A SOLDIER'S PERSPECTIVE
THE WEB'S LEADING MILITARY BLOG SINCE 2004
These are Great In-flight Photos of the FA-22 as the first aircraft delivery was being made to Langley AFB in Va. Langley is to be first operational AFB for the FA-22. It is a very beautiful AFB, located in a picturesque location, as you can see in these photos, near Norfolk and Hampton, Va.
The Aircraft flying along with the FA-22 in the last of these photos is the F-15, which will be replaced by the FA-22 which is several times better. In Actual In-flight (simulated) Combat Operations against the F-15, two FA-22s were able to operate without detection while they went head to head against (8) F-15s. The FA-22s scored Missile Hits (Kills) against all the F-15 Aircraft and the FA-22s were never detected by either the F-15s or Ground Based Radar.
They’re a titanium and carbon fiber dagger. They’re so advanced that if their on-board locator is switched off even our own satellites can lose track of them. They’re the first military aircraft ever built that is equipped with a ‘black-out button’. What that means is this: The best conditioned fighter pilots are capable of maintaining consciousness up to in the vicinity of 15+ G. The Raptor is capable of making 22+ G turns. If someday an adversary builds a missile that is capable of catching up to one of these airplanes and a Raptor pilot sees that a strike is imminent, he hits the ‘b.o.b.’ and the airplane makes a virtual U-turn, leaving the missile to pass right on by.
They know that in the process he will temporarily lose consciousness, so the Raptor then automatically comes back to straight and level flight until he wakes back up.







dusgalan
…and when he wakes up—well, uh, what about his pants? he he. awsome
steven mcgill
That is a cool piece of tax payers machinery. Too bad Obama will probably retire them and pull them out of production.
JD
You know somebody had to point this out: It’s not the FA-22. It was the F-22, then it was the F/A-22, and it’s been back to the F-22 since 2005. The official AF.mil factsheet even notes the short-term name change.
Bob the American
IIRC, there won’t be any further production of them. The DoD stopped ordering them, and Congress removed funding for any more last year, with a final total, once production ends, of 187.
The cut was in favor of the F-35, which will begin deployment in 2014. (Planned production is 1,753)
Too bad. Such a beautiful machine.