F-22 loss at Red Flag

On the Aviation Week site, under "Aerospace Daily & Defense Report," there is a story titled "One F-22 loss at Red Flag attributed to bad tactics." Can anyone access this story and give us the gist of it? I let my AvWeek account lapse years ago and can't access the story.

I know that the F-22 occassionaly gets waxed. The only instance that I know of, or remember (though not very well), it happened to be a Viper that got one. I'm very curious to know what happened this time.

Pilot probably got arrogant... Just like when the Americans got the F-15's... NATO starfighters still kept on beating them practice after practice. The quality of the weapon is not the factor that will make you victorious, it's the quality of the user.

Driver wrote:Pilot probably got arrogant... Just like when the Americans got the F-15's... NATO starfighters still kept on beating them practice after practice. The quality of the weapon is not the factor that will make you victorious, it's the quality of the user.

Well, if they are really engaging in high-fidelity modeling, and the Aggressor F-16s and F-15s are simulating the latest threats (super SUs from India and China as opposed to Mig-21s from Bangladesh or something), then at least some of the Vipers and Eagles were probably fighting with Aim-9x and HMDs. In which case hey, guess what, an Aim-9x-less and HMD-less Raptor is toast WVR. So my educated guess is that an arrogant Raptor pilot went in close, perhaps thinking he would sneak a guns kill or something, and got pounced by someone's wingman. As the USAF has pointed out, Aggressor pilots are some of the best in the business. I'm actually happy for the Aggies--all that hard work had to have at least some reward! What I'm wondering now is whether it was a Viper or an Eagle that got the kill. (Or maybe it was a SAM...)

ONE F-22 LOSS AT RED FLAG ATTRIBUTED TO BAD TACTICS: The U.S. Air Force says that its F-22 fighter's debut in a Red Flag aerial combat training exercise with coalition forces underscored the known attributes of the stealthy jet, though the demonstration did not include trials of its most exotic electronic attack capabilities. Employment of electronic attack tactics, which are inherently offered by the F-22's Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, was not included in the exercise that took place this month. The friendly "blue" force lost one F-22 during the exercise, Col. Tom Bergeson, who was the air expeditionary wing commander for the Red Flag, says. He attributes the loss to a confusing "mulligan," whereby an enemy "red" fighter regenerated or re-entered the fight unbeknownst to the blue forces. "We made some tactical mistakes and one slipped through," Bergeson said. Bergeson also praised software developers for a quick turnaround after the four lead F-22s of a 12-ship deployment to Kadena Air Base, Japan, recently encountered navigation computer problems upon crossing the International Date Line. "It wasn't anything catastrophic," Bergeson said, though the computers would not have been able to provide accurate navigation data to divert locations without the fix. But the decision was made to send the aircraft back to Hawaii as a "better-safe-than-sorry approach." (Aerospace Daily & Defense Report)

Wow.....that's a whole LOT of pure speculation laced with some very broad assumptions.

I don't know a ton about 22 ops, but I do know this for a fact. "They" place the 22s in very bad tactical situations to begin with. I'd imagine....like with all training....you really want to practice the worst case scenario a lot. I don't spend a lot of my time practicing sniffles and stubbed toes....I practice up to my a$$ in alligators with people not breathing, even though those scenarios are few and far between. I sincerely doubt anybody got "arrogant" and would more likely believe that it was a shi'ite hot viper driver making the very best from a poor starting situation by the 22, or just a tactical slip....which does happen you know. The point of RF is not to be perfect, but learn how to be better.

edit: Oh hey, look at that.....an honest tactical error.

Oh dear. We lost one. Best to cancel the whole program now.



In the news tomorrow... the pilot that got the kill will be up before the commander tomorrow for a DUI. Or broke from buying booze to celebrate. Or both.

From the thread title I thought some Raptor crashed in Red Flag Nice to hear it was just great driving by one of the aggressor pilots out there....

So whose at fault here the "Blue" forces for not realizing this jet was still 'hot' or the "Red" forces for not clearly following any regeneration regulations? Most likely the former but anyway all this shows is that if you make a mistake even the most advanced fighter in the plant isn't going to save your behind. But that's why we have Red Flag, because no one thing or person is perfect all the time.

like with all training....you really want to practice the worst case scenario a lot.

Exactly!!!! When we play our war games, we are in and out of chem gear all day long. We take mock losses of personnel and acft. They make it tough. Desert Storm was a lot easier than training, but that's why we practice hard. We did lose two acft in Desert Storm, so yes that was one of the worst days of my life, but outside of that, the war games were always harder than the actualy thing. I would still take a war game over the real thing. I know everyone will be coming home.

elp wrote:In the news tomorrow... the pilot that got the kill will be up before the commander tomorrow for a DUI. Or broke from buying booze to celebrate. Or both.

I'd love to see the HUD tape of the kill. I wonder if they'd let the pilot put a Raptor kill mark on his plane?

Saw a great quote..."Today`s RED FLAG is not like your dads` RED FLAG"!! Sometimes you just have a bad day. What good would any training deliver if you never get threatened? Getting waxed usually teaches you NOT to make the same mistakes again, in any field.

This is a good thing. Sounds like they are really putting it to the Raptor. They will come up with some great tactics when all is said and done.

mcashe wrote: He attributes the loss to a confusing "mulligan," whereby an enemy "red" fighter regenerated or re-entered the fight unbeknownst to the blue forces. "We made some tactical mistakes and one slipped through," Bergeson said.

I think this proves that even with the best technology there is still no replacement for good-old-fashioned situational awareness.

"The quality of the crate matters little. Success depends upon who sits in it." ~ Baron Manfred von Richtofen

Well, it matters a whole lot more today, but like Swanee says, keep your head out of your @$$, keep it on a swivel, and don't fight fair !

Very good quote Parrothead. That's one that everyone should stick in their bag of clues, and remember if being a combat pilot is their vocation of choice.

I was very nervous when I saw the title for the thread. I thought, as Seat Dreamer did, that we might've had a mishap at Red Flag, which is not uncommon, BTW.

For folks who don't know, Red Flag is designed to be the worst case scenario possible. Studies showed that the majority of pilots who were killed, or shot down in Vietnam were lost in their first 10 missions. Red Flag was created to give younger pilots, with no combat experience those first 10 missions, before they ever left the safety of CONUS. They want to completely overwhelm the aircrews, but in a purposeful way. The worst possible combination of ground and air threats do this quite well.

If a Raptor pilot loses an engagement in Red Flag, then so be it. That's one of those things that helps our guys learn. Where did you make a mistake? Can you identify the mistake you made? What can we learn from this to prevent this from happening in a real scenario? If we are learning, and then applying what we have learned, then that is a win-win situation.

"Train like you fight. Fight like you train." - Randy "Duke" Cunningham