There was special significance attached to this aircraft. The date was May 2, 2012, and the occasion was the delivery of an F-22 Raptor to the U.S. “The very existence of this airplane-your airplane-has altered the strategic landscape forever,” said Lockheed Martin CEO Robert J. The Air Force would declare the F-22 operational in 2005. The maiden flight was the first of 3,496 flights and 7,616 test hours to come in the F-22’s engineering and manufacturing development phase. As he rolled up the taxiway, he turned the jet slightly, tapped the brakes, and the jet bowed to the appreciative crowd. Jon Beesley, flying the safety chase aircraft, put his F-16 in afterburner to keep up with the Raptor.Īfter two circuits on a triangular route around north Georgia, Metz touched down fifty-eight minutes later. Wearing his lucky Super Chicken T-shirt under his flight suit, chief test pilot Paul Metz pulled the Raptor’s nose up and quickly gained speed and altitude, even with the landing gear down. The YF-22 and YF-23 prototypes were flown in 1990, and the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics team won the ATF contest in 1991.Īfter nearly 44,000 wind tunnel test hours, 13,000 material sample tests, six years of development, and a trio of program rephasings mandated by Congress, the F-22 was finally airborne. The competitors in the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition were selected on Halloween in 1987. The US Air Force identified a requirement in 1981 for a new air superiority fighter to replace the F-15-which then had been in service for just seven years.
A long road led to that Sunday morning flight in 1997.