F-16s to prove they could pull 9g, refuel
in flight and fly at night. This stopped
approximately three years ago.
New pilots coming out of flight training
are now ‘streamed’ off to their respective
communities at the UPT phase, before
they embark on IFF. ‘Now they’re selected
straight from pilot training,’ says ‘Burn’. ‘So
when they show up at IFF, they already
know they’re going to the F-22. The top
guys get to pick what they want if it’s
available.’ The Air Force still wants the cream
of the crop when it comes to the Raptor.
‘The F-22 community was grown from
the ground up. If you take a guy straight
out of pilot training and fly the F-22 for
three years, we would rather pick them
versus another airframe, getting an F-22
top off,’ ‘Burn’ comments. The change in
policy in turn resulted in the ramping up
of some of the academics at the 43rd FS.
‘Burn’ adds: ‘The first time they refuel in
flight now is in a Raptor by themselves.’INTO THE RAPTOR
The fidelity of the simulators at Tyndall
means new Raptor pilots have what Maj
‘Burn’ calls a ‘fairly easy transition’ from the
synthetic world to that of live flying. ‘We
have a good building block process from
the academics, into the simulator, then
they come over to the squadron and run
through a series of ground ops. We call
this an ‘engine run’. Essentially it’s a taxi
sortie without the actual taxi. They hop
in, strap in, crank up the jet, run through
the checklists, and then go through the
shutdown procedures.’
Simulators clearly have to play a big
role in training pilots for modern fast jets.
Hours spent in the air are precious, they
are tied to cost and to maintenance, plus
of course the service life in each aircraft,
but ‘Burn’ says the squadron is not overly
focused on the number of minutes spentin the air; it’s all about achieving the
training. ‘Every community is concerned
about flight hours,’ he comments. ‘It’s just
the nature of the aviation business.’
‘Our students fly a total of 38 flights,’
says ‘Burn’. ‘Sometimes they’ll actually fly
more, but if they do well then 38 is the
goal. Three of those flights are what we
call ‘transition’; that’s just basic handling
and navigation. Then they have a practice
check ride and then a check ride to
pass them fully qualified with the basic
capabilities of the jet — so that’s five
flights. That’s 13 per cent of the flying
dedicated to how to get to and from
the fight, after that it’s all about getting
tactical and being able to employ this
aircraft.’
As the student pilot starts to get into the
detail of how to ‘fight’ in the Raptor, that
‘admin’ isn’t disregarded. On each mission
the pilot has to fly out to the airspace
and back, so the ‘admin’ continues
throughout the course, but it becomes
second nature, rather than the focus of the
mission at hand.
The air-to-air mission is the obvious
focus of the F-22 course, and few doubt
the prowess of this superfighter, both
at range and close in. Interestingly, the
close fight is something that the Raptor
community takes seriously. Maj ‘Burn’
continues: ‘We recognise that eventually
you’ll probably find someone within
visual range of you and that you’ll have to
manoeuvre, so it’s still a valid tactic and
we have to be proficient. Out of the entire
course we have nine BFM [basic fighter
manoeuvres] sorties, which equates
to around 24 per cent. We have three
defensive, where you’re trying to survive,
three offensive where you’re trying to kill
them and three high-aspect BFMs where
you start at a neutral merge and then try
to get the first kill.’Above right:
New students
strap into the
Raptor initially
for a ground run,
going through all
the procedures
but they do not
taxi. USAF/SrA
Sergio A. Gamboa
Above left: A
Raptor student
performs final
pre-taxi checks at
Tyndall. USAF
Far left: The
F-22 training
simulator at
Tyndall is used to
train maintainers
on F-22 cockpit
maintenance and
egress methods
for new pilots.
USAF
Left: The 43rd FS
runs two Basic
Courses per
year to generate
around 14 new
Raptor pilots.
USAFRAPTOR^4340-49 Raptor School C.indd 43 28/09/2017 11:41