The F-22 Raptor Is the Best Fighter on Earth. Period. End of Discussion.

Key Points: The F-22 Raptor remains the world’s premier air dominance fighter due to its unmatched aerial maneuverability, supercruise speeds, advanced stealth, and cutting-edge radar and sensor systems.

-Extensive upgrades, including the AIM-9X and AIM-120D missile enhancements and advanced AESA radar, ensure its relevance into the 2060s.

-Innovations such as the Freedom 550 radio have improved its connectivity with F-35s while preserving stealth.

-With doubts about the affordability of the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, the Air Force may increasingly rely on the upgraded F-22 to meet future air combat needs, positioning it as a cornerstone of U.S. air superiority.

F-22 Raptor Upgrades: Why This Fighter Remains Unmatched

Supercruise speed, unmatched aerial maneuverability, advanced stealth properties, the world’s best thrust-to-weight ratio, and a new generation of weapons, radar, communications systems, and sensors are a few of the many attributes associated with the well-known F-22 Raptor, a 5th generation aircraft the Air Force plans to fly into the 2060

The F-22 Raptor: More Upgrades and Enhancements

Many might wonder how a fighter jet that first took to the sky many years ago is still considered the pre-eminent air dominance platform in the world and expected to sustain its superiority for decades into the future.

Indeed continued global air dominance is not fully assured in a fast-changing threat environment. Yet, U.S. Air Force and Lockheed F-22 developers continue to engineer improvements and upgrades to the aircraft designed to enable its relevance and effectiveness moving into future decades.

With some structural maintenance and reinforcements as needed, the F-22 airframe themselves have remained viable, much like many legacy aircraft. At the same time, however, apart from its external configuration, today’s F-22 is an almost entirely new airplane due to a wide range of technological and performance enhancements.

F-22 Raptor as depicted on a Tweet from Lockheed Martin.

Many of the F-22’s core attributes have withstood the test of time, as its speed, stealth, and aerial maneuverability make it hard for even advanced modern air defenses to track; the F-22’s Supercruise ability enables the aircraft to maintain mach-speeds without needing an afterburner.

This extends engagement time, dwell time, and combat range, as the Raptor can sustain combat operations without burning as much fuel and needing to return.

The F-22 also demonstrated it could perform Close Air Support missions against ISIS and destroy ISIS targets in its first combat use.

F-22 Raptor Upgrades

Upgrades to the Raptor have been going on for years and arrived in successive waves.

Lockheed has embarked upon several efforts in recent years to maintain, reinforce, and upgrade the aircraft’s stealth coating.

Also, nearly 10 years ago, Lockheed and the Air Force implemented a massive, fleet-wide weapons-oriented software upgrade to the F-22 called 3.2b.  The 3.2b software effort greatly expanded the capabilities of the F-22’s AIM-9X and AIM 120D air-to-air missiles. Range, fire control, targeting precision, and anti-jam hardening were all among the vital software upgrades that massively improved the capabilities of the Raptor’s weapons. These upgrades have now been operational across the fleet for many years.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Paul Lopez, F-22 Demo Team commander, performers aerial maneuvers July 14, 2019, at the “Mission Over Malmstrom” open house event on Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The team flies at airshows around the globe, performing maneuvers that demonstrate the capabilities of the fifth-generation fighter aircraft. The two-day event, featured performances by aerial demonstration teams, flyovers, and static displays. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jacob M. Thompson)

The F-22 is well known for the famous phrase “first shot, first kill,” meaning its stealth and speed position it to deliver crippling, impactful first strikes as may be needed in a combat engagement.

Speed of deployment is also critical for the F-22, which is why the Air Force pioneered and maintained a “Rapid Raptor” program to ensure that the F-22 could arrive and attack any location worldwide in 24 hours. 

This was accomplished by ensuring that F-22s and their necessary supplies and maintainers were strategically positioned worldwide to ensure this 24-hour attack mission.

F-22 Sensors & Electronics

An F-22 pilot from Langley AFB in Virginia told me years ago that many regard the F-22 as an “aerial quarterback” given its ability to connect with and engage sensors, targeting detail and datalinks with multiple 4th-generation aircraft.

In more recent years, the F-22 Raptor has dramatically improved its ability to share data with the F-35 using two-way LINK 16 functionality. Previously, F-22-to-F-35 LINK 16 datalink connectivity was limited to one-way communication, something the Air Force has upgraded in recent years.

Furthermore, the F-22 has received a greatly enhanced AESA radar capable of tracking multiple targets and threat trajectories simultaneously.

IFG Family Photo, F-22, A/C 4009, LtCol Lee “Split” Bryant, F-35A, AF-3, Major Jonathan “Spades” Gilbert, F-16D, A/C 835, Major Charles Brantigan & Major Scott “Gins” Rinella, in formation over ISB, Tanker View, 15 May 2019

Also of great significance, F-22-to-F-35 connectivity has taken yet another leap forward by experimenting with a software-programmable radio from Northrop called the Freedom 550. This radio not only enables two-way data exchange between the 5th-generation fighters but also preserves the aircraft’s “stealth” properties by making the RF signal difficult to identify, jam, or intercept. This is highly significant as using any kind of detectable RF signature can enable an enemy to detect the aircraft’s location or even intercept the signal.

F-22 Raptor vs. NGAD

These variables raise an extremely significant and timely question quite relevant to the Air Force’s current 6th-gen predicament. In recent years, the service’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) 6th-gen stealth fighter has been regarded as a follow-on, more capable F-22 replacement or successor.

Now that the service’s 6th-gen aircraft is potentially being scaled back or re-evaluated, perhaps some Air Force weapons developers believe upgrades to the F-22 could obviate the need for an expensive, manned 6th-generation aircraft. Should this be the case, it would present a certain paradoxical irony, as the potential emergence of a 6th-gen aircraft was likely one key reason why the Air Force chose “not” to resurrect and restart an F-22 production line years ago.

Image: Creative Commons.

“Budget considerations” were stated at the time as the reason why the F-22 line was not restarted years ago when the need became clear for more Raptor fighter. Yet, one cannot help but wonder if early conceptual work regarding the promise of a 6th-gen F-22 replacement also influenced the decision.  Could it be that now, in part for budget reasons as well, the service is compromising leap-ahead 6th-generation breakthrough technology due to the promise of upgraded F-22s?

Into the Future

The answers to these questions linger in a mist of unclear or unknown variables to an extent. How are paradigm-changing new technologies in stealth fighter jet speed, maneuverability, stealth, sensing, computing, and weapons? Are they sufficient to justify an entirely new aircraft such as NGAD? Or could an extensively upgraded Raptor suffice and meet future requirements itself?

Although little is known about the primarily “black” NGAD program, judging from the external configurations of available industry renderings of NGAD, it would appear that new kinds of thrust, vectoring, aerial maneuverability, and stealth technology may have become possible. Not only this, breakthroughs in AI-enabled sensing, computer processing, and weapons integration might also bring paradigm-changing leaps ahead in performance out of reach for even a massively upgraded Raptor. 

If true, this would suggest that perhaps the Air Force is ill-advised to scale back NGAD massively.

About the Author: Kris Osborn

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel.