The intercept Fubaya linked to pictures of was off the Scottish coast:
Typically, that would be the area near US/UK airspace that Soviet bombers approach most frequently; they run a sort of patrol route through the northern Atlantic.
A bump for this Zombie thread since thelatest Aviationist has an interesting description of an early May intercept off the US-Russia border area in the North Pacific Ocean
Emphasis added. This seems to be more sophisticated than the previous “lets send a couple of bombers” approach. Long range fighters, and AEW & EW platform. Plus the USAF in Alaska apparently has decided to sacrifice stealth for range and payload. And sensors, since the F22 has no IRST.
I’m almost two years late, but I’ve finally arrived to fight your ignorance:
“Lunenburg lenses?”
Even going back a ways, MiG-21 vs F-4. F-4 was ugly on a stick.
“Intercepting” might just better be described as “greeting” or “escorting.” Although the name makes it sound like there is something kinetic or explosive that takes place.
Nothing humiliating about it in the least. The Russians are well aware they will be intercepted. They’re simply testing the response times of the Americans or British.
As I understand it:
-
They hit bingo fuel at some point. At some point they have to go home no matter what.
-
They do ***not ***just go home as soon as the American fighters show up. They keep flying for hours, with the Americans next to them (am I right?)
I’m a little surprised at that, and I may have misunderstood what you mean, but wouldn’t it be extremely important to know whats going on in the airspace around them? Especially in a hostile environment during a real shooting-war?
And seeing how an F-22 looks on radar.
Apparently, it shows up fine at long ranges on Russian IRST, or at least that’s what they seem to have discovered in Syria.
The US seems to dispense with the stealth in Alaska.
How so, paint them differently? And, why?
Carry external fuel tanks and weapons. As to why, I suppose its to get more range and payload.
Thanks.
Possibly used as radar reflectors to deliberately make the Raptor more visible on radar (makes sense in peacetime)? Not sure, but I’ll defer to someone more knowledgeable to elaborate.
AIUI, American F-35s in Estonia are also doing that, to prevent Russians from finding out just how stealthy the F-35 really is.
ETA: nicely ninja’d.
A device that acts sorta like a distorting funhouse mirror to radar. So that the F-22 looks to any radar like an ordinary airplane. That helps ATC keep track of them.
It also, in peacetime, helps keep the Russians from learning just how stealthy the F-22 really is. Whatever signals they get back are bigger, and funhoused, versus what they’ll see in wartime.
Won’t external stores (which Alaska F22 carry) accomplish that just fine?
They’ll certainly help. Since stealth is pretty much the USAF’s sole secret sauce I can imagine them being uber cautious about hiding it as best they know how.
Alaska is a special case in that because it’s right adjacent to the Russian mainland it’s very cost-effective for the Russians to build a couple of radars or ESM facilities out near the edge and simply watch all our flying every day. And learn whatever comes of that.
For them to do the same thing vs. the F-22s based at, e.g, Langley AFB in Norfolk Virginia they’d need to put the surveillance gear on an AGI (Spy ship - Wikipedia), park it halfway around the planet from their own territory, have two or three ships working in 2-month shifts, etc. Note the Soviet era “trawlers” have been superceded by more capable ships: Vishnya-class intelligence ship - Wikipedia. Which are correspondingly more expensive to operate.
It’s telling to me that USAF chose to put F-22s in Alaska despite the counter-intel risk. The implication is there was some other specific risk they were mitigating.
OK. Finally. Doesn’t my dog look like an F-22 seen from above?