The aging of the Navy’s F/A-18 fleet was a factor in the Pentagon’s consideration of converting the F-22 to a carrier-launched aircraft. This would have been the first stealth aircraft ever to be launched from the sea, long before the F-35C was developed.
The F-22 Raptor can do it all.
The requirement for a carrier-based fighter such as the F-22 was obvious. The Navy attempted to acquire additional F/A-18 Block III Super Hornets for a number of years before and after the F-35C’s introduction.
Although the F/A-18 has undergone significant modernization over the years, it is still not a stealthy platform. Therefore, Carrier Air Wings’ power projection capabilities would be greatly enhanced with a stealth fighter as a naval derivative of the F-22 for carrier attack.
A maritime F-22
Air Force chiefs and F-22 maintainers have taken extra precautions to ensure that F-22s can strike anywhere in the world within 24 hours, maybe to make up for the inability to launch F-22s from the sea.
With a programme called Rapid Raptor, the Air Force makes sure that the F-22 can respond quickly anywhere in the world by putting aircraft and maintainers in high-threat areas that are hard to get to.
The inability to launch attacks with the F-22 from the ocean may be one of the main reasons why the Air Force is reinforcing its “Rapid Raptor” program.
The programme is set up so that four F-22s can be deployed to a combat zone within 24 hours, at a moment’s notice, in light of the urgent requirement for strikes in the current global threat environment, which is under constant pressure and change.
Rapid Raptor
In order to perform a rapid strike with ‘first strike’ capabilities in austere or out-of-the-way locations, four F-22s are outfitted with the requisite personnel, C-17 support, fuel, maintenance, and weapons as part of the Rapid Raptor program. The F-22 might back up a rapid reaction force and help it react quickly to any global crisis that might arise.
The success of the forward-positioned ground-launched F-22, which made its combat debut against ISIS in 2014, performing close air support missions, has likely inspired the development and acceleration of the sixth-generation carrier strike programs of ISIS.
