F22 Arrival Ceremony A Total Success!
August 15th, 2007 by Karl LeRay
The Alaska Air Show Association: www.alaskaairshow.org, were involved with the development and support of the ceremony as well as being Distinguished Visitors.
Needless to say, we had a FANTASTIC time! It was what we would call a “dress up” ceremony (suit or sport coat and tie), but that didn’t make it a boring ceremony by any stretch.
The really neat part was that the F22s actually arrived for the ceremony….as in the ceremony was tied to their actual arrival to the state!
There are many reasons for the US Air Force’s deployment of the F22 Raptor - the aging of the F15 Eagle (over 36 years), the creation of China’s new Jian-10 Fighter, Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35 as well as their sale to Syria of MiG31Es. With their Russian Vympel R-73 missiles they are deadly adversaries against our air dominance.
As Senator Ted Stevens said at the ceremony…”It’s not who the F22 will come up against, but who will be willing to go against the F22?”
It’s important to realize that as the fighting with our current enemy grabs all the headlines, the threat of conflict is constantly evolving on several fronts. We cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that we may engage an enemy whose technology and skills more closely mirror our own…and take on both types of conflicts simultaneously.
For the Association, it was our great pleasure to assist with the ceremony as well as participate.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
