Eurofighters at Langley AFB for joint training with the F-22s

reply to post by Zaphod58


An interesting tidbit... apparently, the six Raptors in UAE have been replaced with six from Elmendorf. The six from Alaska are all Block 3.1 modified whereas the original six were not. It makes for a wee escalation with that A/G capability added to the equation.....

reply to post by nwtrucker


Ah, but Increment 3 has an air to ground capability. With Increment 3, they could drop JDAMs supersonically. With 3.1, they can replace the 2 JDAMs with 4 SDBs, and release two at a time. So is it really an increase in threat?

reply to post by Zaphod58


Hmm, good question. You tell me.LOL. It seems to give, at the least, more options.

I find it interesting that it hasn't been particularly "talked about" in the media. I suppose that's due to the direct flight to the UAE rather than a layover for a few days in Spain.

Besides, a flight from Anchorage to the UAE is about as long as it gets. The USAF thought enough to send em.

There's a great picture of the six outbound Raptors (from the UAE) and a tanker on the Aviationist site.

reply to post by nwtrucker


theaviationist.com...

That one? That was the return to Holloman of the deployment in April. They announced that deployment, but not what they were doing there. The new deployment wasn't talked about anywhere that I've seen but that tiny little blurb on The Aviationist. They went through Lajes, instead of Moron, so there was less publicity.

reply to post by Zaphod58


It looks like the Raptor is going to get the Scorpion HMCS per the Aviationist. Now the Raptor will be even nastier.

reply to post by nwtrucker


Yeah, I have a thread for that one too. Scorpion helmet for the F-22, new sensors and displays for the F-15.