Air Force’s Oldest F-22 Raptor Returns to the Air with Plenty of Fanfare

Fairford, UK - July 9, 2016: a Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft of the US Air Force in flight over Gloucestershire, England.

The newest F-22 Raptor in the sky also happens to be the oldest fighter jet of its type in the entire fleet. The aircraft which took to the skies again this week from Edwards Air Force Base with a great deal of pomp and circumstance had previously been mothballed in 2012, but was pressed back into service after a more than two-year-long overhaul.

This week, the Air Force celebrated the rebirth of the oldest F-22 Raptor in the skies. Officials unveiled a documentary following the fighter jet’s journey from the assembly line to active duty to spare parts and back to the air again as a way to welcome the restored plane’s return to service. Fittingly, the engaging film which was screened at a rededication ceremony and inaugural flight is titled The Phoenix Rises.

“This was a gainfully employed airplane when she was working,” Lockheed Martin F-22 Chief Test pilot said as master of ceremonies at Monday’s event. “It increases our test fleet from three to four giving us another flight sciences jet. This will help us tackle the expanding F-22 modernization program.”

According to Air Force spokesperson Kenji Thuloweit, when this particular F-22, Raptor #91-4006, was grounded in 2012, a combination of budget cuts, along with the need for costly repairs made it all but certain the plane would never fly again. A new push to modernize rather than rethink the F-22 program led military officials to green-light restoring and upgrading one of the very first F-22 Raptors to be outfitted with avionics for testing and research.

The U.S Air Force still considers the F-22 to be the greatest fighter ever created. Restoring the oldest flying F-22 is considered a necessary first step to expanding and improving the fleet of Raptors in service to all branches of the military.

“The F-22, a critical component of the Global Strike Task Force, is designed to project air dominance, rapidly and at great distances and defeat threats attempting to deny access to our nation’s Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps,” an unclassified Air Force profile of the aircraft notes. “The F-22 cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.”

Although the F-22 Raptor may be the very best combat aircraft in history (or the foreseeable future), there are concerns that the number of F-22 fighters in the U.S. military fleet is at an untenably low number of airworthy aircraft. This undeniable fact makes the rising of this particular Phoenix an especially big deal.

“Our warfighter needs her back flying again,” 412th Test Wing commander, Brigadier General E. John Teichert, said of the recently restored fighter jet.

[Photo: Shutterstock]