NASHUA – It was around 2 p.m. when the mission began. The ground team debriefed fighters on enemy combatants that were pressing up a bit too closely to allied airspace, and after a firefight had erupted just a week before, the Pentagon wasn't taking any chances.

F-22 Raptor pilots were now preparing to engage and eliminate any combatants inside the airspace, and reports of Su-27 Soviet-made fighters had been confirmed.

The paces were short, and so were instructions, and my F-22 fighter was soon whirling into cold blue skies 40,000 feet over a fictional, ice-encrusted tundra -- in a replica cockpit created to demonstrate the performance of the F-22 in air-to-air combat to taxpayers and the line workers who build it.

The cockpit demonstrator is on tour to facilities of the 144 subcontractors for Lockheed Martin that manufacture parts for the most secretive and capable fighter in operation, and it made a stop last month at BAE Systems in Nashua, where its electronic warfare suite of antennae, hardware and systems is made.

Reporter Jim Kozubek watches his missles fly toward a Russian-made fighter jet target during a simulation of flight in an F-22.

The demonstrator includes a pilot's seat, throttle and weapons trigger, target-locking instruments that seek combatants on a radar screen, a defensive 360-degree radar that shows when an F-22 pilot is within firing range of combatants, and light-projected instruments on the windshield.

At 40,000 feet and on the move, I must assure you, the F-22 draws forth our maximum appreciation for its technology. But there was now less time for consideration, and the decisions of the moment came from the gut as a formation of Su-27s entered the airspace.

The throttle moved forward into super-cruise at Mach 1.5 as enemy combatants began to blip on the periphery of my radar, and after the plane took a few unplanned rolls for this inexperienced pilot, it steadied and instruments began to sequentially lock onto four Su-27s.

Pushing a little red button on a right-handed control stick, a series of six AIM-120C missiles and two AIM-9M heat-seeking missiles were rapidly deployed in the next minutes as my plane circled and barreled in pursuit of the enemy fighters.

Three of the combatants were target-locked for fire, and were smashed into distant explosions, according to my instrument panels, to the satisfaction of ground control, and to my relief as I steadied the single-seat fighter at its monumental speed, 8 miles high in the sky.

But one combatant had eluded fire, and my instructor pointed out I had prematurely fired my complete arsenal of missiles -- despite his pleading to conserve during combat.

During the firefight I did not sense the slight delay between pushing the firing trigger and the appearance of an airborne missile, and I rapidly tapped the trigger during combat like an unanswered game-show contestant button.

I was, indeed, now out of missiles, and had only a wing-mounted Gatling gun remaining to fight the single Su-27 patrolling the skies.

So, my instructor remained calm and, looking down with a caring and parental smile, sent me back to the base and reset the demonstrator system for the next flight.