Superior Firepower: The F-22A Raptor

The United States has long enjoyed air superiority. Since 1947, when Chuck Yeager burst through the sound barrier, the rest of the world has been trying to catch up with varying levels of success. Even though the U.S. has not been beaten in an air-to-air fight in many years, the Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat took over America's sheer domination of the skies from a contest standpoint, outperforming the F-15 "Streak Eagle" in 27 record-setting instances between 1986 and 1988. (Duffy 1) Other Russian fighters such as the Sukhoi have also emerged as possible threats to American firepower in the air. Even while the Foxbat was beating the F-15 in the time-to-height trials, however, the United States was secretly developing an aircraft that would ensure American air superiority "for the next four decades." (Fuller)

Since 1972, the workhorse of the Air Force fighter wings has been the F-15 Eagle, with the F-16 Fighting Falcon making its appearance in 1976. Both jets combined powerful engines with excellent maneuverability and lethal weaponry, and they were equally effective at both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Together they were a combination that saw near-perfect combat victory records. However, thirty years of service in many conflicts throughout the world have taken their toll on the aging planes.

"Fleet maintenance not only grows costlier each year but also puts more and more strain on ground crews, which are chronically overworked. Additional repairs mean more money must be diverted from enhancements such as targeting systems, affecting capability. And there are only so many times a tired fleet can be patched up..." (Tirpak 26)

General Ronald E. Keys, commander of the Air Combat Command, voiced his concerns in December 2005 about the ability of the Air Force to continue maintaining its current fleet, saying maintenance mistakes are on the rise due to overwork and ground crew fatigue. Keyes also addressed the current practice of cannibalization, or taking parts from one non-operational aircraft to repair another. Called "hangar queens" or donor aircraft, these planes have usually been damaged by use or combat.

"Every time I deploy, if I'm going to take six airplanes, I might take a seventh or eighth airplane, and one of them is going to be a cann bird [that is, kept specifically to use for cannibalized parts]. As soon as it gets there, I start taking pieces off of it." (Qtd. in Tirpak 28)

With aging fighters, other countries working on advanced weapon systems, and new threats facing national security, America's military is finding itself in a difficult predicament. Air superiority is a need that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore, and stealth is at the cutting edge of the new technologies. However, America's political climate demands that the military find a balance between technology and cost to the taxpayer, while still addressing the needs of a variety of 21st-century threats.

The Air Force has been successfully working stealth capability into its new aircraft since the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit were publicly introduced in the 1980s. Unfortunately, "neither the F-117 nor the B-2 is a high performance aircraft. If they were spotted by Soviet jet fighters, they would be sitting ducks." (Martin 1) The Air Force needed something that would be able to combine supersonic speed with the level of maneuverability required for air-to-air combat against the high-end Soviet-made fighters, and the aircraft still needed to be "invisible" to airborne and ground-based attackers.

A contest was held among the major aircraft contractors, and Lockheed's winning design was the answer. More than twenty years after the Air Force first started putting money into the project, the F-22 was born.

The F-22 is a joint Lockheed-Boeing project that includes over 1,000 parts suppliers in 42 states, making it an economic boon to many areas of the United States. While the F-22 proper has only been in testing and development at Edwards AFB since 1998, the idea behind the Raptor has been a secret dream of the Air Force for nearly 20 years that Lockheed finally made real.

The Raptor, the first of the fifth-generation fighters, combines an integrated avionics system with stealth technology and "supercruise" ability. Bill Sweetman, noted aviation author, explains that "no other fighter, in service or development, matches the F-22 in any one of these attributes. No other known aircraft combines any two of them." (87) Each of these three traits is at the leading edge of technology. Combined, they make the F-22 not only the single greatest fighter ever built, but quite possibly the greatest fighter for a long time to come.

The stealth technology encompassed in the Raptor is based on a number of factors. Internalizing all fuel and armaments is mandatory, as is the blending of angles and surfaces to minimize radar signature. While the exact mechanism of its stealth capability is classified, the aircraft does have a coating that helps it to absorb radar. In fact, so important is this coating in the aircraft's overall makeup that after any maintenance requiring the removal of a surface panel, the coating must be "touched up a bit" to maintain its full effectiveness, says Stephen Crabtree, the Senior Staff Manufacturing Engineer overseeing the Integrated Production Team Lead for the F-22 fuselage mate. The Raptor's stealth technology is so advanced that it enables beyond-visual-range (BVR) engagement. This means the F-22 can engage other aircraft-and defeat them-before it is even detected.

Supercruise ability allows the Raptor to fly at Mach 1.5 without using fuel-guzzling afterburners. Designers achieved this by using thin sections for the wings and tail and a high wing sweep, which minimizes drag at supersonic speeds. The F-22 is powered by two of the most powerful fighter engine ever made: the Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100, which has a maximum augmented thrust of 39,000 pounds. This gives the F-22 more power than two F-4 Phantoms together.

