Flight Lt. Dan Robinson of the Royal Air Force has been fascinated with aircraft for a long, long time. “I was that kid who always wanted to talk to the pilot,” he said. Now, he can make a boast no other RAF pilot can match: He has completed flight training on a Fifth Generation fighter–the F-22 Raptor. Robinson, currently assigned to the 43rd Fighter Squadron as part of an exchange program had been undergoing two months in the training cycle at Tyndall AFB, Fla. He graduated this week.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.