from the Air National Guard 174th Fighter Wing will be flying training missions over the desert outside Nellis Air Force Base, trying desperately to compete during simulated combat over the high Nevada desert. Their foes are F-22 Raptors, stealth airplanes that can identify and destroy foes before their targets even know they are there.
The stakes are high--careers can be made and pilots' lives ended as dozens of warplanes share airspace in faux combat. To add to the pressure, this mission will be the Syracuse, N.Y.-based air wing's last deployment in F-16 fighters. In 2010 the wing will be assigned to fly armed drones by joystick, ending more than 60 years of manned aircraft operations.
"I'm honored to have the privilege of leading this detachment on its last deployment in the F-16," says Lt. Col. D. Scott Brenton, deputy operations group commander with the 174th Fighter Wing. "I can think of no better place to take a fighter wing on its last deployment than to Nellis." The name of the game is training, not victory, in this last mission--after all, they will be facing the most sophisticated airplane in the world.
Brenton (call sign "Gripper") has flown the F-16 for 20 years and has close to 4000 hours, including 750 hours of combat. He is also a former Weapons School instructor pilot at Nellis, the same program in which the 174th today is testing its mettle against the Raptor. He doesn't like to lose, but against the F-22 he has little choice. "Fighter pilots are competitive by nature. When the F-22 first became operational, most F-16 and F-15 pilots relished the challenge of going up against it," he says. "I know I did. That is, until I actually did it and discovered how humbling an experience it really was."
The F-22's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and the Air Force cite a 30:1 kill ratio between Raptors and their prey. That doesn't equate to one F-22 taking on dozens of enemies; the figure means that for every Raptor shot down, 30 opposing airplanes are expected to be killed. "The F-22 was not built to fight a fair fight," Brenton says.
The Art of Losing
No U.S. airplane--or any other in the world--can match the F-22 in a dogfight during combat training. To get experience in realistic battle conditions, Raptor pilots--always the Blue Team-- are training with U.S. pilots who serve as adversaries, or "Red Teams." Last week, Raptor pilots finished training against Navy F-15s and F/A-18 Super Hornets in Japan. From February through April, Nellis hosts F-22s at the 2009 Red Flag wargames, a six-week, multinational training exercise held at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and at Nellis.
F-22s dominate at Red Flag as well. Red Teams flying F-16s and F-15s take them on. Those who train to be the adversaries at Red Flag belong to the 64th and 65th Aggressor squadrons. These seasoned Red Team veterans find it frustrating to fight what they can't see. "Aggressor pilots are not typical Air Force line units. They tend to have much more experience," says Mike Estrada, a spokesman at the air base. "And I can tell you that our Aggressor pilots are getting very tired of always getting shot down by the F-22."
The reputation of the Raptor is evident in the pride that some take in downing one in simulated combat. A photo surfaced on an aviation website that recently caused a stir when the unnamed pilot of a surveillance aircraft said the silhouette of a warplane he painted on his fuselage was an F-22 that he helped locate and shoot down during an exercise. "Some Navy pilots like to brag if they even lock on to a Raptor," says one Air Force officer.
Learning Potential of a One-Sided Fight
In late March, Brenton's pilots faced F-22s at the Weapons Instructor Course (WIC), an intensive six-month training session that qualifies graduates to train other F-22 pilots from their respective units. Unlike Red Flag, WIC is a classroom, with lessons taught in the air as well as behind desks. The students' adversaries come from Air Force active-duty squadrons, National Guard and Reserve units, Navy and Marine tactical aviation units and from the indigenous Adversary Tactics Squadrons stationed at Nellis.
Red Team pilots trying to shoot down Raptors study intelligence reports about foreign countries' air forces and operate their own aircraft, missiles and radar to emulate the emerging threats and give their opponents a tough time. However, the disparity between the Raptor, which can evade enemy radar and shoot from farther away, means that Red Teams usually get the call over their radio that they have been killed before they even know the fight started.
"My F-16 is still a formidable weapons system in its own right. But it is not even in the same league as an F-22," Brenton says. "Technology keeps the F-22 a virtually undetectable and untouchable regime. It is fair to say that unless an F-22 driver makes a mistake, or has a critical system failure, I will always lose a fight against him. That is a good thing. As a nation, we want it this way. We also want him to be able to handle two, six or eight of us completely on his own."