The actual top speed of the Raptor is still classified. Crabtree explains that "I don't even know how fast it'll go, and I'm being honest." While very few know just how fast the Raptor is, pilots say that unlike its predecessors, the aircraft can do its job at almost twice the speed of sound. This was confirmed when the F-22 dropped a 1,000 pound guided Joint Directed Attack Munitions (JDAM) over Edwards Air Force Base's test range on December 1, 2005, while well over the supersonic threshold.

Although it was the seventh test under a variety of conditions to prove that an F-22 could launch a JDAM safely, it was the first to actually use the JDAM guidance system. (Ball 1)

The successful test "marks a dramatic increase in the F/A-22 air-to-ground capability by clearing the first phase of the JDAM supersonic envelope," says Major John Teichert, the 411th Flight Test Squadron test pilot on the JDAM mission. "The supersonic envelope allows the Raptor to release precision air-to-ground weapons at long stand-off ranges while performing its Global Strike mission." (2) Being able to perform bombing and strafing while flying at high speeds and higher altitudes makes the Raptor more lethal than anything else in the sky.

"[The F-117 and B-2] want to sneak in, drop their bombs, and sneak out again," says Lt. Col. David Krumm, an F-22 instructor pilot. "They have absolutely no wish for a fight...They don't have air-to-air missiles, they cannot maneuver that well or anything else." He goes on to contrast this with the F-22, which can deliver advanced weaponry at speeds approaching Mach 2.

"[The F-22] is entirely offensive. Not only am I stealthy, but I'll also hunt you down and kill you if you get in my way...You can imagine if you are 60,000 feet doing mach 1.9 (about 1,400 mph) and these bombs are flying out of your airplane, the swath of hell you can produce going through a country saying 'I'll take that target, and that target'." (Qtd. in Nelson)

Supersonic cruise and high altitude capabilities come with a price, and an advanced life support system was mandatory for the pilots. Before the Raptor, the Air Force restricted pilots to flying below 50,000 feet because "if power and cockpit pressure are lost, the pilot will lose consciousness before the aircraft descends into thicker air." (Sweetman 97) However, F-22 pilots are safe to 66,000 feet, with a backup system that will last long enough for the pilot to get back down to a safer altitude.

Other new technology seen on the Raptor is the all-glass cockpit and seamless canopy, giving the pilot an unprecedented view from the aircraft even while wearing night vision goggles. The ejection seat is an updated version of the ACES II model used in the F-16, and has a tilt to it that not only contributes to the better view but also lessens neck strain on the pilot.

Even though the Raptor is bigger in size than an F-15-a large fighter itself-it has unrivaled agility. It can roll at least twice as fast as the Eagle, and its thrust vector capability allows it to pitch twice as fast as the much smaller F-16 Fighting Falcon. A soft-stop in the stick movement when pulling aft reminds the pilot that the aircraft will pitch extremely quickly; a smart anti-G valve engages to counteract the effects of fast pitching maneuvers on a human pilot. (Sweetman 97)

The third facet of the Raptor's one-of-a-kind technology is its integrated avionics system. Humans are better tacticians than sensor monitors, and the F-22 allows pilots to focus on the battle instead of interpreting data. New displays make a pilot's job easier by fusing the data from several different sensors to give the pilot a mental picture of the battle taking place. The cockpit contains an 8×8-inch screen called a Tactical Situation Display, or TSD, with 6-inch screens to the left, right, and below. Sweetman explains why the displays are so far ahead of their time:

"In today's fighters, the radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems and the communications, navigation, and identification (CNI) systems are separate, and each has its own processors. The F-22 sensors are not independent systems, but together with the displays are peripherals serving the fighter's Raytheon Common Integrated Processor (CIP), which consists of two banks of liquid-cooled computer modules housed in the forward fuselage." (99)

The screen immediately to the right of the main TSD is used for attack, and the left is used for defense. Each screen expounds on data pulled from the main TSD screen, using the same "God's eye view" for all three screens.

The Raptor showing off. Photo Lockheed

The F-22 uses the Northrop-Grumman APG-77 radar and the BAe Systems ALR-94 for electronic warfare. The APG-77 can operate as several types of radar at the same time, changing the form of the radar beam as needed. The Raptor has over 30 antennas that are blended into the wings and fuselage. If the antennas were not seamlessly integrated, the aircraft would "resemble a signals intelligence platform." (Sweetman 101) Such high-sensitivity equipment means that any target trying to use radar within a range of over 250 miles to find the F-22 can be detected, identified, and dealt with before the target even knows the Raptor is in the area.

