US AFA, Air Force Magazine
February 2007 , Vol. 90, No. 2
The Raptor in the Real World
By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor
In little more than a year, the Air Force has transformed its newly operational F-22 into something remarkable—a weapon of true intimidation. The Raptor has proved itself time and time again in USAF’s toughest wargames. In live exercises, it has trounced the best “opponents” USAF can muster. It hits them at unprecedented speeds and altitudes—and with impunity.
The F-22 does this while in the hands of operators—not test pilots, but rank and file fighter pilots. They consider it to be nearly as reliable as mature F-15 and F-16 fighters. Moreover, the Raptor has shown capabilities that may vastly amplify the power of the rest of the force.
In short, the F-22 is delivering on even the most ambitious claims made for it.
The 1st Fighter Wing, located at Langley AFB, Va., now operates two 20-fighter F-22 squadrons. The 27th FS, which in December 2005 became the first operational unit, is today pulling real-world alert as part of an Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF) deployment to Kadena AB, Japan. The 27th’s sister squadron, the 94th FS, is at Red Flag exercises in Nevada this month, marking the Raptor’s operational debut in that wargame.
In May, the 94th will also deploy on an AEF rotation. Its destination has not been announced. A third F-22 squadron, to be based in Alaska, is now taking shape.
Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, 27th FS commander, said his unit has been working toward the Kadena deployment for about two years.
“We worked hard to bring this jet to initial operational capability,” Tolliver said in an interview in his Langley office, “and, when we accomplished that in December ’05, the celebration was great, but the next day, we got everybody in the squadron [together, to] make sure they understand the focus: what’s next. Well, AEF 5 and 6 [has] ... been our focus ever since.”
Big Contribution
He added that, “AEFs aside, we’re sitting here at Langley with two squadrons the COCOMs [combatant commanders] can call on right now, anywhere in the world.” In any conflict in which the US is engaged, said Tolliver, the F-22 can make a big contribution.
“The jet’s performing very well for where it is at this stage—probably better than any other fighter that we’ve brought on line,” he said. It all adds up to “a significantly increased combat capability” compared to what the F-22 had when IOC was declared.
The F-22 has had a busy year, prompted in part by circumstance: Last summer, Langley’s runways had to be closed for major repair, obliging all flying units at the base to relocate for two months. The 1st Fighter Wing dispatched its F-22s to multiple locations, where it could demonstrate or confirm new capabilities.
A dozen F-22s, flown by a cadre of handpicked pilots and kept in shape by the 27th’s best maintainers, went to Northern Edge, a two-week joint-force wargame in Alaska. Participants included 5,000 troops in Army ground units, Marine Corps ground units, Navy Aegis cruisers and aircraft, and Air Force aircraft ranging from fighters and search and rescue helicopters to E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft.
Col. Thomas Bergeson, the 1st Operations Group commander, said it was the largest exercise for him in 20 or so years. In one Northern Edge engagement, USAF and its sister services put more than 40 fighters in the air at once, as well as E-2C Hawkeye and E-3 AWACS aircraft.
To confront the F-22-led “Blue Air” collection, the joint force mustered its best “Red Air” threat—front-line F-15s, F-16s, and Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets. The F-22’s team blitzed the opposition with a favorable 241-to-two kill ratio. What’s more, the two lost aircraft were F-15Cs, not F-22s. The Raptors came through the engagements untouched.
In Red Flags, Bergeson said, “you have a great day if you lose only 10 percent of your forces.” The massively lopsided victory for the stealthy F-22-led force was unprecedented.
“They [the Red Air adversaries] couldn’t see us,” Tolliver said. This was true even when the opponents were assisted by AWACS. “And that’s what makes the F-22 special,” Tolliver went on. “I’m out there and I have weapons like an F-15C or an F-16, but ... I’m basically invisible to the other guy’s radar.”
The 241-to-two record was amassed over two weeks of air engagements. Tolliver noted that, in such battles, Red Air units were allowed to regenerate and return to the fight, but lost Blue forces could not. Even with such handicaps, in the largest single engagement, F-22-led forces claimed 83 enemies to one loss, after facing down an opposing force that had generated or regenerated 103 adversary fighters.
And what about the two losses?
“If you see numbers where you never have a loss, I don’t think you’re training to your full ability,” Tolliver said. “If you don’t, at some point, have that simulated loss, we’re not going to push ourselves to be as capable as we are.”
