff Babione, vice-president and deputy general manager of the F-22 programme. "So you'll see this bouncing back and forth where F-22 develops something for F-35, and F-35 develops something for F-22."
Although less powerful and slower than the F-22, the F-35 has more sensors. Installing the electro-optical targeting system, infrared search and track and distributed aperture system "as is" on the F-22 is impossible, the company says, but the proposed "common architecture and common modules provides the opportunity for synergy ... at a potentially lower cost across both platforms".
Another potential example is the integration of the multifunction airborne data link (MADL), a narrowband channel designed to pass data between stealth aircraft such as the F-35, F-22 and the Northrop Grumman B-2A bomber.
The US Congress has criticised the US Air Force over the high cost of integrating MADL on the F-22, even after making a similar heavy investment for the F-35. The USAF has recently withdrawn MADL from the Increment 3.2 upgrade programme for F-22, delaying the start of integration until fiscal year 2014, Babione says.
But adopting a common architecture with the F-35 could "dramatically reduce" MADL implementation costs on the F-22, Babione says.
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