Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Has the Raptor been "shot down" with a simulated IR missile shot?

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Anecdotally, I think yes.

I have heard a story of a single F-22 defeating 3 'simulated' aim-9x armed and JHMCS fitted aggressor F-16s. Two clean kills and a mutual. Details of engagement ranges etc. are fuzzy but I suspect that the whole thing was WVR. Makes more sense from a training/testing point of view.

Any links you could post? Would be appreciated.

shingen wrote:

Any links you could post? Would be appreciated.

I read the same story years back, I believe it was at a Red Flag. The Raptors were confronted with a large enough opposing force that required them,to,expend all their AMRAAMs and force them into a WVR fight.

shingen wrote:

Any links you could post? Would be appreciated.

I read the same story years back, I believe it was at a Red Flag. The Raptors were confronted with a large enough opposing force that required them,to,expend all their AMRAAMs and force them into a WVR fight.

Sorry, as I said, it's a story I remembered hearing (might even have been on here) so it's only anecdotal.

EDIT: Ah! thanks Popcorn, so it wasn't my memory playing tricks! Smile

The F-22 vs. 3 F-16s anecdote came from a report by Maj Lawrence Spinetta, USAF, from a Red Flag exercise in 2007.

wrightwing wrote:

The F-22 vs. 3 F-16s anecdote came from a report by Maj Lawrence Spinetta, USAF, from a Red Flag exercise in 2007.

Considering that it was a novice F-22 driver who achieved the feat vs. highly experienced Nellis IPs in the Vipers highlights the overwhelming advantages of the New technology.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread278146/pg1
Also, in the May 2007 edition of Combat Aircraft magazine there was a piece written by Maj. Lawrence Spinetta (USAF) about the F-22 in Red Flag. One of the mentioned details was, and I quote ...

"During the exercise, a F-22A was once encountered with three F-16 in WVR. After the former had killed two of the laters, the Raptor and the 3rd F-16 killed each other in a mutual kill."

The F-22 pilot was a Captain flying with the 94th FS, he had less than 100 hours of flight time on the Raptor yet "beat" three Red Flag instructor pilots flying F-16's with simulated HOBS missiles in WVR. Think about that, three aggressor/instructor pilots with hundreds of fight hours on the Viper lost to a relatively "new" and outnumbered F-22 pilot in ACM's. Who said the F-22 was not designed to "dog fight"?

By the way a mutual kill is when both aircraft have simultaneous (simulated) lock on one another. Given that you have to sustain a lock for some time in order to score a "kill" it is possible to have overlapping situations like this which results in a mutual "kill". At least that's how the article explained it...

So it was with heat-seekers, not guns? I had thought it was with guns, and that had made me wonder whether the F-16's radar was locking onto the F-22's exposed gun and thus wouldn't have gotten the kill if the F-22 hadn't opened its gun door...

In any case, thrust vectoring surely had to have helped in giving the F-22 the ability to point its nose in awkward directions relative to its actual airspeed vector to easily compensate for the fact the F-16s had HOBS missiles. Also thank you for sharing that it was a "n00b" Raptor driver laying waste to highly experienced Viper IPs. That really shows as a testament to machines rendering humanity obsolete. Cool

It also relativates the "I couldn't bring my weapons to bear" claim from that RAAF exchange officer, though this could be interpreted in a different way.

[quote="popcorn"]

wrightwing wrote:

"During the exercise, a F-22A was once encountered with three F-16 in WVR. After the former had killed two of the laters, the Raptor and the 3rd F-16 killed each other in a mutual kill."

All WVR, quite an achievement for anyone let alone a novice, it would be nice to know the timeline and circumstances. Was the mutual kill gun vs. gun, missile vs. missile or hard deck kill? interesing to know

I always thought the RAAF couldn't get my weapons on it was kinematic.

[quote="strykerxo"]

popcorn wrote:

wrightwing wrote:

"During the exercise, a F-22A was once encountered with three F-16 in WVR. After the former had killed two of the laters, the Raptor and the 3rd F-16 killed each other in a mutual kill."

All WVR, quite an achievement for anyone let alone a novice, it would be nice to know the timeline and circumstances. Was the mutual kill gun vs. gun, missile vs. missile or hard deck kill? interesing to know

I believe it was missile vs. missile.

Would be nice to get a blow-by-blow. The F-22 only carries two WVR weapons so one of the kills must have been with gun (unless it was a short range radar kill of course).

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

F-22 in dogfights