F-22 ops, maintenance rely on each other

  • Published
  • By Staff Sergeant Warren Spearman
  • 49th Wing Public Affairs
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Freedom can come in many forms. It can come in the form of a sonic boom. It can come in the form of the heat from afterburners. It can also come in the form of the men and women who make the F-22 mission possible.

It is a labor of love and pride, and it is a special relationship between operations and maintenance. In fact, this particular relationship is one of the most unique in all of the Air Force.

"I can say, without a doubt, in my 16 and half year career in the Air Force, have never seen a better, solid, more understanding relationship between maintenance and ops than I have seen here," said Lt. Col. Anthony Nance, 49th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Commander. "You have to have that."

That trust is at the center of the F-22 mission. Its heartbeat is of its people. The pilots who fly them, and of the maintainers who keep them in sky.

"It's very prideful," said Staff Sergeant Fred Coval, an F-22 mechanic with the 49th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. "I live on base so I can go home, sit on my porch and watch them fly overhead."

Flying, of course, is at the heart of the F-22 mission. Its pilots are some of the best trained in the world, and the F-22 is considered the world's premier fighter aircraft.

The training involved in keeping the pilots sharp is intense and it utilizes the massive area known as "Raptor Airspace" which fully overlays the Tularosa Basin and the Sacramento Mountains.

"A unique capability you get with the F-22 is the ability to cover a wider area," said Lt. Col. Shawn Anger, commander of the 7th Fighter Squadron, "so for us to protect a 20-mile-wide by 60-mile-long lane is really doing us a disservice, it's not challenging us or our weapon system."

This training is crucial in maintaining mission readiness, either in the AOR, or the protection of the homeland skies during Operation Noble Eagle.

Operation Noble entails protection of the President of the United States, high profile events such as the Super Bowl, and more.

Lt. Col. Anger would like the public to know that the sonic booms that result from the F-22 flying at supersonic speeds, are not done on purpose, but rather a small part of a greater good. In fact, supersonic impacts are taken into account from the beginning in every scenario we build.

"We're often accused of flying low and fast insinuating we are just out there having fun and that's not it at all," Lt. Col. Anger said. "Every single one of those [scenarios] is carefully planned, skillfully executed, and critically reviewed for hours post flight. Our combat capability relies on this realistic training and we take this very seriously."