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LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE: Lockheed Martin Corp.'s radar-evading new F-22 fighter jet, preparing for a first overseas deployment to Japan next month, is ready for combat and will be used if needed in any new war, a top U.S. Air Force general said on Tuesday.
“I believe it is ready to go into combat. If war breaks out somewhere and we need the F-22, it's going and I think people will be fairly amazed at what happens,” Gen. Ronald Keys, who heads Air Combat Command, told reporters at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base, home to the first 40 F-22s, or Raptors.
Keys said the F-22 could be used in any military action against Iran or other adversaries, noting its speed, stealth, agility made it the top U.S. weapon, along with the B-2 bomber, in “kicking the door down” at the start of any new war.
Keys rejected a report released last week by the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, which said the F-22 was still not “operationally suitable” because its defensive avionics had response time and threat identification problems.
“These shortfalls affect fundamental aspects of effectiveness in the operational environment in which the F-22A performs,” the report said, noting the airplane's ability to fly sorties was also still hampered by low diagnostics accuracy, long repair times and the reliability of subsystems.
Keys said any new plane faced issues once it began flying, but pilots rated the F-22's performance as excellent overall.
He said testing results were also often outdated by the time they were reported; and the F-22's diagnostic system had needed fine-tuning early on because it was too sensitive and identified parts as problematic even when they were not.
“I think some of that needs to be taken with a grain of salt,” Keys said of the critical Pentagon report.
He lauded the F-22's performance during a first operational exercise in Alaska in May and its successful dropping of laser- guided Joint Directed Attack Munitions at sonic and supersonic speeds.
Early next month, 12 F-22s and more than 250 pilots, maintenance crews and support staff will deploy to U.S. Kadena Air Base in Japan, said Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron of F-22s.
Tolliver said the airplane's first overseas deployment would help acquaint U.S. forces in the Pacific region with the new war fighter and allow joint training with F-16, F-15E and F-18 fighter jets in the region.
He said the mission was expected to last 90 to 120 days.
The F-22's ability to respond to cruise missiles threats made it an ideal region to be stationed in, given concerns about North Korea's nuclear program.
Keys acknowledged some discussion in the military about using the F-22 in Iraq, but said that would only be done if there was a mission, such as reconnaissance, that it could do “faster, cheaper, better” than other weapons in the region.
“I'm against sending it out as a PR campaign. I don't do that with my war birds,” Keys said.
Keys said his next big priority for the Raptor was giving it the ability to drop new 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs and testing in that area would start within the next months.
In addition, he said the Air Force also planned to extend to other aircraft the F-22's built-in data network that allows F-22 pilots to talk with each other, noting that, currently, some data could only be shared manually, which was time- consuming.
Before it finalized the fiscal 2009 budget, the Pentagon also needed to decide whether to add 40 more aircraft or two additional lots to a three-year agreement approved by Congress, he said.
“The further you go into the buy, the cheaper they are because you're up on the learning curve,” he added.
He conceded the aircraft were not “cheap,” but said he still believed the Air Force needed 381 F-22s altogether, more than double the 183 aircraft it says it can afford.
