F-22 Pilot Scores NINE "Kills" On a Single Mission

It should come as no surprise to any of you that F-22 is the most capable air to air fighter out there, but nine kills? Wait a minute it's internal load includes six "Slammers" and two Sidewinder's, that's eight, but least you not forget the F-22 has a gun (480 rounds). During Operation Northern Edge an F-22 pilot shot down nine enemy planes during simulated combat in a highly realists training exercise, the latest issue of Code One Magazine reports. But the interesting thing is, the gun had more rounds in it. A double ace in one mission, it has never been done before by a US pilot...

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."

Operation Northern Edge

By the way, I recommend everyone read that article, it revealed some astonishing facts and capabilities, one of which I though was classified. Even though it had been hinted at before...

[edit on 20-12-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
"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."

As an addendum to your post it should be pointed out regarding the kill ratio of 83 to 1 that the "1" was an F-15 on the "Blue Team" not an F-22.
In fact the F-22's only made up 1/3rd of the Blue Team but neutralized 66% of the threats.

Also, the aerial victory ratio for the Raptor in the first week of the exercise alone was 144-to-zero losses.

Not bad...





[edit on 12-20-2006 by intelgurl]

Fantastic post WestPoint23
Found it to be a great read

Awesome! I love the F-22!

Im glad to see they were able to test how it would operate in the colder climates of Alaska. They were also able to rely vital information to their F-15, F-16, and F-18 counterparts.

This fighter is definately Top Gun among other fighters in the world today.

Hopefully this is one in the eye for those that would proclaim WVR combat, and even the humble gun - extinct.


I wonder what is gonna happen when they pit F-35s against F-22s

Its interesting after reading the post to post to then consider how much harder or dangerous it would of been for the hellcat pilot that held the record till now. Amazing read on the 22 glad to see that they're opening up a bit more with stories like this.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
I wonder what is gonna happen when they pit F-35s against F-22s

lets see it go up against a typhoon first

Hmmm 9 kills? I wonder how propable that is in a real war.

15 years ago in the 1st gulf war the sidewinder hit 25% of the times it was launched the sparrow hit 9% of the time. I assume the first amraam has a hit probabillity around 20% just a guess still. I think at best the missles are 100% more accurate than then. That brings something like a 50% hit change for sidewinders and 40-50% for the amraam. So we can assume 50% of the missles on the F22 hit. That makes 4.5 kills. that means 4.5 kills would have been made with the cannon. 480/4.5 is 107 rounds for a kill. Is that high or low for a modern fighter?

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Hmmm 9 kills? I wonder how propable that is in a real war.

15 years ago in the 1st gulf war the sidewinder hit 25% of the times it was launched the sparrow hit 9% of the time. I assume the first amraam has a hit probabillity around 20% just a guess ... etc...

I was thinking the exact same thing. Nothing like "theoretical" and "hypothetical".

Regards

Originally posted by kilcoo316
Hopefully this is one in the eye for those that would proclaim WVR combat, and even the humble gun - extinct.

I don't think anyone who knew what they war talking about thought it was extinct. Rather that it will not be as prevalent or important as it has been in th apst and that it should be avoided if possible. In this instance, as the pilot said, it was more a result of an unusual situation and opportunity, and not one of doctrine.

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Hmmm 9 kills? I wonder how propable that is in a real war.

For a single Raptor in one mission, not very probable. As the F-22 pilots said they averaged between five and six kills per mission, which is representative of what would happen in a real world scenario.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
For a single Raptor in one mission, not very probable. As the F-22 pilots said they averaged between five and six kills per mission, which is representative of what would happen in a real world scenario.

If you look at what i posted that would still be much.

Quite frankly what you posted is not representative of the current technology. The AMRAAM has been used in combat and so far has either had one miss or none at all (and these were not the AIM-120C or D), depending on what you read. The seekers, radars, data links, and overall avionics have vastly improved even the AIM-9X is essentially a new missile. Nothing is 100%, sure, but probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% and above.

I have read in several articles/books, modern ones too mind you none older than 2003, which expressed how easy it was to out maneuver a radar guided long range AA missile.

I'm not entirely convinced about the numbers. It could be hype for congressional funding. Or the simulator was flawed.

I'm not denying the f22 as the apogee of fighter technology and capability, I'm just questioning results that are so many standard deviations away from what the expected mean is.

Fantastic article btw. It really shed light onto some of the F22's lesser known capabilities.

