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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 3075.PDF
NEWSMAKERS TEAM PLAYER Lockheed knows how to design and build stealthy aircraft, Boeing knows how to integrate and test complex avionics, General Dyanmics knows to to support fighters in the field — as a team, they know how to produce the world's most advanced fighting machine, says the Lockheed vice-president heading the F-22 team effort. When Lockheed put a YF-22 prototype back in the air to gather data for detailed design of the F-22 development aircraft, it underlined a key strength of the winning Advanced Tactical Fighter proposal—the close sim ilarity between the prototype and the production aircraft. "There is more than one rea son why we won" says F-22 team programme office general manager Mickey Blackwell, but a crucial one was "our early decision to develop the pro totype until we had an aircraft we felt comfortable with as the basis for our [full-scale develop ment] proposal." The result, Blackwell says, is a high degree of aerodynamic fidelity between the prototype and the engineering and manu facturing development (EMD) F-22. Flying the fully instru mented YF-22 will give the Lockheed/Boeing/General Dy namics F-22 team "...the best loads data anybody has gone into detailed design with". Reducing risk is a key aim for the F-22 team: "We very badly want to make a profit on EMD," says Blackwell, acknowledging the "monumental loss" — $675 million — chalked up by the three partners during the cost- sharing demonstration/valida tion (dem/val) phase which preceded award of the $9.55 billion cost-plus F-22 develop ment contract. That the three partners toler ated such losses is attributed to another early decision. "We put together a dem/val teaming agreement that proved to be a 'barn burner'," says Blackwell. The agreement, under which each member of the team shared the work equally and shared the profit or loss equally, went a long way to eliminating tradi tional contractor/subcontractor difficulties, he says. "There was an attempt to bal ance the work but it was abso lutely one-third:one-third:one- third on profit and loss," says Blackwell: "It didn't matter who did the work, each team- member still had to pay one- third of the cost." This hard- headed approach enabled the team to achieve a remarkable amount in dem/val — flying two prototypes with representative cockpits; building avionics ground and flying laboratories; .me* and pre-planning the entire de velopment programme. The only change in the team ing arrangement for EMD is that Lockheed's share increases to 35% to account for its role as F-22 prime contractor; the other two team-members each get 32.5%. "Be in no doubt, Lock heed is prime. If a shot has to be called, Lockheed will call it," Blackwell says, for the benefit of those who see the A-12 saga as an argument against teaming. The F-22 chief is confident his aircraft will not follow the A-12 into oblivion. "We will totally demonstrate the viability of the F-22 before Congress is obli gated to put up money for pro duction," he says, noting that the fighter will go through 11- aircraft EMD and four-aircraft pre-production verification phases before major production money needs to be obligated. "Congress will have plenty of opportunity to check the sound ness of this aircaft," he says. Blackwell says the F-22 team is "totally integrated"; managers "wear purple suits" — a military term applied to officers in uni fied commands who have left behind their allegiances to indi vidual services. Reporting directly to Black- well are managers for the pro gramme's four major elements — air vehicle (Lockheed), train ing (Boeing), support (GD) and test (Boeing). The F-22 programme has been broken down into work pack ages', each the resposibility of a product manager — "a mini programme manager", says Backwell, "with the .neccessary funding and resources" — the latter in integrated product de velopment teams bringing to gether design, manufacturing and other disciplines. "It sounds complicated, but it works -well — we've had four years to \york it out," says Backwell. The F-22 team includes a large number of subcontractors, many of whom participated in the demonstration/validation phase. During dem/val, Lock heed performed a competition sensitivity analysis, says Black- well, looking at subcontractors' contribution to cost, design-to- cost performance, quality of work and working relationship. Those subcontractors which passed the thresholds moved on to EMD. Most did and are under contract, but Lockheed is recom- peting "a few", he says. The EMD F-22 will go through three design phases be fore the external shape and in ternal structure are frozen. The first of those phases ended in October; "a quick interaction of the inside and outside," says Blackwell. The external shape was not frozen as planned, he says, because internal changes require additional work to en sure sufficient fuel volume. Definition of the external lines has slipped a month, but the F-22's shape "...is 98% frozen", he says, and work has begun on rough machining of a highly accurate pressure model for windtunnel air-load tests. The next design cycle will last five months and will refine the inter nal design, Blackwell says. Lockheed is working to incor porate some 240 design changes requested by the US Air Force since the EMD contract was awarded at the end of July. These include a switch from the centre-stick proposed back to the F-16-style sidestick fitted to the YF-22. Lockheed and its partners are guaranteed a basic 4% of the F-22 EMD contract as profit — that could be as high as 13% if the F-22 team is judged to have met or exceeded its many tar gets. It may be too early to tell how things will turn out but, Blackwell says, the Air Force gave the F-22 team an "out standing" rating for its first two months under contract. BY GRAHAM WARWICK a "Congress will have plenty of opportunity to check the soundness of this aircraft. " — Mickey Blackwell, general manager, F-22 team programme office. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 27 November - 3 December, 1991 21
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