Isle-based F-22 stealth fighters jet to Florida for training

Some Hawaii Air National Guard F-22 Raptor fighters were flown 4,460 miles late last week to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida for annual practice shooting down drone aircraft with missiles.

Tyndall is one of the few places where F-22 pilots can conduct such sea-based training, said Hawaii National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony.

“We certainly don’t” have many alternatives for the live-fire practice, Anthony said. “Not when it comes to air-to-air stuff. You can’t fire air-to-air stuff here in Hawaii.”

Anthony said he couldn’t reveal how many of the stealth fighters deployed Friday for several weeks of Florida training because “we don’t want to advertise how many (F-22s) we still have here at home.”

Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam is home to 20 of the “fifth-generation,” or latest-technology, stealth aircraft, and although they have a Hawaii homeland defense role, the Raptors and new F-35 Lightning IIs would be counted on heavily in the opening stages of any air campaign during a future conflict in the Pacific. Non-stealth fighters would be vulnerable to the long reach of increasingly sophisticated surface-to-air missiles.

Although Anthony didn’t specify the training range for the exercise, the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron at Tyndall flies the BQM-167 subscale target and old F-16 Fighting Falcons that are re-designated as QF-16 drones for fighter pilots to shoot down over the Gulf of Mexico.

Airman Magazine, an official publication of the Air Force, said in a 2015 story that the 82nd’s main customers were pilots participating in Combat Archer, an exercise held about 40 times a year for flying squadrons around the country.

“During the Vietnam War, pilots had little to no experience firing missiles, and very little testing was done on how the aircraft and missile perform when brought together for action,” the article noted.

Combat Archer was organized to help pilots gain confidence in firing missiles, according to the Air Force story.

Anthony said the Hawaii F-22s will be firing AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs, and short-range AIM-9 Sidewinders.

“When they are doing aerial dogfights here (in Hawaii), it’s all done with computers. It’s simulated (missile) launches,” Anthony said. “But in this particular case you’ve got drones that are flying, and (the F-22s are) launching real, live missiles that are blowing up unpiloted drones.”

Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and a range in Utah have been used by the F-22s for practice dropping live bombs, Anthony said.

A 2016 Pentagon report on sustaining military training ranges in the face of environmental and budgetary challenges said defense guidance requires a refocusing of operations to counter a more technologically advanced peer adversary.

“These potential adversaries possess complex air defenses and highly sophisticated electronic countermeasures, including global positioning system and radar jamming capabilities,” the report said. “The current Air Force range enterprise does not adequately replicate this environment.”

To provide the realistic training required for combat-ready air crews, the Air Force is seeking to significantly upgrade range infrastructure at select ranges “to accurately reflect the complex, dense combat environment crews will likely encounter during operations,” according to the report.