The onboard computer also handles all target prioritization for the pilot. It sorts and tracks multiple targets, automatically selecting and arming appropriate missiles according to each target, range, and altitude. The information constantly changes based on the situation, and the pilot is always assured up-to-the-second data. This first-of-its-kind system allows the Raptor to defeat multiple targets with ease. In fact, the Raptor's air dominance is so incredible that its pilots generally practice dogfighting against six F-15s simultaneously, and "not once has an F-15 been successful in defeating the F-22 in these outnumbered combat situations." (Crabtree) The Eagles, widely considered the best fighters in the world for a number of years, are no contest for the new Raptor. The F-22 is able to take on up to twelve Russian-made Sukhoi fighters successfully, and Lt. Col. Krumm says that "in any air-to-air fight, it is a hopeless mismatch." (Qtd. in Nelson)

With such overwhelming dominance possible-and even guaranteed-in the F-22, the Air Force has requested 381 Raptors to replace the aging F-15/16 fleet, roughly 880 aircraft. As it stands, however, the Pentagon has only approved the purchase of 179 Raptors, less than half of the Air Force's expected needs. This would bring production of the F-22 to a halt in 2008. Complicating matters is the growing problem of keeping the so-called "legacy" fighters airworthy. Currently the Air Combat Command (ACC) is faced with the decision to either "assume that it will get a sufficient number of new airplanes (and thus eliminate the need for more service life extensions on its fighters, now averaging about 20 years old), or it can assume the opposite and so begin a broad, expensive renovation of the existing fleet-something ACC would rather not do." (Tirpak 27)

Most of the F-16s in the American arsenal have recently gone through the Falcon STAR program, which "addressed many issues of structural stress and fatigue." (Tirpak 27) The Air Force is also in the process of replacing computers and other onboard electronics in some F-15 Eagles. However, Keys states that maintenance man-hours on the old fighter jets have increased by 34 percent since 1990, with mission capable rates at only 75 to 80 percent. Unscheduled maintenance-when the aircraft breaks-commonly cuts into scheduled maintenance like inspections and engine checks. However, fixing a fleet that is increasingly hard to keep airworthy and combat ready will siphon funds from the already-endangered Raptor program.

With the Raptor's price tag of $160 million per plane, Congressional Democrats have balked at the idea of spending so much on a plane that they feel is unnecessary to the current threats on the horizon. Also compounding the problem is the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) project. While the project would typically free up defense funds that could be used in developing and producing more F-22s, the Air Force is not guaranteed the "extra" funds, which some Democrats want to reallocate into social programs and other non-defense spending. The Air Force justifies the most expensive plane ever built by pointing out that while the U.S. involvement in Iraq may not benefit from the Raptor's capabilities, any upcoming military involvement against the Russian-made fighters of China, North Korea, or Iran would.

"We have made it look so easy for so long, people don't realize how hard it is to establish air dominance," said Brig. Gen. S. Taco Gilbert III, the Air Force's deputy director of strategic planning. "Iraq is not a good example of what we'll see in the future." (Qtd. in Merle 2) Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force Chief of Staff, agrees and adds more weight to the scale in favor of the F-22.

"I do not relish the idea of some of the technology I saw in the Eurofighter . . . in the hands of certain nations. I think certain models of the [Russian built] Sukhoi are already superior to the F-15," he told the Washington Post. (Qtd. in Merle 2)

Through it all, the Air Force remains adamant about its need for more than 375 F-22s, with Keys affirming that "381 [Raptors]...in exchange for 880 or [so] existing fighters is a pretty good investment made. So that's our number. We believe it." (Qtd. in Tirpak 31)

Rob Fuller, Lockheed public relations liaison for the F-22 project, explained to me why the Raptor is worth every penny:

"We don't want a fair fight. Survivability is [the] key to being able to fight again and again. The Raptor provides an overwhelming advantage to our nation's air force and we want them to maintain that advantage. That's the real value of the Raptor. Anything less would mean some sort of trade off or potential for lost aircraft and lives. Also, the Raptor represents the ability to "kick down the anti-access doors" that can be easily established with very inexpensive surface to air missiles. Legacy fighters might be able to penetrate that threat curtain, but would suffer great losses doing so. The Raptor gives the warfighter choices; he can fly above the threat, fly around the threat due to stealth, or choose to engage the threat and neutralize it."

The first combat-ready Raptor squadron went operational at the end of 2005 at Tyndall AFB in Florida, where all new pilots are trained by men like Lt. Col. David Krumm. While the Air Force plans to eventually take new pilots directly out of Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) for the Raptor program, currently it is only accepting pilots with a minimum of 2,000 hours of flight time in the two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle and air-to-ground attack experience. Before the planes are even delivered to the Air Force, however, Lockheed puts its own pilots in the cockpit to test "a stringent set of items that must be checked out on two required company flights to ensure we are providing the USAF with a quality aircraft. Following the two company flights, an Air Force pilot will verify the test points as well." (Fuller) Pilots who are lucky enough to fly the Raptor-in testing or operations-have nothing but praise for the advanced fighting machine.

"[Flying the F-22 is] like having a God's-eye view of what's out there," said Lt. Col. James Hecker, a pilot with the 27th Fighter Training Squadron. "There is not a pilot who has flown the Raptor that isn't in love."