In 2021, then-US Air Force (USAF) Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown stated he was planning to winnow down the Air Force’s fighter inventory from seven fighter types to four. The fact that the USAF was trying to reduce the number of different models in service was not surprising. The more aircraft fleets in service, the larger the logistics footprint. And that footprint expands geometrically in cost the larger it becomes.
Given how much of a priority it was at the beginning of its introduction into service, it was surprising that the F-22 Raptor was not on Brown’s shortlist to be one of those four to remain in service.
There are 186 F-22s, which a USAF spokeswoman described as “a very small fleet” in 2021, which would become increasingly hard to support. That support burden would become a more pronounced problem as the aircraft celebrates its 25-year age milestone in 2030.
She said the F-22 would “eventually” retire from the inventory, noting the Raptor’s likely successor will be the 6th-generation fighter, the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), now designated the F-47, and to be built by Boeing.
F-22 Raptor: From Glide Path to Retirement to Highest Priority
Times change. By 2023, the Air Force seemed to be still following Brown’s plan for phasing out the F-22 beginning in 2030. The service was already proposing to cut 32 early model Block 20 F-22s from the Raptor’s inventory of 186.
Then, in March 2024, the fighter was suddenly described as the USAF’s “highest priority.”
At a McAleese Defense Programs conference in Washington DC, Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said, “F-22 is a critical capability. So, what’s my highest priority in the near term for that great power competition [with China]? I’d probably put F-22 at the top.”
Hunter’s remarks appeared to put the Raptor on the road to a new future in which it would be part and parcel of the USAF’s fighter force for an indeterminate number of years.
At the same event, then-USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin commented on the idea of upgrading older F-22s, saying, “We’re looking to be able to take those that are the most combat-capable, keep them in the fight, and then leverage some of the resources for those that are going to be cost prohibitive and time prohibitive.”
In The NGAD F-47 Fighter Generation
Then, in January of this year, Lockheed Martin (LM), the F-22’s contractor, received a $270 million US Air Force contract to integrate the Infrared Defensive System (IRDS) into the company’s fifth-generation F-22 Raptor fighter.
The company said the IRDS was equipped with “newly developed” tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking sensors “to enhance aircraft survivability and lethality.”
“In addition to managing integration of IRDS on the F-22, the company will also support integration on other platforms,” said an LM representative.
This was not the only major upgrade budgeted for the aircraft. In August 2024, the Air Force awarded RTX a five-year contract worth more than $1 billion to upgrade the F-22’s sensors.
The USAF now plans to retire 32 of the Block 20 F-22s but is also initiating a larger upgrade program for the remaining 154. These aircraft will receive new cryptography, an expanded open architecture infrastructure for their onboard systems, new weapons, the infrared search and track sensor, and a “Project Keystone” effort to install an advanced threat warning receiver.
The program will cost over $4.3 billion between fiscal years 2023 and 2029.
Why the back-and-forth on whether to retire the F-22 and how many and when? Most air power analysts chalk it up to the uncertainty that has been the hallmark of the F-47 NGAD program in recent years.
Until US President Donald Trump announced the program was moving forward and that Boeing would receive $20 billion for the EMD phase, the issue of whether there would be an NGAD and when had been a big question mark.
“The USAF would be reluctant to sign up to a definite date to retire the F-22 until there was a suitable replacement in the works,” said a senior retired USAF office now consulting for the US defense industry.
Previous USAF Secretary Frank Kendall did not even include the NGAF in the 2026 budget request sent to then-President Joe Biden last year. He recently explained that there was “no place left to trade off, within the Air Force budget, to fund it.”
Trump’s announcement “moved the needle,” said a Pentagon official speaking on the subject of long-range airpower planning.
Kendall has said recently since departing the USAF Secretary’s chair that the aircraft will cost more than twice the price” of the F-35, which prices out at around $90 million per copy.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments, and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
