Stephen Trimble had a walkaround at Electronic Warfare Appreciation Day at Andrews AFB, and he noticed noticed this EA-18G “Growler” electronic warfare aircraft.

Look at the bottom picture: the pilot bagged an F-22 in exercises at Nellis.

This does raise an interesting question, how does an aircraft largely dedicated to electronic warfare bag what is supposed to be the hottest jet out there.

I think that it comes down to the fact that the F-22 had to get close to burn through the jamming, and once it did, its size, the aircraft is roughly as large as an F-14 Tomcat, made rather more visible to the Mark 1 eyeball than the F/A-18.

This raises an interesting question as to the effectiveness of the aircraft in a heavily jammed environment: will this require the Raptor to get close enough to its target that it is then in a visual conflict, where it will be more visible than its opposition.

Hrm….