Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor F-22A Increment 3.2

Increment 3.2 is neither a production lot nor a distinct version of the Raptor, but the third step of the modernization program the U.S. Air Force established in 2003 for its in-service F-22As. That program was laid out in four successive increments: Increment 2 added Joint Direct Attack Munition employment in 2005 and enhanced the intra-flight data link between Raptors; Increment 3.1 integrated synthetic aperture radar mapping, self-targeting and the Small Diameter Bomb in 2011; and Increment 3.2 closed the cycle. In contrast to its predecessors, which were aimed at ground attack and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, this last increment emphasized air combat capabilities, with updates to electronic warfare, to the communications, navigation and identification suite (CNI, including Link 16 receive) and to emitter geolocation, together with the integration of the AIM-9X and AIM-120D missiles.

The precise content of the package was described in two ways that are worth telling apart. In their May 20, 2009 testimony before Congress, Lieutenant Generals Darnell, Shackelford and Johns presented Increments 3.2A and 3.2B as a whole: the next-generation data link, improved SDB employment, improved targeting through multi-ship geolocation, an automatic ground collision avoidance system (Auto GCAS) and the ability to employ the enhanced AIM-120D and AIM-9X air-to-air weapons. The Government Accountability Office, in report 12-447 of May 2012, split them: Increment 3.2A was a software upgrade to increase electronic protection, combat identification and Link 16 communications and data link capabilities; Increment 3.2B would increase electronic protection, geolocation and intra-flight data link (IFDL) capabilities and add the AIM-9X and AIM-120D missiles. This division into a purely software tranche and a second one carrying new hardware and weapons is the one that ultimately shaped how the program was managed.

The schedule set out in 2009 expected Increment 3.2 to begin fielding in fiscal year 2015. The modernization plan of the time divided the fleet into 34 Block 20 aircraft for test and training, 63 combat-coded Block 30s fielded with Increment 3.1, 83 combat-coded Block 35s fielded with Increment 3.2 and 3 test-coded aircraft at Edwards, and consideration was already being given to upgrading the 63 Block 30s to the Block 35 configuration. Under this logic, Increment 3.2 is the upgrade that defines Block 35, but it is not the lot: the airframes were built to one standard and received the increment afterwards, and the Common Configuration Plan eventually brought the Block 20s from Lot 3 onward up to Block 30/35 standard as well, so that by 2020 the unified fleet numbered 149 aircraft, while 37 remained as Block 20 trainers.

The program carried delays and cost growth. According to GAO in May 2012, the total projected cost of the F-22A modernization program and its related reliability and maintainability improvements had more than doubled since the program started, from $5.4 billion to $11.7 billion, and the schedule for delivering full capability had slipped seven years, from 2010 to 2017, owing to additional requirements, unexpected problems during testing and fluctuations in research and development funding. GAO also found that accountability and oversight had been hampered because the modernization had not been treated as a major defense acquisition program (MDAP). The direct consequence was that, beginning with Increment 3.2B, future F-22 modernization efforts would be managed as MDAPs, and the Senate Armed Services Committee, in its June 4, 2012 report on the fiscal year 2013 authorization act, stated that any F-22A modification program meeting the statutory definition should be treated that way. The Administration's budget request for that fiscal year sought $140.1 million in research and development to launch the Increment 3.2B software as a new-start program, alongside $371.7 million for F-22A squadrons and $283.9 million in procurement funding to modify in-service aircraft.

The congressional debate around this modernization, as summarized by the Congressional Research Service, had two sides. Supporters argued that expanding the Raptor's capabilities realized a greater return on the very large investment in developing and buying it. Skeptics argued that stabilizing the avionics had already been a significant contributor to the program's development cost, that adding new communications capabilities could jeopardize the progress made in the software, and that controlling electronic emissions was a key component of the aircraft's stealth: the Raptor had been born with deliberately restricted transmission capability, its intra-flight link designed at the expense of interoperability with Link 16-equipped platforms, and in August 2008 it was reported that the Air Force wanted to reprogram $85 million to accelerate an upgrade allowing it to share information with other aircraft. The 2011 intervention in Libya again exposed that shortfall. Increment 3.2 solved the problem only in part, by adding Link 16 receive; two-way transmission came later with the MIDS-JTRS terminal, which includes Mode 5 IFF and Link 16 transmit and receive capability and was installed starting in 2021.

As for the weapons, the AIM-120D is the AMRAAM version with 50 percent greater range than the AIM-120C-7, a two-way data link, navigation using a GPS-enhanced inertial unit and a top speed of Mach 4; its testing began on August 5, 2008 and its follow-on operational test and evaluation was completed in 2014. The AIM-9X replaced the veteran AIM-9M as the Raptor's short-range missile: firing tests were carried out on February 26 and April 29, 2015, and a Block 30 F-22A of the 411th Flight Test Squadron, serial 06-4132, test-fired one that same year. Some Raptors had been able to carry the AIM-9X for about a year before the software that truly integrated it with the jet and gave the pilot the proper symbology was available, and that deep integration arrived precisely with the Increment 3.2B software. A pilot of the 95th Fighter Squadron summed it up by saying that with the AIM-9M they stepped out the door counting six missiles and with the AIM-9X they counted eight. The lack of a helmet-mounted display, however, left the missile's off-boresight capability unexploited, and the Air Force pointed to a further round of upgrades around 2019 for the AIM-9X Block II, with lock-on after launch and data-link cueing from the APG-77 radar. According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, combat-coded aircraft completed the Increment 3.2B software upgrades, adding high-resolution ground-mapping SAR, threat geolocation, electronic attack capability and integrated SDB I, AIM-120D and AIM-9X. The practical payoff was demonstrated on February 4, 2023, when an F-22 of the 1st Fighter Wing shot down a Chinese observation balloon with an AIM-9X, the type's first air-to-air kill.

The captured sources do not allow the exact in-service dates of 3.2A and 3.2B, or the details of the integration contracts, to be pinned down; these remain a declared gap.