From the inception of the battle, the Raptor will clear the skies of adversary aircraft, using its stealth, integrated avionics, supercruise and other revolutionary features to make it more than 100 percent more effective than any fighter currently in the Air Force arsenal.
The F-22 will be in service for more than 25 years, or more than 40 years from the time when the demonstration/validation contract for the "Advanced Tactical Fighter" was awarded in 1986.
Planning for the future
It would have been ludicrous in 1945 to argue that the P-51 was the only fighter the United States would need for the next 25 years – but in 1945, few people could imagine just how far the science of flight would progress.
Yet the aircraft designer of today is being asked to make a similar leap.
Projecting that far into the future is challenging: Just compare the best U.S. air dominance fighter of 1940 – the P-51 – with the F-4, a quarter of a century later. During those 25 years, speeds had quadrupled and weapons and sensors were unlike anything available to the World War II pilot.
Three guidelines
As it was being designed, the needs of the future were kept in mind.
The F-22 team established three basic guidelines for a fighter whose service would extend more than a quarter of the way into the next century. Rather than taking a "brute force approach" as had been traditionally done ("bigger, better, faster"), the guidelines blazed a new path, focusing on the exploitation of information, the denial of information to the enemy, and overwhelming lethality.
And things will never be the same again.
One of the primary functions of the F-22 is to gather information from many sources and process that information into a simple, intuitive picture of the tactical situation for the pilot. While this revolution is not as visual as the jump from propeller to jet, it is just as profound. The explosion of computer capability now turns warfare into a war of information resources and management.
This takes the F-22 a quantum leap beyond the capabilities of current weapons. All aircraft that comes after will follow the new path or be hopelessly outclassed.
The effects of downsizing
Another reality that had to be faced during development was the reduction of defense budgets and manufacture of fewer fighters in the future. Upgrade-ability, cost and the corporate teaming became factors far more important than in the past.
The F-22's airframe and avionics architecture is specifically designed to provide its advanced capabilities without locking the design into any particular use of equipment or configuration available today.
In addition, the F-22 was developed with reduced support requirements and maintenance costs.
A lethal weapon
Because fewer numbers of fighters are to be built, they must be overwhelmingly lethal. This level of dominance was hinted at during Operation Desert Storm where fewer aircraft, using precision munitions, accomplished greater destruction of military targets in a shorter period than in previous American wars.
Thus, fewer aircraft have a far greater impact in an air battle. The goal is simply "first look/first shot/first kill" in all environments. The F-22 possesses a sophisticated sensor suite that allows the pilot to track, identify and shoot the threat before it detects the F-22.
And with American lives at risk, there is no interest in the concept of a "fair fight." The United States must win quickly, decisively and with minimal casualties.
Information from the web sites of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney were used in this story.