It’s been over a decade since one of those surprises in military aviation happened: the French Rafale fighter jet outran the American F-22 Raptor during mock combat. This incident, which took place during joint training exercises in the United Arab Emirates, challenged the perceived invincibility of the F-22, a 5th generation air superiority stealth fighter.
The twin-engine F-22 Raptor, a Stealthy Powerhouse, would become the first operational stealth fighter jet in the world. This is a capability that has now been outclassed by one of the most advanced interceptors of its time, the 4.5 generation multirole fighter Dassault Rafale.
The mock dogfight took place in November 2009, during training exercises in which U.S. F-22s flew against the French Air Force’s Rafales, the British Royal Air Force’s Typhoons, and the UAE Air Force’s Mirage 2000s. In a few days of combat simulations, pilots from these nations flew against one another to test not only their flying skills but also the capabilities of their aircraft.
Although the F-22 scored well against its training opponents, “shooting down” six Rafales and drawing in five more mock dogfights, things turned out to be a little different. An Emirati Mirage 2000 managed to “shoot down” an F-22, while a Rafale pilot also managed to outmaneuver the Raptor in another separate mock dogfight. The incident was first denied by the U.S. Air Force, after which the French Air Force released cockpit footage showing that the Rafale pilot was in a position to “shoot down” the F-22 on numerous occasions.
The video showed the French pilot really wringing out the Rafale, pulling 9Gs at one point. There is a lesson learned about pilot skill in air-to-air combat here—it doesn’t matter how advanced the aircraft is; it can be outperformed by an aggressive pilot with high quality training.
The loss of the F-22 in this mock combat does not mean that it is a bad aircraft or worthless. The opposite, really—it suggests that the human in the cockpit is still pretty critical. If there is a single truism within the U.S. jet fighter community, it is that on any given day, one type of aircraft can shoot down another, even one that is more advanced. That incident is a reminder that even now, when avionics and artificial intelligence have made quantum leaps, airmanship still does matter.
These kinds of training exercises are essential for pilots to train on their aircraft and tactics against each other in preparation for real-life missions. The F-22 Raptor is still an advanced aircraft, but the display by the Rafale pilot proved that sometimes a good, resourceful pilot can pose a challenge even to the best technology.
Within the past few years, the F-22 has continued to have weakness against other advanced fighter jets. Although deployment to Japan’s Kadena Air Base and training alongside South Korean F-35As may signal the ongoing struggle to support air superiority in the increasingly problematic Pacific, the proximity of the Chinese Wuyishan Air Base with its advanced J-20 “Mighty Dragon” fighter jets raises some red flags on the strategic nature of such deployments.
The strengths of the F-22 are in modern, long-range combat, where its stealth allows one pilot to engage multiple enemies outside his natural field of vision. Simulated dogfighting against non-stealthy platforms, such as German Eurofighter Typhoons and French Rafales, has shown that, when it comes to close-in combat, the F-22 can struggle.
Even with all the odds against the F-22, it still forms a core component of the composite U.S. Air Force force for offense. Its ability to fly with other fighters and at long ranges continues to be vital to ensuring air superiority protection.
The lessons learned from these mock combats hence underline the need for constant training and how pilots need to adapt to new threats coming about from all directions. It will always be that pairing of advanced technology with the skills developed in pilots which ensures air dominance as the nature of aerial combat changes.