Talk:Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

No YF-22 image?

Surely this page can accommodate one photo of the YF-22 for comparison? It might also be prudent to add a picture of the YF-23. Schierbecker (talk) 03:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Why? They already have photos in their respective articles, YF-22 and YF-23. Why would we need them in this article? Zaereth (talk) 04:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

More detailed description of NATF in the YF-22 article

I added a more detailed description of the Lockheed team's NATF design in the YF-22 article and linked it appropriately. The reason is that I try to keep most of the F-22 development information in this article on post Dem/Val work, including FSD/EMD, production, and modernization, while the YF-22 article would cover the period ATF RFI to Dem/Val. Given that the Navy began backing out of NATF even before the ATF winner for FSD/EMD was selected, the design never progressed beyond Dem/Val, which is why I feel that it's more appropriate to have it the other article. Steve7c8 (talk) 03:19, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Uhhh... ok? No offense intended, but this reminds me of that quote from Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, "Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P."

So the question I have is, how does that translate into English? Zaereth (talk) 18:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Explaining why I think the description of the naval variant should be in the YF-22 rather than F-22 article, because almost no development work on that variant happened after the downselect. Some of its design cues were taken for A-X and A/F-X but those are different aircraft and programs. Steve7c8 (talk) 06:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Why are we referring to it as the Lockheed/Boeing F-22 Raptor?

I don't want to start an edit war, but Lockheed/Boeing F-22 Raptor seems to plainly violate WP:UCRN, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:COMMONTERM.

The F-22 does not appear on Boeing Defense's website as a aircraft they manufacture, the actual title of the article does not include Boeing, the Air Force museum refers to it as the Lockheed Martin F-22 (https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196040/lockheed-martin-f-22a-raptor/).

There are other aircraft that have contract partners in the program, most importantly the F-35, but we don't refer to the F-35 as the Lockheed Martin / Northrop Grumman / BAE Systems F-35 Lightning II.

Similarly, the F-16 has been manufactured by Lockheed since 1995, but we don't refer to it as the Lockheed Martin F-16, but, instead, the original designer General Dynamics. 2600:4040:297C:8F00:3DF5:9183:2248:E353 (talk) 18:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The reason is that unlike the F-35, where Lockheed is the prime contractor with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems being subcontractors, the F-22 was designed as a team with three roughly equal partners, originally Lockheed California (CALAC), General Dynamics Fort Worth (GDFW), and Boeing Seattle, and the work was split evenly between the three, not just the airframe but the entire system including avionics, training systems, etc. See the YF-22 article for the background of the partnership. Unlike other aircraft programs with partners, the Lockheed F-22 design involved GDFW and Boeing Seattle at the fundamental system level, including the overall shape and the avionics design. Lockheed only got majority of the program when they absorbed GDFW in 1993 (the design was also transferred from Lockheed California to Lockheed Georgia for EMD and production). It's for similar reasons that the YF-23 is listed as a Northrop/McDonnell Douglas aircraft. Given the involvement Boeing Seattle had in both the design and production of the F-22 since the program founding, I think it's suitable in this case to list them in the opening sentence. Steve7c8 (talk) 19:32, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Steve. It is possible that Boeing is no longer a principal partner in the program, which has been out of production for years, and became a mere sub-contractor at some point in the program. We'll have to research that. BilCat (talk) 22:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The relationships and workshare has definitely shifted now that the aircraft is no longer in production and the program is in the sustainment phase as well as ongoing modernization. That said, the opening sentence should reflect the prime contractors and principal partners during the time of design and production, IMO. Other examples include the General Dynamics/Grumman EF-111 Raven, Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey, and the stillborn General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II (flying Dorito). Steve7c8 (talk) 15:38, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I totally agree. BilCat (talk) 01:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. WP:COMMONNAME refers to article titles, but the first sentence of the article usually gives a subject's full name, which may differ from the title. (For example: Buck Dharma or Kim Kardashian). Either way, it seems like a silly thing to edit war over. Zaereth (talk) 00:05, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Designation and testing section

I've noticed that the "Designation and test" section of this article is under "Operational history", which appears to be an exception as most aircraft articles have that under "Development". Should the section be moved? As a side note, this article is becoming quite along, and admittedly I may be guilty of a lot of content addition over the years, despite my earlier work that trimmed it down substantially. Steve7c8 (talk) 02:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't necessarily see that all aircraft articles need to adhere to some strict format. I don't really have an opinion on that one way or the other, but the question I would ask myself is: in which spot does it make the most sense?

As for your other point, I quite agree that the article is excessively long. Not blaming anybody, it just is what it is. There are just a lot of boring details bogging down the flow and obfuscating the points. The thing to keep in mind is that an encyclopedia is a quick reference, which is why you find them in the reference section of the library. They're meant to give brief summaries of subjects in easily digested form, and summarizing --by definition-- means cutting out all the extraneous details and whittling it down to the nitty gritty. Such details are great for the avid enthusiast, but to the general reader they're boring and monotonous as hell. An encyclopedias purpose is to give the basic gist of the story for those who don't want to read the whole damn story. I think paring down on a lot of these details will improve the flow and understandability by a huge amount, while at the same time bringing this article down to a reasonable size. Zaereth (talk) 02:45, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

In terms of prose, this article is currently about 11,600 words. I decided to check some featured articles to compare their lengths to this one, and the Boeing 747 article is actually a bit longer at about 12,300 words. Another article, the Boeing 777, is about 10,900 words while McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is around 11,300 words. So this article is long but not drastically so. All of these articles are smaller in terms of number of bytes, however, so I wonder if perhaps something else is adding to the size of this article other than the prose. That said, some sections do seem a bit bloated, partly because until recently the Advanced Tactical Fighter and Lockheed YF-22 articles weren't fleshed out yet so some of that information was in here. I can try my hand at pruning my own work to try to cut the article down some. Steve7c8 (talk) 07:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)