Achieving nine aerial victories on a single mission qualifies for bragging rights in any fighter pilot circle even if those victories occur in simulated Red/Blue engagements. An F-22 pilot from the 27th Fighter Squadron from Langley AFB, Virginia, accomplished that very feat in June at Northern Edge exercises in Alaska. Six AMRAAMs, two Sidewinders, and one burst of rounds from a Gatling gun account for the total. Nine may not be the ultimate maximum: he had ammunition left in the gun. For aviation history buffs, nine victories equal the real-world US record of Cmdr. David McCampbell, an F6F Hellcat pilot and the Navy's leading ace in World War II.
"The nine-kill mission may get a lot of exposure," says Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron. "Was it cool? Yes. But working with F-15s and F-18s to produce a kill ratio of eighty-three to one that day was way cooler. Not the fact that one F-22 happened to produce nine of those eighty-three hits."
Tolliver describes the aerial scene: "During that mission, our Blue forces faced the heaviest air threat we've seen in recent history. The total mission or vulnerability time was two and one-half hours. Those flying as Red Air developed their own tactics. In a single vulnerability period, they would use mass forces to try to overrun our Blue forces. At other times, they sent successive waves of smaller individual packages in a variety of tactics. To generate the numbers, Red Air returned to a simulated base to regenerate. Actually, they went to a tanker to get fuel and then came back to create additional threats."
"The pilot with nine simulated kills flew as my wingman that day," explains Capt. Harry Schantz, the safety officer for the 27th FS. "His nine kills were a function of the situation. We were making sure everyone could get gas, and we were keeping our area safe. We tried to shoot every missile we had. Red Air threats were almost overwhelming, but we handled every one of them. We averaged five to six kills per F-22 pilot on busy missions like that during the exercise."
On The Northern Edge
Large-scale missions are the raison d'tre for Northern Edge. The annual exercise is designed to prepare joint forces to respond to crises in the Asia-Pacific region. Participants sharpen skills; practice operations, techniques, and procedures; improve command, control, and communication relationships; and develop interoperable plans and programs. This year's event brought together more than 5,000 active duty, Guard, and reservists from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. More than 120 aircraft and helicopters participated, including F-15C/Es, F/A-18C/Es, EA-6Bs, F-16s, B-2 bombers, KC-135 tankers, and E-2 and E-3 AWACS aircraft. Two Aegis cruisers and several surface vessels were involved as well when the missions occurred over the Gulf of Alaska.
Northern Edge is alternated year to year between US Pacific Command and US Northern Command, with PACOM in charge in even years. Exercises in even years last two weeks and focus on air-centric operational plans, maritime interdiction, transformation initiatives, and personnel recovery. Odd year exercises last one week and focus on homeland defense.
F-22 Debut
The 1st Fighter Wing from Langley deployed twelve Raptors, eighteen pilots, and 174 maintainers of its 27th FS to Elmendorf in late May, the longest deployment to date for the F-22. The aircraft stayed in Alaska for six weeks.
"A combination of circumstances brought us here," says Tolliver. "First and foremost, we wanted to involve the Raptor in a large-scale exercise. When our runway at Langley was closing for a two-month repair during the same time period, we saw the timing as perfect to take our aircraft on an extended deployment.
"Furthermore, we also thought the timing was perfect to introduce the Raptor to Elmendorf as they will eventually be based here," continues Tolliver. "The wing can see how the aircraft deploys, how it moves on the ramp, how it operates in this airspace, and what levels of support it needs. Not only did the 3rd Wing at Elmendorf learn from the Raptor visit, but the local community also learned a lot about the aircraft through public and media days hosted by the base."
"Our entire wing wants to learn as much as we can about this airplane," adds Brig. Gen. Hawk Carlisle, commander of the 3rd Fighter Wing at Elmendorf. Raptors are scheduled to arrive at Elmendorf in about one year starting with the first airplane, tail number 4087, which rolled off the assembly line in fall 2006. "The Air Force chief of staff would like us to accept the first airplanes here in January 2008, but we would like to get them sooner to beat the winter weather," Carlisle adds.
The Raptor visit directly addresses issues surrounding the eventual basing of F-22s at Elmendorf. "Some have questioned whether Elmendorf is ready for the F-22 in terms of infrastructure and support," notes Tolliver. "We've been here for five weeks flying fourteen missions every day, launching eight in the morning and turning six in the afternoon. The Raptors are doing great. They will perform just fine when they arrive next year."
"We are doing a lot with the F-22 on the expansive ranges in Alaska," says Carlisle, who was one of the core USAF pilots who flew the prototypes during the competition between the YF-22 and the YF-23. "Our overland, supersonic, and instrumented air-to-air and air-to-ground ranges are phenomenal. They are conducive to the high-speed tactics flown by the Raptor. Elmendorf is the right place to bring the Raptor, and we are very excited to have it here."
