The time an F-22 flew right under an F-4 from Iran: The American-made F-22 Raptor recently made headlines for shooting down multiple objects this February, including one Chinese balloon over U.S. airspace.
Back in 2013, an Iranian fighter pilot was approaching an American drone in international airspace when a pair of F-22 Raptors flew right beside him.
The words uttered by the Raptor pilot was enough to make the Phantom swiftly turn around.
Iranian fighters shot at U.S. drones before
One year prior to the Raptor incident, a U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was intercepted by a pair of Iranian Air Force planes while on a routine surveillance flight in international airspace.
Designed primarily for patient reconnaissance, the MQ-1 drone did not pose a threat to enemy airframes and would, in fact, struggle to even evade an attack if one were to occur.
The Iranian war planes, likely trying to compensate for their lackluster abilities, shot at the unarmed drone anyways. The pilots were flying Soviet-era Su-25 jets, airframes with similar mission sets to the U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt II “Warthog” but different capabilities.
After shooting all 250 rounds of munitions carried onboard toward the U.S.-made drone, the two Su-25 pilots turned away.
So, the U.S. sent its top-of-the-line F-22 fighters to escort its UAVs
Following this 2012 incident, the U.S. began flying fighter escorts along with its drone deployments.
According to Sandboxx News, the service often sent “F/A-18 Super Hornets off of the nearby USS John C. Stennis, but occasionally used F-22 Raptors operating out of bases in the United Arab Emirates.” When the U.S. drone was approached one year later, this time, an F-22 was able to effectively respond to the “threat.”
The Raptor pilot stealthily flew the airframe underneath the Iranian fighter to inspect the weapons it was carrying without being detected. Obviously, the Raptor pilot was not intimidated by the F-4’s payload. Next, the Raptor flew right next to the F-4 fighter, completely shocking the Iranian pilot.
Here is where the Raptor pilot made the legendary statement, “You really oughta go home.” Unsurprisingly, the Iranian jet vanished.
The Raptor is in a whole other league
Widely regarded as the best fighter jet ever designed and produced, the F-22 Raptor is a more than worthy match for any aircraft, let alone the aging F-4s of the Iranian Air Force. It is one of the few combat aircraft capable of supercruise, allowing it to fly faster than the speed of sound without the use of fuel intensive afterburners.
Its powerful engines are also equipped with thrust vectoring, giving the Raptor supermaneuverability making it lethal in a dogfight. Probably its greatest assets, however, are those which make it one of the stealthiest aircraft in the skies.
While previous stealth aircraft such as the B-2 Spirit have relied heavily on Radar Absorbent Material (RAM) to achieve their small footprint, this technology is notoriously finicky and difficult to maintain.
The Spirit bombers have climate-controlled hangars to prevent degradation of the RAM which works well for strategic aircraft based in the U.S. but would prove challenging for a fighter that may see frontline combat.
Instead, the designers of the Raptor used the shape of the aircraft itself to reduce its cross section. These advances made the F-22 all but invisible to airborne radars and allowed this daring pilot to jump next to the Iranian F-4 in total secrecy.
Expert Biography
Maya Carlin, a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.
From the vault
Jeff
April 8, 2023 at 1:00 am
Bad to the bone!
Thadd; [T.] Sanders; [S.]
April 8, 2023 at 10:24 am
Maya Carlin: Respectfully: When any aircraft approaches, intrudes upon, or is occupying airspace of any foreign sovereign power; it is proper to Identify such aircraft as Friend or Foe. Under such conditions as described in your article herewith, the Top Gun Maverick approach is unnecessary with the increased potential of yet another reckless show of our aircraft’s aerial superiority. We are able to properly fly, intercept, and or engage any such acft intrusions without our pilots auditioning for yet another aerial series of the Next Top Gun Saga. Callsign: Delta X-Ray.
Preston Mitchell
April 8, 2023 at 4:00 pm
What the author neglected to mention is that production of the F-22 Raptor was killed by Obama BEFORE the full number of Raptors were built. Additionally, the machines, tooling, and blueprints for building the Raptor were subsequently destroyed; therefore, it would be extremely difficult to resume building new Raptors. THUS, the US is left with less than 190 functional Raptors … when we needed many more to counter Russia’s latest warplanes.
TOUFIQUE MONWAR SAYED
April 10, 2023 at 9:34 pm
Pronouns T. S., Don’t be such a coelenterate.
James Michael
April 11, 2023 at 1:18 pm
We need to be using the money we are sending to Ukraine to build our own military to prepare for what is coming from China and Russa , Iran.
Looks as a lot of our alias are ducking when it comes to the USA.
Writing is on the wall if the people look and listen to what’s being said out loud. I am in my 70’s and this is the first time of my life I am very worried about our security. the EU are not supporting us as in the past. Americans need to wake up.
Brad
April 11, 2023 at 5:13 pm
Great aircraft. We should have more of them. The F35 is good all-around… but this is the best at a very important role. Air Superiority. As my dad always used to say “One size fits all = one size fits none”.
