Two years from now, the Hawaii Air National Guard will take delivery of the F-22 raptor jet fighters.
According to developers, it's a "star wars" type plane.

At a cost of 137 million dollars apiece, the jets should - and can - do just about everything the military wants.

Sam Grizzle of Lockheed Martin says, "If you talk to any military leader, they will tell you that the first priority of any combatant commander in any situation is to establish something we call air dominance over the battlefield."

Developer Lockheed Martin and partners are convinced the F-22 raptor will do just that. During a press briefing today, a simulator was rolled out...not an exact duplicate of the flight simulator being used to train pilots, but a close replica of that. Private Pasha Baker tried her hand at landing the jet...she did fine. But she was flying fairly slow. The plane can travel one and a half times the speed of sound without turning on the after burners.

Jim Conlin of Lockheed Martin says, "When you light your afterburner, two things happen - your fuel gauge goes down real fast and you have flames coming out the back. so, in a stealthy fighter, you don't want flames coming out the back - it makes you show up on radar."

The f-22 has already been deployed at a number of U.S. bases and was reportedly extremely effective during training exercises last may in Alaska. It can be used as an air to ground weapon but is primarily an air to air weapon. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Faurot is looking forward to getting into the cockpit.

"As a pilot, what i like to see is basically have all the tools available that will allow me to do that to the best of my ability so - have an aircraft that see other aircraft, enemy aircraft, before they can see me."

Because of it's integrated computerized systems, the F-22 can get a full 360 degree view of the sky around it. According to the builders, that can make all the difference.

"And it gives you this God's eye view of what's going on the battle space way up high so you can impose your will on the enemy," Conlin said.


Beginning in 2010, the Hawaii air national guard will receive the first of 20 F-22 raptors.