The damage caused to F-22 Raptors that rode out Hurricane Michael at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, will not prevent 80 percent of all Raptors from being flyable by fiscal 2019, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said on Friday.
TYNDALL AFB — All of the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets left behind when Hurricane Michael hit Tyndall Air Force Base last month will be flown off the base for repairs, according to Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan.
Airmen assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron completed the first-ever F-22 Raptor "combat surge" over the last six months in skies above Syria, the Department of Defense announced on Wednesday, conducting an aggressive number of combat sorties over a single three-day period.
The U.S. Air Force has no interest in purchasing either Boeing’s advanced fourth-generation F-15X version of the aging Eagle. Nor does the service have any plans to revive the stealthy fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor in either its original configuration or in a modified form with avionics from the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Instead, the priority for the Air Force is to produce as many F-35s as it can to increase the proportion of fifth-generation fighters in its fleet while it continues to explore next-generation technologies for the future air superiority mission.
