|
All contract requirements necessary to close engineering and manufacturing development, or EMD, of the F-22 Raptor were completed in late December. EMD began 2 August 1991, and first flight occurred 7 September 1997. During EMD, 3,496 flights totaling more than 7,600 flight hours were recorded, which included more than 26,000 flight envelope expansion test points and more than 3,500 avionics mission test points. Three system hardware configurations and more than seventy operational flight plan software loads were tested in EMD. The combined test force at Edwards AFB, California, conducted thirty-one separation tests and twenty-nine guided launches of the AIM-120 radar-guided missile, the Raptor's primary air-to-air armament.
|
