F-22 makes combat debut against Islamic State

Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jet, making its debut in warfare more than nine years after it was deemed combat-ready, has flown at least 112 missions against Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq, the Air Force’s commander of combat forces said.

The stealth fighter known as the Raptor has guided airstrikes in Syria, disseminated large volumes of data to fellow fliers and attacked Islamic State’s oil facilities, Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said in a telephone interview.

“If at all possible, they try to have F-22s on as many missions as they can because” the jets play the role of an aerial quarterback, Carlisle said.

“The F-22 can suck up information from everybody” — other fighters, air and ground surveillance aircraft — and then direct aircrews where to fly and find targets, he said.

The F-22 is doing “extraordinarily well in making sure other airplanes are aware of what’s around them and, in cases where they need to, direct[ing] them so they stay out of any potential threat,” Carlisle said.

It’s the plane’s first wartime role since it was declared combat-ready in December 2005.

The Air Force is touting the F-22’s role as vindication for a plane long criticized for its cost and the service’s failure to use it. The Pentagon has spent $67 billion to buy 187 of the supersonic jets. And on the Senate floor in 2011, John McCain, R-Ariz., famously called it an “expensive, corroding hangar queen.”

In April 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates held production at 187 planes instead of a potential 243 because he questioned the jet’s expense and relevance. The midfuselage was built in west Fort Worth, where Lockheed’s aeronautics unit is based, with final assembly in Marietta, Ga.

Its reputation was further marred during a yearlong mystery in 2012 over why at least a dozen pilots became dizzy and disoriented, a condition called hypoxia. The issue was traced to a faulty valve in the pilots’ vest oxygen system that has been remedied.

The jet’s performance in Syria and Iraq may make it easier for the Air Force and Lockheed to get congressional support for an estimated $3.58 billion in software, sensor and weapons-carrying upgrades through 2020. Of that, the Pentagon is requesting $606 million for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Boeing Co. is a subcontractor.

On a per-plane basis, the F-22 is the costliest fighter ever, with a program acquisition cost, including research, estimated in 2010 at $358 million apiece. It drops GPS-guided direct-attack munitions and 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs, both made by Boeing.

One longtime critic said the Air Force needs to release more data on the fighter’s performance, including the cost to operate it while deployed, before anyone can judge its effectiveness.

“From Air Force data in 2013, we know the cost to operate an F-22 per hour in the U.S. is $68,262,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Government Accountability Office analyst who assessed weapons programs and recently retired from the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group. “Foreign deployments will be more.”

F-15s and F-16s flying missions in Iraq and Syria are “certainly doing it at an operating cost that is a fraction of the F-22’s, according to official Air Force data,” Wheeler said.

Until now, Pentagon and Air Force officials have declined to discuss the aircraft’s missions beyond disclosing its first foray into Syria against an Islamic State command facility when those strikes commenced in mid-September.

On one mission, mostly at night, two Raptors flew for 12 hours, including flights over Syria and Iraq and several aerial refuelings, Carlisle said. The jets dropped bombs, returned to strike targets again, directed coalition fighters and passed information in real time to the primary air operations center.

Through Feb. 2, F-22s had flown 112 Syria and Iraq combat missions. They have dropped 132 munitions, mostly on Islamic State-controlled buildings and oil-refining and transportation infrastructure, according to Air Force data.

Altogether, U.S. aircraft conducted 1,919 airstrikes dropping 8,194 munitions through Jan. 30, according to the latest summary by U.S. Central Command.

This story was originally published February 22, 2015 at 3:35 PM with the headline "F-22 makes combat debut against Islamic State."