Lt. Col. Dirk Smith, commander of the 94th FS, said that these aircraft losses stemmed from the aggressiveness of pilots, which was a good thing.
“They wanted to fly to the merge, they wanted to show” what such a fighter package can do “when you’re highly outnumbered.” Such exercises are “the perfect place to learn that kind of lesson ... so that, when it comes to real bullets flying, they’ve learned that.”
“No Problem”
Although the Air Force would prefer that F-22 pilots destroy their targets at long range, there’s no penalty if pilots get close enough to use heat-seeking missiles or guns.
Bergeson said he and a captain, flying F-22s, engaged six F-16s at close range, but it was “no problem.” “We have a lot of capability in the close-in regime,” noted Smith.
Red Air forces in Northern Edge posed a threat stiffer than what real-world enemies might generate, Tolliver added. “These are some of the best pilots in the world flying the best machines in the world,” he said, “so we’re fighting a pretty lethal threat out there.”
The exercise called for alternating air-to-air and ground-attack engagements. The F-22s dropped 26 inert 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, responding to close air support requests from ground troops. It was the first time Raptors had coordinated with ground-based joint tactical air controllers, and “every one of those [targets they designated] was a hit,” Tolliver said. For some of the Raptor pilots, it was the first time they’d released real ordnance from the F-22.
Tolliver cautioned, “We’re not an A-10; we’re not an F-16. We don’t do close support like that, but we do carry two 1,000-pound JDAMs, and we can support that ground troop, and that’s ... what we proved.” He noted that in the future, the F-22 will be rigged to carry up to eight 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs, so USAF’s F-22 fleet is going to increase its ground-attack power.
Tolliver noted another eye-opening aspect of the exercise.
Even after using up all eight of their air-to-air missiles, he said, the F-22s did not have to leave the fight. The Raptors, protected by their stealthiness, could fly far ahead of the rest of their force, using their powerful onboard sensors to fill in the gaps where AWACS could not see, such as behind mountains. Raptor pilots could talk their non-Raptor colleagues into the vicinity of enemies no one else could spot. The F-22s were acting, in effect, as forward air controllers.
“Being airborne, with our sensors, ... basically increased the combat capability of every single asset that was sitting out there, including the AWACS, including the EA-6Bs,” said Tolliver.
Advantage Raptor
The F-22’s futuristic avionics suite, Tolliver said, allows the Raptor pilot to see all air and ground threats in a single picture, “without my having to build it mentally in my mind.” It is “an amazing advantage for a fighter pilot,” he asserted.
Overall, Tolliver went on, the exercise was “a great opportunity to work with all those assets and find out what the Raptor really does bring to the fight.”
Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne has said that he wants all friendly platforms in an area to be able to see what an F-22 sees with its systems. At present, this kind of “common air picture” is not attainable because existing systems cannot transmit F-22 displays to other aircraft. Pilots must communicate by voice. Several F-22s, however, can share the same situation display. Data links that will allow the transmission of more information to other aircraft is one of the planned improvements for the program.
Though the F-22’s Northern Edge combat victory was impressive, the Raptor reliability story may have been the bigger news. Of the 105 sorties assigned to the Raptor, it flew 102. That signifies an astounding 97 percent mission effective rate, Tolliver noted. He pointed out that it was an unprecedented achievement for any brand-new fighter.
“In all the things we did at Northern Edge, I think that ... is the biggest success story,” said Tolliver. “We proved ... that this jet can go on the road, away from its [support] structure here at Langley, ... and be able to generate those kinds of sorties [outside the continental US], and make it happen with that kind of effectiveness. We proved we can be an immediate contributor to the fight.”
The 27th took with it about 170 short tons of cargo, somewhat more than would be needed for an F-15 squadron. When it has been flown for about 100,000 hours, the F-22 will have achieved what is considered “maturity” and will require less baggage on a deployment. Maturity is still about five or six years away.
“We’re still kind of learning which parts fail, for the supply chain,” Tolliver said. In future deployments, it won’t be necessary to take as many spares since the unit will have an ever-better handle on what it needs to take—and what it really doesn’t.
While the 27th was fighting the massed Red Air battles in Alaska, the 94th FS, commanded by Smith, flew to Hill AFB, Utah, for a different kind of action. Smith took 16 airplanes along, which was all of the 94th’s airplanes as well as a few from the 27th that didn’t go to Northern Edge. His force grew to 20 airplanes over the summer, as four more Raptors arrived from the Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta, Ga.
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