US Deploying Two Dozen F-22 Fighters to Western Pacific Exercise Amid Tensions with China - FARS

(FNA)- The United States Air Force is dispatching more than two dozen F-22 stealth fighters to an exercise in the Western Pacific this month as tensions escalate with Beijing over Pacific flashpoints like the South China Sea and Chinese Taipei.

Pacific Air Forces in Hawaii said approximately 25 F-22s Raptors from the Hawaii Air National Guard and from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, will deploy this month to Guam and Tinian islands for Operation Pacific Iron 2021, CNN reported.

“We have never had this many Raptors deployed together in the Pacific Air Forces area of operations,” Gen. Ken Wilsbach, Pacific Air Forces commander, told the network.

Defense analysts say deploying such a large number of F-22 combat jets for the exercise serves as a warning signal to China at a time when relations between Washington and Beijing have reached rock bottom over the Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) and the disputed South China Sea.   

“The Pacific Air Force is demonstrating that it can deploy as many or more fifth-generation aircraft into the theater on short notice than (China) currently has in its entire inventory,” Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, told CNN.

Normal F-22 deployments consist of six to 12 aircraft, he said.

According to Air Force data, the United States has around 180 F-22 jets in its fleet, of which about half are mission-ready at any given time due to maintenance requirements. That means the Air Force will be sending roughly about a fourth of its F-22 mission to the Pacific this month.