Which brings me to the tri-service F-35, formerly known as the Joint Strike Fighter and now officially designated the Lightning II (after a famous World War Two fighter built by Lockheed). interests in Asia and Europe, military planners need to make sure they don’t over-use their silver-bullet Raptors. But with a rising China and resurgent Russia threatening U.S. Syria’s sophisticated air defenses explain why F-22 was included in the strike package even though the Air Force only has 187 operational Raptors thanks to premature termination of production in 2012. That could matter a lot over Syria, which has an integrated air defense network supplied by Russia. It can only carry 2,000 pounds of bombs internally (two GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions or eight Small Diameter Bombs), and putting a bigger bomb-load on its wings would reduce its ability to elude enemy radar. At its heart, though, F-22 is an air superiority fighter.
So the plane could have been used in any number of roles over Syria, from striking ground targets to escorting the aircraft of other countries to electronically suppressing air defenses. Its Northrop Grumman radar changes frequency a thousand times per second to elude detection and can be focused to defeat hostile emitters non-kinetically, while its BAE Systems warning receivers afford continuous, 360-degree situational awareness. The airframe assembled by prime contractor Lockheed Martin and Boeing is extremely hard to track using radar or infrared sensors, and its two Pratt & Whitney F119 engines deliver unsurpassed maneuverability (not to mention a top speed of 1,500 miles per hour). Raptor originally was conceived by the Air Force as an agile air-to-air fighter with secondary capabilities in ground attack, electronic warfare and signals intelligence.
Details are sketchy on precisely what role the F-22 played. The Air Force’s top-of-the-line F-22 Raptor fighter made its combat debut this week in the skies over Syria, participating in multinational air strikes against terrorist targets.
0 kommentar(er)
