Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Hey guys, I'm brand new to posting on this forum. I'm a journalist for Flight International magazine and I run a blog called The DEW Line.

I was at Andrews AFB today for EW event, and came across an EA-18G with an F-22 kill decal slapped on the fuselage.

I posted the pictures and my conversation with the EA-18G pilot on my blog here: [Link pending approval]#comments

I vaguely recall a case where I think a Super Hornet shot down an F-22, but I can't remember any stories or rumors about an EA-18G kill.

Do you guys have any ideas?

F-16.net Sponsor

Forum Veteran Joined: Jul 01, 2007 - 07:22 PM Posts: 620

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! GO NAVY!!!!!! Beer

SnakeHandler wrote:

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

Especially when the nut may be restricted by ROE's on both tsctics and systems.

Golden BB.

News to me...........

Well, how would the Growlers Electronic Warefare Systems help it against the Stealthy F-22???

From poster's blog:

"The base hosted a sort of petting zoo for high-tech jamming systems. I noticed a Boeing EA-18G parked on the side..."

LoL, so what was 'front and center'??

"...the aircraft pictured above is EA-1, the first of two Lot 27 F/A-18Fs converted into flying prototypes for the EA-18G program."

Hmmm, curious if perhaps the 'kill' was one of the reported lucky training scores made in this particular bird's previous life, prior to being converted to a Growler?? Either that or the Raptor had downed all of the noted Growler's escorts and was simply out of ammo... the Growler being the last one standing with 2 rounds to spend?

Regardless, one has to respect Growlers, their potential counter-parts and future EA/SOJ assets to the fleets.

Commando Solo and Compass Call got the spotlight, this being Andrews. Great event actually. Learned a lot about what's going on with the USAF's standoff jamming interests.

The pilot did tell me that the aircraft was the EA-1 -- not the F/A-18F -- at the time of the F-22 kill. Not sure if it was carrying the pods and receivers on the wing.

Wonder if anyone has a pic of a Raptor completely covered in Hornet decals?

We're talking about a decal on the side of a jet that could be commerating a 1:1000 event that happened under completely unknown circumstances. Great. Remember, a famous Raptor demo pilot / squadron commander said that Nothing is invincible, and if he screwed up enough, he could be shot down by a Mig-21...

Run down to Oceana, and go ask the Super Hornet drivers, who fly with and against Raptors every day off the coast of Virginia, what they think. I have, and I know who my money is on.

Mike

MKopack wrote:

Wonder if anyone has a pic of a Raptor completely covered in Hornet decals?

Or the F-22 that's covered with F-15, F-16, F-14, "regular Hornet", "Super Hornet", and oh yeah, the "generic" aircraft silhouettes representing...ooops!

F-22s have been "killed" before in exercises. What needs to be understood is:

1) What were the circumstances resulting in the "kill"? The setup? The training objective?

Of course the Growler (heh) driver won't say.

2) It doesn't happen often. It's usually a fluke and when word that a kill happened, people (especially the media) likes to make a big deal about it, even if they're ignorant of the details (i.e. the infamous 2 frames of the Raptor with the "Super" Hornet's BATR on it).

Wonder why? Maybe because the aircraft is so good...?

Aw come on, a kill is a kill..........

I certainly don't think you can draw any conclusions about the air-to-air prowess of the F-22 based on this information. But you've got to give the Growler some credit. They're obviously very proud of the kill themselves, or they wouldn't have pasted the memorial on their aircraft.

thedewline wrote:

Hey guys, I'm brand new to posting on this forum. I'm a journalist for Flight International magazine and I run a blog called The DEW Line.

I was at Andrews AFB today for EW event, and came across an EA-18G with an F-22 kill decal slapped on the fuselage.

I posted the pictures and my conversation with the EA-18G pilot on my blog here: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-d ... l#comments

I vaguely recall a case where I think a Super Hornet shot down an F-22, but I can't remember any stories or rumors about an EA-18G kill.

Do you guys have any ideas?

Welcome to the forum!

Great shot and thumbs-up for some good, inquisitive journalism.
With regards to the SH, you might be refering to the hornet snap shot story:

http://www.f-16.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=74789&sid=5916f3ad6685d9846b16cd298323ec96#74789

B. Bolsøy
Oslo

thedewline wrote:

I certainly don't think you can draw any conclusions about the air-to-air prowess of the F-22 based on this information. But you've got to give the Growler some credit. They're obviously very proud of the kill themselves, or they wouldn't have pasted the memorial on their aircraft.

The question isn’t about the prowess of the F-22 per se, its ‘does the Growler posses a capability that erodes -- if even a little bit -- the F-22’s immense advantage’? My take is that the Growler crew either worked very hard to get a kill or was it a chance kill. Either way it seems that they weren’t killing F-22s with any regularity hence they probably wouldn’t be advertising this.

BDF

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

First EA-18G prototype beats F-22 in air combat?