D Shockley
April 12, 2023 at 4:52 am
with the us government coming out and “mistakenly” admitting and then retracting it 5 minutes later about having the ability to take “ET'” Home, and from what I’ve seen personally fly around the test ranges up here in Alaska, the F22 and 35 are basically. Biplanes by comparison, So I’m willing to bet that they will either be stripped to the basics and sold off to a select few countries while the rest turn into escort planes or they cox them up and hold them reserve do to their high cost to operate them. besides thrust vectoring seems pretty lame after something that can only be describe a Cylon Raider from the show Battle star Galactica Goes from 1800 feet where i was and up strait up to what i could only assume the edge of space and then strait back down to 50 feet off my right wing tip in under two minutes , then flip inverted the do a close and slow spin all the way around me and went got back around to the front of me he was 20 feet off my noose then in a flash be took off still upside down and backwards, strait off my noose, not noise, no turbulence. i was in a 206 Cessna at the time, throughout this whole time which lasted close to 30 minutes, i remember being really nervous for only a few short minutes then really excited about what was going on to sadness because in the end I realized how close we are to setting out among the stars and my age I’m probably never going to see it h to help paying for findaother
Arthur Cruickshank
April 13, 2023 at 11:39 am
So now we live day to day as far as will we still be here tomorrow.
Any nuclear explosion would result in death for millions when the wind blows over the earth. Now any of these bad guys can end the world as we know it with just one word. Fire!
Richard Holt
April 14, 2023 at 7:55 am
Great reporting. thank you!
Homer
April 16, 2023 at 9:25 am
“BUT GOD ALMIGHTY!” He is either for you/me/us, or HE is not! Romans 8:31 KJV
kevin
April 22, 2023 at 4:06 am
@Preston Mitchell “What the author neglected to mention is that production of the F-22 Raptor was killed by Obama BEFORE the full number of Raptors were built. Additionally, the machines, tooling, and blueprints for building the Raptor were subsequently destroyed; therefore, it would be extremely difficult to resume building new Raptors. THUS, the US is left with less than 190 functional Raptors … when we needed many more to counter Russia’s latest warplanes.”
The author didn’t mention this was because the Raptor has been on the chopping block for a while. It began development in 1981. It has a 25mhz processor. The first production raptor rolled off the line in 2002 making it 21 years from the time that it was ordered. The avionics and computers were obsolete before it was ready to actually fly in 2005… and at a cost that’s double the price of the F-35 which is then being offset economically by partner nations was deemed unnecessary given the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and lack of any real substantial competition. Even in 2005 there was a problem with hypoxia that I think was finally resolved in 2007.
Following the order in 1981, Bush Sr dropped the order to 648 in 1990. Clinton dropped them to 339 in 97. But that wasn’t enough so Bush Jr dropped them to 277. And finally in 2009, a full 28 years after they were ordered and we had yet to get even 200 of them delivered, a full year 18 months into a recession with other military branches wanting crew vehicles for the middle east and a fixed budget to work with, Obama called made the call to kill it and to instead focus forward on 6th gen aircraft.
Had he allowed it to go on, the costs would have continued to increase and we might still not have the 277 that Bush jr dropped it to. The money can be much better spent ensuring that we stay ahead rather than funding more of something from the past no matter how good it was. It was a good call.
Meanwhile, the f35 first rolled off the line in 2011. over 750 have already been produced. It’s no match for the Raptor, but then again, nothing is. What does it have to compete with? Russia has 4…let me say that again… FOUR operational 5th gen fighters. Or did they lose one to Ukraine? And it’s too new and rare to be considered a serious threat. The Checkmate won’t be ready until at least 2026. China has about 200 5th gen fighters in their J-20 but they have a couple of different hurdles to deal with.
Yes, there are some characteristics that might give it an edge….if it was being flown by a US pilot. But they have nearly zero real world experience with air-combat. Also, speed and agility only get you so far. The targeting and combat systems play a huge role as do the avionics and they just have little experience with these things…not to mention the possibility that they’ve overlooked a number of details that we’ve managed to learn through decades of real world combat and training. They’re simply not up to par nor will they be any time soon. In an air to air scenario, they would be lucky to win against the super-hornet even if we were outnumbered.
Because the f-22 was killed, by the time they, or Russia, or Iran have their 5th gens fully up to snuff we should be prepared to take them on with 6th gen tech and that’s the way we need to keep it.
And no. The blueprints weren’t destroyed. I’m not sure where you got that but I assure you they’re available. The real problem they have is electronics parts that can’t be replaced because my watch has more horsepower and no one makes things like that 25mhz processor anymore. Yet another reason to let it go…
Smh
April 26, 2023 at 12:52 pm
Firstly, if this isn’t just a propaganda piece /fiction of a D* measuring contest, then we have GOT to either stop doing these kinds of things or be smarter. You’re telling me that f22 raptors were sent to escort DRONES and did this for an entire year before something happened, and all just to tell an Iranian pilot “Go home, were spookier than you?”. It cost 30 thousand dollars per hour to fly an f22… I sure hope they got the message.
even if they only escorted ONE SINGLE drone, a mere 3x a week. for 4 hours. you’d be footing a ROUGHLY 25,920,000$ bill per raptor that did this.. this could have been happening multiple times a day with multiple planes per drone or multiple drones/etc. you do the math ..
home test for macular degeneration
July 4, 2023 at 7:42 am
Wow, incredible blog layout! How long have you been blogging
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