I really doubt that the sidewinder now has a hit probabillity of 80%. I know 15 years is a long time to improve missles but this is basically almost a 400% increase in performance. I find that myself not believable.

What about the Eurofighter.
Didn't that dogfight 4 F15's at the same time and take them all down???
The Eurofighter is supposed to be more agile in a dogfight compared to the F22.

It was 2 f-15s, and they were strike eagles.

9 kills in one mission, that's Incredable!

I wonder how advanced tactics fugure into this achievement? I read in one of my books, that they are working on new tactics for the F-22 based on using the onboard data link to share information between aircraft.

Tim

Originally posted by SKUNK
What about the Eurofighter.
Didn't that dogfight 4 F15's at the same time and take them all down???
The Eurofighter is supposed to be more agile in a dogfight compared to the F22.

The Eurofighter under a combat load IMO would not be able to out-manuever an F-22A under combat load and with thrust vectoring. The margain is small mind you, but I do believe the F-22A to be more manueverable than the EF-2000.

Great find Westpoint, nice to see the Raptor can pull it's own weight around and then some.

Shattered OUT...

Nine Kills represents as mistake with a hugely valuable asset.

Not least because the last paragraphs "Often we don't integrate so much as synchronize" statement indicates that the F-22 drivers are working a much tighter OODA loop, probably for onset rates, possibly for fuel, probably with a lot less local support. Great Aces _LEARN_ when to take easy kills and when not to overcommit. If you wanna play Predator with a frickin' wrist knife, you had damn well better do it in someone else' Air Force with someone else' taxpayer dollars.

Indeed, if you expect to 'integrate' OCA+DEAD you also have to expect to see F-22s on the bleeding edge of the tactical environment where BOTH threatair and unreduced S2A can be found in composite and that in turn means that it's not an 8 missile loadout but a 4 missile one and half of that is a 'commitment gambit' to finishing what you start right overtop somebody's fire control radar.

In this, the only important factors to consider are:

1. Why the F-22s felt 'pressed' to take on all comers while defending a ARP. If the odds were long they should have faded and come back the next day and the gas saved used to _exclusively_ leverage the Raptors (from farther out) until things were easier.

2. How far the shooter was from the eyeball and indeed how many shots the section lead still had onboard when junior's fangs got buried in someone's butt.

3. Why you are practicing 'CAS' with FACs when you are an FDOW asset that is intended to score inner-ring kills on C2 and the like.

I do wonder if '3200nm, nonstop' is a reflection of a drag or if the jet actually made the trip (with 610s?) all on it's ownsome. If so, the bleeping retards in the Air Farce truly need to be drug out behind the woodshack and beaten at least half to death for their inane "150nm in and out" excuse to buy the JSF too. 3200nm is effectively across the Atlantic and into NATO, unaccompanied, something the F-15 was strained to no-divert achieve with CFT and a triplet of 610s and one over-CONUS topoff.

MFFC or Mixed Fighter Force Concept is nothing new in and of itself. While the ability to act as a bentpipe nodeal distributor is /something/ it is also a waste in a platform that shouldn't be henning for a bunch of has been jets which cannot go where it can to employ their weapons systems with the same advantages for onset rate and fade relative to missed shots and deep-indian territory reach in. If nothing else, when you get /used to/ the assumption of 'virtual HARM' etc. etc. on someone else' platform. Or sending other, lesser, jets after 'secondary threats' you degrade your own (realistic) force isolate understanding while becoming dependent on a synthesis effect which may simply NOT be present, especially in a GSTF doorkicker environment.

The F-22 should stop wars from being fought by rapidly deploying a 'deescalation' capability that can _safely_ detooth the enemy from commiting to acts like Desert Storm.

In doing this, it should equally /allow for/ more prosaic systems to do the NTISR/COP missions by which existing campaigns and insurgencies are gradually attrited down to nothing based on endurance over max-performance.

Northern Edge highlights none of this as it attempts to continue the perverted ideals of package-synergies in a blatantly overstated threat environment.


KPl.

To say nothing of your other points, as I don't need the aggravation... Indeed, deploying twelve birds and 174 support personnel 3,200 miles cross county to a new base and environment and fly ten sorties the next day while maintaining a 97 percent sortie generation rating for six weeks says nothing of "rapidly deploying a 'deescalation' capability". While flying fourteen missions everyday mind you...

Indeed, being a third of your strike force while destroying more than half of the enemy; even elevating and increasing the capability of older systems by just staying in the same airspace says nothing of 'allowing prosaic systems to do their missions more effectively', etc... Ah, why even bother.