Lockheed Martin's F-22 represents the greatest advance in fighter capability in the past 50 years. Its highlight list starts with the biggest increase in sustained speed since the advent of the jet--the F-22 can fly most of its missions at supersonic speeds, which other fighters attain only in short sprints with the fuel-thirsty afterburners. And particularly when moving at those high speeds, the F-22 will equal and probably surpass the agility of any other fighter. The aircraft is also stealthy from all directions, against both radar and infrared systems. Last, its onboard systems and computer and cockpit displays are a generation ahead of anything else in the world.
The F-22 has a triangular wing, blended into the broad, flat body. That keeps drag down to a minimum and provides immense internal space--enough for 11 tons of fuel, or twice as much as an F-15 carries, which it will replace. The blended shape makes room for cavernous weapon bays for 6 radar-guided AM-RAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to Air Missles) and 2 heat seeking AIM-9x sidewinders. Alternatively, the bays under the fuselage can hold a 1,000 pound precision-guided bomb in place of two of the AM-RAAMs.
The F-22 will be more agile than today's fighters. For example, the F-15 and F-16 can go out of control if the pilot tries to roll the aircraft when it is flying at a nose-high angle. So the onboard computers impose increasingly tighter limits on the rate of roll as the speed drops, and eventually prevent those aircraft from rolling at all. But in tests of the YF-22, Lockheed pilots pulled the nose up to 60 degrees and could still perform a 360-degree roll--a very quick way of pointing the nose and missles at an enemy in combat.
The F-22 can move so fast that the pilot's side stick has a soft stop when it is pulled aft. The pilot has to pull the stick through the stop to obtain full control power. With such power and speed available to pilots, control mistakes could be costly. So the F-22's computer system provides a safety cushion for the pilot's "carefree abandon."
The F-22's stealth technology is evolved from the F-117's. For stealth, the F-22 shares the F-117's flattened sides and sharp "chine" around the middle of the forward fuselage. But most of the F-117's sharp-edged facets have been blended into curves on the F-22. Unlike the F-117, the F-22 is not "candy coated"--that is, covered with a radar-absorbant material. Instead, designers applied the material to radar hot spots such as the chine line, the edges of the wing and tail, and the snaking ducts that feed air to the engines.
More than 40% of the airframe is titanium, which is strong but less expensive. The largest parts in the F-22 are five huge titanium bulkheads in the mid-body, which carry the wing loads--the biggest of them, measuring 12 feet across and 6 feet from top to bottom, is made from a three-ton titanium forging.
Advanced as it is, the F-22 has been designed so that it will now need less maintenence than other fighters. For example, on a 30-day overseas deployment, 24 F-22s should need half as many maintenence workers as would the same number of F-15s. The F-22s will also require just eight, instead of 18, plane-loads of diagnostic and servicing equipment.
Two factors support the need for a fighter that outclasses new-aircraft threats, rather than matching them, as, say, a new improved F-15 might. First, U.S. and allied forces are likely to be outnumbered in the early stages of a conflict. Second, the U.S. public and political leaders expect quick succes and minimal losses--and the F-22's Bambi-meets-Godzilla ascendancy over any current or planned fighter can prove just that. Brig. General James Fain has these words on the F-22, "The idea is to be back in the bar drinking a beer before the other guy knows what hit him!"
