Looking at it from the Raptor perspective,
Maj ‘ Bullet’ adds: ‘They can merge with us
at the end of the mission when we start to
run out of AMRAAMs, so the F-22 will have
to get close to them. If they continue to
press, we have to kill them with an AIM-9X
or the gun to meet our commander’s intent
for the mission.’
Bereft of any advanced sensors or
weapons, the T-38 pilots have to get
creative when it comes to simulating a
credible threat for the Raptors. ‘We know
the ranges and angles we need to simulate
the WEZ [weapon engagement zone] of
each weapon we are replicating, so we
simply write down times and post- ight
check back and see if we got a kill. It’s our
job to know the o -boresight capability
of the weapons out there that we are
simulating and we know where that
relates to as we look through the canopy
of the T-38’. It’s interesting to note that one
weapons o cer on the 71st actually drew
lines on the canopy of a T-38 to enable
easier evaluation of o -boresight WEZs.
‘We don’t have data tapes or a HUD
[head-up display], so we rely on Baron
[ground control] to give us target ranges’,
adds ‘Single’. The small GPS that is carried
to the jet for each mission is taken back to
the squadron post-mission and fused with
the ICADS data to enable the ight to be
replayed and carefully evaluated.
There are currently two aggressor
support T-38 squadrons — the 71st FTS at
Langley and the 2nd FTS at Tyndall AFB,
Florida. Gen ‘Hawk’ Carlisle, the outgoing
ACC boss, says that he believes it’s incorrect
to use the F-22 as a ‘Red Air’ platform —
it’s a draw on the airframe plus it doesn’t
present great training.
The expanding F-35A community needs
similar aggressor support squadrons
and many believe ACC will grow itsTalon aggressor business as the new T-X
trainer comes online and frees up T-38Cs,
which may be available as active-duty or
government-furnished equipment in the
hands of contractors.
Gen Carlisle said in September that he
would like to stand up another aggressor
squadron at Nellis AFB, even though the
65th AGRS relinquished its F-15s at the
Nevada base in 2014, apparently due to
sequestration. Carlisle added that he sees a
need for contractor support to supplement
the Air Force’s in-house ‘Red Air’ for the
next 15-20 years. This underscores a huge
movement toward increased aggressor
training, including a need for more potent,
higher-end platforms.‘FIFTH GEN’ CHALLENGES
For experienced pilots transitioning to
the Raptor, it’s very much in at the deep
end. Sqn Ldr ‘Duzza’ comments: ‘As an
experienced Typhoon pilot I was only given
12 sorties on the FTU [Fighter Training Unit]
down at Tyndall. When I got to Langley I
still only had 15 hours in the jet.
‘The airspace here is very di erent
to the UK. We do most of our training
organically and the Raptor has embedded
training modes that you can load on to
the mission data card so you can work in a
synthetic training environment with SAMs
and di erent scenarios. I’m in constant
upgrades; in July I completed my mission
commander upgrade and now I’m working
towards my instructor quali cation.’
Underscoring the huge bene t that his
presence here brings, ‘Duzza’ adds: ‘the
USAF has 10-plus years of operating this
fth-generation ghter. As the UK develops
its own fth-gen capability with the F-35,
my experience here in this combat-proven
aircraft is going to help us mature our
capabilities.’The very nature of working day-to-day
with a LO platform such as the F-22 is a
demanding business. For the likes of Col
Fesler, a deep understanding of what
makes the Raptor tick is very important. ‘LO
maintenance takes a lot of work’, he warns.
‘People just don’t appreciate the amount
of touch labour it takes to keep these
machines healthy and it’s meticulous work.’
Under the 1st Operations Group and
Maintenance Group comes an Aircraft
Maintenance Unit (AMU) for each
squadron. On top of that is a dedicated ‘LO
section’, which has a hand in almost every
element of Raptor technical work. One
report recently stated that the LO integrity
work for the F-22 accounted for some
60 per cent of the overall maintenance
workload for the jet.
‘People tend to focus on pilots, but it’s the
support team too. The maintainers have
done a tremendous amount to improve
the machine over time’, says Col Fesler.
‘They’ve gured a lot of things out. For
example, when the Raptor rst came on
board it was supposed to tell on itself. You’d
plug in the maintenance computer and it
was supposed to say: ‘I’m broken, there’s an
85 per cent chance it’s this, there’s a 15 per
cent chance it’s this’ and it would tell the
crew chief what to do and the maintainers
would go after it. What it actually did was
say: ‘I’m broken, but it’s one of these 1,000
things, oh, and 800 of them are behind LO-
intrusive panels’. So they’d have to ‘pick’ a
panel to get at the parts and then reapply
the skin. Plus, parts failed at rates di erent
to what was expected, so the jet got a poor
early reputation for being un-maintainable.
‘What our maintainers here at Langley
did was to go data mining, jet by jet. They
looked at what the jet said was wrong
and what the pilot thought was wrong,
and looked at how they xed it. What theyLt ‘Dodge’
keeps his steed
low for a max
performance
departure from
Langley.(^60) RAPTOR
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