Firsts And Results
Northern Edge is the first major exercise for the F-22. It is also the first Raptor deployment outside the continental United States. More importantly, though, deploying 3,200 miles nonstop and operating at a new base put new aircraft to a real test. Did the F-22 succeed?
"Yes, we succeeded," answers Tolliver. "The day after the first jets landed, we flew thirteen sorties, and that was with ten aircraft since the remaining two arrived the next day. This fact in itself is an awesome accomplishment and proves the Raptor can deploy and be an immediate contributor to joint or coalition forces."
Tolliver's opinions are backed by additional statistics. On one particular mission, though comprising just thirty-three percent of the total Blue air-to-air forces, F-22s managed to eliminate sixty-six percent of the threats. The aerial victory ratio for the Raptor in the first week of the exercise alone was 144-to-zero losses. (For those paying close attention, the one loss in the eighty-three-to-one mission was an F-15.) For the entire two-week exercise, the Raptor comprised just thirty percent of the Blue Air, yet managed to defeat almost half of the overall threats.
The Raptor did more than defeat aerial threats. The Langley-based F-22s dropped twenty-six Joint Direct Attack Munitions while working with ground-based forward air controllers. All twenty-six bombs were direct hits. Many of the pilots, who mostly flew air-to-air combat missions in F-15Cs, were dropping bombs for the first time in this exercise. Northern Edge was the first time operational F-22 pilots dropped munitions while working with forward air controllers in a close air support role.
Of the 105 scheduled Raptor sorties in the exercise, 102 actually launched. This ninety-seven percent sortie generation rate for the twelve deployed F-22s certainly contributed to the overall results: aircraft availability being a prerequisite for combat effectiveness. "The ability to work away from the support and supply structure of our home station and still produce such high sortie generation figures is arguably the largest success of the entire Alaska deployment," says Tolliver.
More Subtle Firsts
The F-22 can claim another first in this Northern Edge: the first time the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine units combined F-22s and F/A-18s to fly integrated defensive counter air tactics. "The integration of this fifth-generation aircraft with our legacy forces creates a much more lethal and survivable force than we have ever seen before," explains Tolliver. "The F-22's sensors and the integrated avionics produced so much battlespace awareness that we were able to share critical information with other platforms." This sharing increased the lethality and survivability of less-capable fighters. "That is truly transformational. We can complement, direct, and assist other platforms from the cockpit of our single-seat fighters. Even though we have never functioned as joint forces before, we found it works great."
Capt. Schantz adds some specifics. "F-22 pilots have the ability to use sensors to a greater degree than any other fighter pilots because of the Raptor's sensor fusion capability," he explains. "The F-22 scope is fully integrated to show the entire battlespace. In the heat of the fight, we can provide necessary information to other pilots at that right moment because we are fighter pilots talking to other fighter pilots."
Schantz explains that, even though an AWACS has thirty radar controllers aboard with a lot of combined situational awareness, information on their scopes is displayed as radar blips. "Our F-22 blips show what type of aircraft we're seeing," he says. "The information is deciphered for us so that we can sort friend from foe much more easily."
The Raptor starts with more situational awareness than an F-16, F-15, or F/A-18. "The Raptor is a light year ahead of those fighters," explains Brig. Gen. Burton Field, commander of the 1st FW at Langley. "Assessing the situation and melding the radar picture of a four-ship so everyone has the same situational awareness can be extremely demanding in fourth-generation fighters."
The Raptor begins with immediate situational awareness that can be provided to other assets in the fight. "We can make each one of those players better, and we can make the entire force better. Sharing that situational awareness at the right time and in the right manner requires a different skill set than the one needed to operate a legacy fighter effectively. Those new skills are more associated with the skills of a mission commander."
Mission commander or battle manager may not be the right term. "I don't think we have an accepted term for the function of a Raptor pilot in a large-scale force," Field continues. "We aren't necessarily in charge of the fight, but we can play a more prominent role in the fight than any other aircraft. I don't think we have the vocabulary or the tactical mindset that fits the capabilities offered by the F-22. We may not have the operational mindset either."
Determining the role of the Raptor is a work in progress. "We attempt to integrate our efforts, but we sometimes end up only synchronizing them," explains Field. "The goal is to thoroughly integrate the F-22 into the entire fight in a way that makes us all far more capable."
Much like an avionics suite in fourth-generation fighters, their various missions — from offensive counter air to suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses — are often more federated as opposed to integrated. "An integrated F-22 adds value to many different mission sets simultaneously and makes the sum of the parts greater than the whole," continues Field. "That role is way different from what we now do. I expect our younger pilots will adapt to the new roles made possible by the F-22, and then improve upon them."
Eric Hehs is the editor of Code One.
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