F 22 real supercruise range

I always liked AvLeak, because a lot of interesting stuff can be red between the lines. Such as:

“The F-22’s Mach 1.5 supercruise capability also got a workout in Alaska. Because only eight F-22s were ever airborne at once during the exercise, four of them were constantly involved in refueling from tankers flying orbits 150 mi. away. Supercruise got the fighters there and back quickly. On station, the fighter would conserve fuel by cruising at high altitude.We could sit up at high altitude and save our gas and watch. (…) We don’t hang out at Mach 1.5. With our acceleration, when we saw the threats building, because we could see them so far out, we’d dump the nose over, light the burners and we were right up to fighting speed.” (http://aviationnow.com/avnow/news/ch…aw010807p1.xml)

This could mean that the F 22 has a longer supercruise range that stated (semi)officially. See the AFA Journal article: (http://www.afa.org/magazine/jan2005/0105raptor.asp). If you look at the graph, you’ll see that the combat radius is officially 400 Nmiles including only 100 Nmiles dash. But, according to the AvLeak article, the F 22 flew in supercruise some 150 Nmiles from the tankers, than reduced the speed to subsonic while they lurked at high altitude, started the AB when the “ennemy” was spoted, dashed to intercept in supercruise, than back to tanker in supercruise. That’s a least 300 Nmiles!

Also, what’s impressive is that the ‘blue” team has only 4 Raptors at one time in action. Leading the “blue” team against 40 “red” air fighters!