Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is the most capable air superiority fighter ever to enter operational service. Developed under the Advanced Tactical Fighter programme that began in the early 1980s as a replacement for the F-15 Eagle, the Raptor introduced a combination of capabilities — stealth, supercruise, supermaneuverability, and advanced avionics — that no single aircraft had previously achieved simultaneously.

What sets the F-22 apart from every other operational fighter is supercruise: the ability to sustain supersonic flight at Mach 1.82 without using fuel-hungry afterburners. This means the Raptor can spend extended time above the speed of sound in combat — a capability that fundamentally changes the geometry of air combat by reducing reaction times and expanding the kinematic envelope available to the pilot. Most fighters, including the Su-57 and Eurofighter Typhoon, require afterburner to go supersonic and cannot sustain it.

The aircraft’s AN/APG-77 AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar operates in the X-band and can track dozens of targets simultaneously while maintaining a low probability of intercept — the radar itself is difficult for enemy systems to detect. Combined with the F-22’s stealth shaping, which reduces its radar cross-section to approximately that of a marble from head-on aspects, the aircraft is designed to see and kill adversaries before being detected itself.

Thrust-vectoring nozzles allow the F-22 to point its nose — and therefore its weapons — at targets regardless of its flight path, enabling it to maintain firing solutions during maneuvers that would cause a conventional fighter to lose its lock. In exercises, F-22 pilots routinely achieve exchange ratios of 10:1 or higher against non-stealth adversaries.

Production ended at 187 airframes in 2011 after Congress declined to fund additional aircraft, a decision the US Air Force has since described as a strategic mistake. A modernisation programme, Raptor Agility Programme, is underway to extend the aircraft’s service life beyond 2030.