A Hurricane vs. the F-22 Stealth Raptor: Who Wins?

David Axe

Security,

Sadly it did no go well for the U.S. Air Force.

On August 24, 1992, the category-five hurricane flattened Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, damaging and destroying F-16s and C-130s that were unflyable and, like Tyndall’s F-22s, were incapable of fleeing the approaching storm.

Hurricane Michael damaged as many as seventeen U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters when it ravaged Tyndall Air Force Base on the Florida panhandle on October 10, 2018. It could take years and cost billions of dollars to repair the base and its planes.

Other military facilities—including a U.S. Navy anti-submarine-warfare facility and the shipyard building the U.S. Coast Guard’s new medium patrol cutters—also suffered extensive damage.

(This article first appeared in 2018.)

Hurricane Michael isn’t the first storm to deliver a painful blow to U.S. air power. Storms in 1992 and 1933 also devastated East Coast air bases, underscoring the enduring threat major storms and flooding pose to air bases and aircraft.

On August 23, 1933, what became known as the “Great Hurricane” battered coastal Virginia. The U.S. Army Air Corps’ Langley Airfield lay in the storm’s path. “The water was nearly 10 feet deep at the gymnasium,” Air Force historian William Butler told the Hampton Roads Daily Press newspaper. “The flight line was underwater. The maintenance hangars and headquarters building were flooded.”

The military rebuilt Langley. Today, the base boasts a sophisticated pump system to draw down floodwater.

Brian Laslie, an air-power historian and author of The Air Force Way of War, said he couldn’t find any references to how many aircraft the 1933 storm damaged. The figures for 1992 Hurricane Andrew are more definitive.

On August 24, 1992, the category-five hurricane flattened Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, damaging and destroying F-16s and C-130s that were unflyable and, like Tyndall’s F-22s, were incapable of fleeing the approaching storm.