Flight Test Requirements Working Groups

Flight Test Requirements Working Groups (FTRWGs) are set up to execute the test planning
process. The FTRWGs' responsibilities and location were determined by the Lockheed
Martin/Boeing assignment of product and/or technology design responsibility on the
basis of the integrated product team (IPT) philosophy. This enhanced communications
between the various product IPT personnel and the test IPT personnel, particularly in the
early stages of test requirement identification.
The working groups are generally divided by disciplines. The groups had to decide
exactly what had to be tested and who would be doing the tests. The working groups
remain intact throughout the test program, and are responsible for the test conduct, data
analysis, and reporting for their particular technical discipline.
Instrumentation, Data Processing, and Software
Each one of the nine F-22 Raptors to be built in the current EMD phase will be dedicated
to flight test, and each one of these aircraft will be heavily instrumented to record flighttest
data.
Unlike past aircraft development programs, the flight-test IPT was brought in at the very
beginning of the F-22 program (EMD contract award). On other aircraft, the flight test was
normally brought in after the aircraft was built and had to integrate flight-test instrumentation
where it could find room to install it. On the F-22 then, flight-test IPT worked closely
with the aircraft's designers, and the instrumentation incorporated in the original aircraft
design was (and still is) installed during construction of the aircraft. In other words, the
EMD F-22s flying at this writing are fully instrumented.
So with the planned instrumentation already installed as the first EMD F-22 entered
final assembly in March 1997, flight-test IPT was able to start telemetering data to the
Flight Test Control Room in Marietta, Georgia, which began the actual checkout of the data
processing system.
A large orange-colored box with flight instrumentation flies in the EMD F-22's righthand
main weapons bay; armament test aircraft will use a different location. The box,
called the instrumentation data acquisitions package, acquires data from more than 30 remote
units scattered throughout the aircraft. The box contains a high-speed data recorder
that retains all the flight data. It also encrypts and transmits selected parameters back to
the mission control station on the ground via two antennas on the aircraft. The instrumentation
box stays with the aircraft for its entire flight-test life.
The flight-test data processing requirements are split into real-time data collection for
safe and efficient test conduct and postflight data processing. The USAF is responsible for
the real-time collection, while the contractor team is responsible for the postflight processing.
The contractor team and the USAF agreed to use the same computer software program
to collect and process flight-test data in 1991