The F-22 fleet has been produced in a number of configurations, but the Air Force will ultimately consolidate it to just two, says Lockheed Martin F-22 program manager George Shultz. When the increment 3.2 software is installed, most F-22s will be brought up to “a common standard,” Schultz told reporters during a media tour of the Raptor production line in Marietta, Ga., last week. Some early F-22s “are harder to do” and will not be included, he said. The configuration changes will be worked in when F-22s go into depot for modifications. (For more from Schultz’s comments, read MADL Integration on F-22 May Slip.)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…