At a time when war with China is talked about as a future possibility, the deputy director for air and cyberspace operations at Pacific Air Forces gave a rare look at how advanced fifth-generation aircraft -- the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II among them -- could lead the air campaign in a conflict in the region.
Col. Max Marosko, in an article for the Mitchell Institute this month, offered up a war scenario 10 years from now in which several squadrons of the aircraft rapidly deploy and disperse to numerous military and civilian airfields across the Pacific, thwarting an enemy trying to use ballistic or cruise missiles against the forward-deployed aircraft.
Heavy radar and communications jamming confront U.S. and coalition forces, but fifth-generation aircraft leverage their advanced sensors to detect and target enemy aircraft.
As operations continue, it becomes apparent that stealth aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 fighters, as well as B-2 and B-21 bombers, are the only aircraft capable of operating over contested territory due to the large number of adversary mobile surface-to-air missile systems deployed. more
