Above top to
bottom: The
‘Atlantic Trident’
exercise in April
2017 saw French
Rafales and
Royal Air Force
Euro ghter
Typhoons
working with the
Langley Raptors.
Teaming the
F-22 with the
F-35A is an
important part
of the ghter
integration
picture that the
USAF is working
on.PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT
Each and every asset in the CENTCOM
AOR is expected to pull its weight, and
the Raptors are no exception. As well as
having own dedicated, pre-planned
strikes on key targets in Syria, other more
non-standard events have come up.
‘When we were deployed, the ‘Hat in
the Ring’ gang was asked to provide CAS
for friendlies on the ground’, says Maj
‘Bullet’. ‘As the weapons o cer, I had to
lead the development of TTPs [tactics,
techniques and procedures] and create
a plan of action to train our pilots to
provide weapons e ects against the
enemy with SDB and JDAM. We became
the rst combat-coded F-22 squadron to
deploy with Increment 3.1 and the rst
F-22s to attack the enemy using SDB. I
am deeply proud of what the squadron
accomplished during our deployment.’
Lt Col ‘Lobo’ asserts: ‘We have been
trying to adapt this airplane and the
capabilities it has for the current ghtwithout going down a road that’s going
to change us into an airplane that we’re
not. This is the air dominance platform,
and as long as we have that mission
squared away, we can look at the
other things.
‘The fact is that there are JTACs [Joint
Terminal Attack Controllers] that need
weapons. We’re overhead with those
weapons, so our pilots are now trained
in JTAC language and we have started
dynamic targeting. It’s CAS in terms
of bomb on co-ordinate with SDB. So,
we can adapt and be relevant without
losing our identity and ability to be the
high-end air dominance platform that
everyone expects us to be.’‘Lobo’ explains. ‘A decade on and we are
far more robust in that air-to-ground
role. We have a synthetic aperture radar
[SAR] and the SDB, and in Iraq and Syria
under ‘Inherent Resolve’ there is a need
for low-collateral damage weapons. My
squadron was the rst squadron with
SDB, which we got under Increment 3.1.
What we are doing is just looking for ways
for this airplane to help out the bigger
team. Whether that’s with our sensors, our
situational awareness, we can keep track
of both air and surface threats. We are not
traditional SEAD [suppression of enemy
air defences] assets; there are some things
the F-35 will be best for, but we are doing
a little bit of that mission.’
‘Lobo’ described the Raptor as the ‘aerial
quarterback’ and says that in current
combat operations, while the Syrian
integrated air defence system hasn’t
actively engaged coalition aircraft, it’s
still good to have F-22s there. ‘You never
know’, he adds.Acknowledgements: Jamie Hunter
would like to thank Col Fesler and ev-
eryone at the 1st Fighter Wing for their
extraordinary assistance in support of
this section.RAPTOR^6350-63 1st FW C.indd 63 28/09/2017 14:51