F-22A Completes First Deployment Outside U.S. Territory

The US Air Force's newest air supremacy stealth fighter has completed its first operational deployment overseas.

Nearly three months after arriving at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan in February, 12 Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptors and more than 250 airmen of the U.S. Air Force's 27^th Fighter Squadron--based at Langley Air Force Base, Va.--departed yesterday, reported AFNEWS.

Two of the Raptors departed several hours later than the rest because of unspecified maintenance concerns, the Associated Press reported. While the first 10 Raptors left Kadena for their home base, the last two aircraft left for "another location in the Pacific region," the Air Force said in a statement from Kadena.

The Raptors had been deployed to Kadena Air Base as part of a regularly scheduled U.S. Pacific Command rotational assignment. While at Kadena, the squadron flew more than 600 sorties, a better sortie rate than expected considering supplies and support had to come from a home base more than 7,700 miles away.

Because the Raptor became operational only recently and this was its first deployment outside U.S. territory, the deployment of the 12 aircraft to Kadena particularly caught the attention of Okinawa residents and some protested their visit, The Japan Times reported.

However, the U.S. Consul General in Okinawa, Kevin Maher, told the newspaper that Raptors could be redeployed to the island prefecture again in future. "There is no specific plan for the deployment, but it would not be surprising to see them come by rotation," said Maher.

While at Kadena, The 27^th Fighter Squadron Raptors trained with F-15 Eagles, E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning AWACS aircraft, KC-135 Stratotankers from the U.S. Air Force's 18^th Wing and with the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Japanese Air Self Defense Force.

"Many of these pilots and aircraft had never flown with the F-22," Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, the 27^th FS commander, told AFNEWS. "This gave us a chance to expose the F-22 to our sister services and key allies, allowing all of us to learn how to work together better. The F-22 is not here to replace any aircraft, but add another capability to the fight."

Japan is planning to replace its aging McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighters with a more advanced type and is a potential export market for new U.S. fighters, but has expressed concern of the cost of the F-22 and possible licensing problems, AP reported.

The fly-away cost of an F-22A to the U.S. Air Force is more than $136 million at present, the Air Force has stated.

Another feature of the Raptor deployment to Okinawa was to educate Americans and citizens of other nations in the region on the F-22's capabilities. While at Kadena Air Base, the 27^th FS conducted nearly 30 tours and briefings for visiting dignitaries and held three open-house tours for more than 4,000 Americans on Okinawa, said AFNEWS.

Meanwhile, the deployment gave Kadena a chance to show its capability to receive forces and combine dissimilar fighter types into a combined air power team.

Designed to perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, the F-22A Raptor "cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft," the U.S. Air Force claimed in its fact sheet about the aircraft.

Stealthy, fast and maneuverable, the F-22A is also more reliable and easy to maintain than any fighter aircraft in history, according to the U.S. Air Force. A deployment of a squadron of Raptors requires less than half as much airlift support as an F-15 squadron deployment and less manpower is required to maintain and repair the aircraft.

The F-22A's two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines, which have afterburners and two-dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles, produce more thrust than any other current fighter engine, the U.S. Air Force said.

Each of the two engines produces more than 35,000 pounds of thrust, allowing the aircraft--which weighs some 40,000 pounds empty--to "supercruise" at a speed greater than Mach 1.5 and sprint at Mach 2 for shorter periods. The U.S. Air Force will say only that the aircraft's service ceiling--the maximum altitude at which it can fly operationally--is above 50,000 feet, but the maximum altitude the F-22A can reach is likely to be considerably above that.

The F-22A contains a sophisticated sensor suite that allows the pilot to track, identify, shoot and kill air-to-air threats before being detected. In its air-to-air configuration the Raptor carries six AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air (AMRAAM) Slammer missiles, which have a range in excess of 30 miles and achieve a speed Mach 4, as well as two shorter-range AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles.

In air-to-ground configuration, the F-22A can carry two 1,000-pound GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) internally along with two AIM-120 Slammers and two AIM-9 Sidewinders.

The Joint Direct Attack Munition is a guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather 'smart' munitions. With the addition of a new tail section that contains an inertial navigational system and a global positioning system guidance control unit, JDAM improves the accuracy of unguided, general purpose bombs in any weather.

So far Lockheed Martin--leading a team of some 1,000 F-22 program suppliers in 42 states--has delivered 93 F-22s of 131 contracted to date. The F-22A is already operating from four bases--Edwards in Calif.; Nellis in Nev.; Tyndall in Fla.; and Langley Air Force Base in Va.--and the U.S. Air Force has identified three additional bases from which it will operate.

These are Elmendorf Air Force Base, AK, beginning this year; Holloman in N.M., from late 2008; and Hickam, HI, from late 2010.

• Serbian Stealth Fighter Hunter Speaks Out

• Boeing C-17 Faces Possible Termination

• Futuristic Spy Plane Maneuvers Like a Bird

• Military Tests Miniature Spy Plane