Six Hawaii Air National Guard are deploying to the CENTCOM area of responsibility.
Six Hawaii Air National Guard F-22 Raptors are enroute from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, to Al Dhafra, UAE, to join the CENTCOM area of responsibility.
Once there, the aircraft will replace the U.S. Air Force Raptors already there for a 6-month rotational deployment that will see the aircraft take part in Operation Inherent Resolve in the airspaces of Iraq and Syria: although they can attack their own targets using Precision Guided Munitions (two 1,000-lb GBU-32 JDAMs or 8 GBU-39 small diameter bombs) while covering other aircraft in a typical swing role mission, the F-22 have proved to be useful in the air war against ISIS by making other aircraft more survivable, acting as electronic warfare enabled sensor-rich multi-role aircraft that provide “kinetic situational awareness” to other aircraft involved in the air strikes.
Who knows, maybe they will even come close to the Russian Su-30s and Su-34s involved in the raids against IS terrorists across Syria (or they will simply be spied by the Russian Il-20 Coot deployed there).
For the 199th Fighter Squadron this is the first combat tour of duty since the deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2000, to patrol the southern NFZ (No Fly Zone) of Iraq. At that time the squadron flew the F-15 Eagle; it transitioned to the F-22 Raptor in 2010, flying the 5th Generation stealth planes in partnership with the 19th Fighter Squadron.
On their way to the Middle East, the aircraft made a stopover in Moron, Spain, and Sigonella, Italy.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
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is it true that US were bombing ISIS. Why no video/photo- showing the result of bombing?
The videos would show that Syrian forces and locations rather than ISIS were bombed, and that does not fit the narrative.
Actually they were not there yet as we wrote the story: they made a diversion to Sigonella departing again to UAE on Oct. 3. It has been a quite long deployment flight.
China?…CHINA???! People’s Republic of CHINA??? THAT CHINA????! What are you talking about?
Oh I haven’t heard of China flying operations directly over Syria or any footage but we know their carrier is going for “sea trials” near Latakia so me thinks there’s always the possibility China may get its feet wet with all the combat opportunities Syria already provides for Russia. Remember the got the “shark jets” to fly through Iraq and Iran to meet up with the carrier, we just don’t really know if their presence acts as a deterranc or if they afctually want future “jet trials”.
Just my speculation on China’s actions in the Latakia area, they may have already moved out of done something since my first post unlikely since all my usual military blogs hasn’t said much about China since last time.
SOVIET? WTF??! guys, really get some info before posting, this is getting ridiculous.
Nah, too dull. You want something fancy to make the west go: “yeah! ‘Murica!” The Freedom brand must be carefully marketed, especially in the foreign export market.