Hawaiian F-22 Raptors deploying to UAE to join air war on ISIS

03.10.2015 By David Cenciotti

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.

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