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Just another day in the Legacy......
Two days ago I was flying to Utah to show 122LL to a potential buyer, when, just north of Las Vegas while I was skirting the Desert MOA, I got a call "November 122 Lima Lima, traffic 12 o'clock, 10 miles, two F-22's orbiting at your altitude." Of course I could not see them at that distance but I was excited at the chance to see the newest US fighter in the inventory air-to-air. I immediately started scrambling for my camera, not wanting to miss recording this unique opportunity for posterity. A minute later, worried I was going to miss them, I chimed in with "Two Lima Lima is still no joy on the Raptors" Nellis Control: "Fighters now 11 o'clock, 5 miles, southbound, 17 thousand." (Notice the change in the ID of the airplanes, I think the controller made a mistake in calling them F-22's the first time because he never referred to them as F-22's again, and this was also the case on my return trip today - they were only referred to as "fighters".) 30 second later "Fighters maneuvering at your 9 o'clock and 3 miles, your altitude"...just then I looked over and there was a beautifully amazing site....
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If you look closely at the middle left of the picture just above the ridge you can see two dots...that's them! They are a LOT closer than it appears in this picture. Anyway, for the next 2-3 minutes I watched what not many other civilians, if any, have had the privilege to see.......two F-22's "G-ing their lips off" in a close in BFM. It was the most amazing site....a knife fight in a phone booth, canopy to canopy, at some points no more than 500' apart, twisting around with the most amazing angles of attack on the airplanes you can imagine and then resetting back up to altitude like raped apes. Most of this took place within 5 miles of me... To see these things maneuvering against each other was truly one of the most amazing aviation experiences in my life.... The F-22 may be a BVR (Beyond Visual Range) machine, but close in that looks like one nasty handfull for the bad guys...
Soooo, my guess is these are the only civilian photos of F-22's in a furball...the resolution is poor because of my camera setting and having to crop the image. Actual range from my plane to the Raptors in this photo is inside of 2 miles
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This is the closest they got, I could easily ID them as F-22's with my calibrated Mk. One Eyeball detection device. I'm guessing they had my plane painted and probably knew the friggin' serial # with all their high tech stuff... ;)
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Sooo, I just feel incredibly lucky to have this experience and wanted to share this with those that might find it of interest..
While tempting, I did resist the urge to say "Two's tally two, engaged!" or "fight's on, bitch!"...I'll live to fight another day... ;)
Barry
122LL
(And to think I'm selling this thing....<sigh>)
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