F-22 Raptors Uncaged (An F-22 pilot opens up about the fighter’s first combat)

AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE ^ | FEBRUARY 2016 | James R. Chiles

[sukhoi-30mki]

In 2005, The Air Force made it official. The F-22A Raptor was ready for combat. “If we go to war tomorrow, the Raptor will go with us,” said then head of Air Combat Command, General Robert Keys, at Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base. However, for the next nine years, what has been called the world’s most capable fighter stayed on the sidelines, sitting out, for example, U.S. strikes against Libyan air defenses in March 2011. On the night of September 22, 2014, tomorrow finally came: The 1st Fighter Wing, based at Langley, flew four F-22s to strike ISIS militants in northern Syria.

The Raptors flew in the second of three waves of coalition strikes. (Dozens of cruise missiles were the first wave.) The radar-evading, fifth generation fighters divided their time between escorting other aircraft and dropping 1,000-pound guided bombs on ISIS outposts.

At the time the Air Force put out its first request for a stealthy interceptor—in 1986—the list of missions did not include bombing enemy combatants armed with AK-47s. The twin-engine air-dominance fighter was to lead the way in overcoming any adversary’s most sophisticated fighters and air defenses—“sanitizing the airspace,” as the pilots say, so that the more seeable, less capable airplanes could strike targets without being struck themselves. Recently back from the deployment to the Middle East, the 38-year-old commander of the Wing’s 94th Fighter Squadron sat down for an interview with Air & Space to explain why the high-cost, high-end Raptor was included in the first night of attacks on ISIS positions in Syria, where the enemy fielded no weapon dangerous even to older tactical aircraft such as the F-16 and F-15.

Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/raptor-strikes-180957782/#BJMUpYOmzufmUkQD.99 Save 47% when you subscribe to Air & Space magazine http://bit.ly/NaSX4X Follow us: @AirSpaceMag on Twitter

[sukhoi-30mki]

Called the world’s most capable fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor has a thrust ratio better than 1:1 and exhaust nozzles that can vector thrust and give the pilot super-maneuverability. (Richard VanderMeulen)

[yarddog]

My Niece used to date a pilot from Eglin’s 33rd Fighter Wing.

I was talking to him at my Parents house and mentioned they had interviewed a Langley pilot on TV the day before. This was not long after Desert Storm.

He said all the pilots called the First Fighter Wing, the Worst Fighter Wing. He said they shot down exactly one plane during the war. I think he said the Eglin planes shot down 23.

[DesertRhino]

Lame, it dropped a bomb in the mud. We only have like 180 of these things. They better save them for air to air.

[oldbill]

There were no F-22s in the first Gulf War.

[Daaave]

In August, 1990, in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Nomads (The 33rd Fighter Wing.) deployed 24 F-15s to Saudi Arabia in support of Operation DESERT SHIELD. On January 17, 1991, as Operation DESERT STORM began, the Nomads scored the first aerial victory of the war, finishing the conflict with 16 kills, the most of any allied unit in the conflict.

[Daaave]

33RD FIGHTER WING Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

[Wildbill22]

We better start thinking of our strengths and our potential enemy’s weakness or we will lose the global war of POWER. “”

That is what is is.

Otherwise, build windmills and learn to cook grasshoppers...

That is what it is...

[hattend]

Is dropping a bomb on a ground target really considered “combat” for a fighter plane?