The entire premise of the article - that the F22 can't show off weapons and is somehow a "less than" interceptor because of this - is busted right out of the gate. Anyone who has seen an F22 demo has probably seen it open its weapons bays in flight - doing that and a 1/4 roll would show off the white warshot missiles pretty easily to any threat being intercepted. The 2 Aim9 bays would also be plainly visible when opened, they even stage the missile out on its mount when opened, giving probably the best look at an A2A missile on any fighter anywhere. And, no Russian/whatever pilot is going to be so stupid as to assume that the F22s intercepting him and his wingman aren't armed, doors open or otherwise.
As Delirium said, even if the F22 put itself at a disadvantage vs SuXX fighters by getting close during an intercept, they would be the only 2 F22s lost in this manner should they be shot down, as there wouldn't be any more friendly-ish intercepts after that the next time threats came calling. It's also a far cry from certain that in WVR that the F22 is even AT a disadvantage vs any other gen 4.5 fighter.
Worst F22 article ever.
The debate is quite pointless since aerial warfare is a lot more complex than "Plane A is better than plane B". Other support systems like ground- and/or airborne radars and fighter control etc means much more than the capabilities of a single aircraft. Traditionally Russian pilots have been very dependent on guidance from the ground since they haven't had the avionics to allow the pilots to operate independent from ground radar. So sending a couple of Su:s over Alaska with hostile intentions would be a bad idea for them regardless of what plane the interceptors are in.
These show of force isnt much more than the Russians saying "hey look, we can also do aerial refueling and fly long range patrols now".
They can do it with 2 Su:s every now and then but they are far from having the capability to do it on a larger scale and certainty not against a qualified opponent.
