On September 7, 1997, at the Dobbins Air Force Reserve Base in Mareta, Georgia, USA, an F-22 "Raptor" fighter numbered 4001 roared into the blue sky and made its first flight in the air for 58 minutes, marking the arrival of the era of the fourth-generation stealth fighter.
The F-22 is the U.S. Air Force's fourth-generation air superiority fighter jet, which entered service in 2005 and is expected to remain a world leader for years to come. According to the U.S. Air Force's strategic thinking of "global reach, global engagement" and the "stealth, long-range, general-purpose, and accurate" weapons and equipment development policy, the F-22 fighter can be quickly deployed to any hot spot on the planet and dominate the air combat superiority in the region. The aircraft brings together the latest research results in stealth, avionics, aerodynamics, materials, engines, thrust vector control, and advanced weapons. It has the ability to "detect the enemy first, fire the enemy first, and annihilate the enemy first". The main performance characteristics of the aircraft are: the ability to preemptively strike in all environments. The F-22 fighter is a highly information-based weapon system. It is equipped with integrated avionics, two integrated common processing machines composed of four "Cray" supercomputers, and adopts a fleet networking information system, an in-flight/intra-network flight data link, an AN/APG-77 active electronic scanning fire control radar system, and a ring laser gyroscope, which enables the machine to share information about the availability of on-board weapons, fuel conditions, and enemy situations with other "silent" (radar not on) aircraft. Its radar adopts an active antenna aperture and an insect compound eye array, which not only has multi-target scanning and tracking, multi-missile guidance and all-weather long-range combat capabilities, but also does not damage the stealth characteristics of the aircraft. The cockpit is like a computer workstation, and the combination of advanced avionics system and sensing system enables the pilot to perceive the battlefield situation before the aircraft is detected by enemy aircraft, and can find, track, and calibrate targets, and fire before the enemy fires and destroys enemy aircraft. In this way, the purpose of "discovering the enemy first, firing the enemy first, and annihilating the enemy before the enemy" can be achieved in the whole combat environment.
Full-spectrum stealth features. The F-22 has very good radar, infrared, visible and acoustic stealth characteristics. In terms of radar stealth, in order to reduce the detectability, previous generations of stealth aircraft did not hesitate to adopt bizarre shapes like the F-117 and B-2, sacrificing aerodynamic performance. The F-22 fighter is different, it adopts the fourth-generation stealth technology, the design adopts a blister-shaped cockpit, a transverse offset air intake, a cambered double vertical tail, an in-flight conformal weapon compartment, and an antenna is hidden in the aircraft structure; the whole aircraft is smooth and streamlined, especially the use of active stealth technology, its radar reflection cross-sectional area is only 0.065 square meters, which is 1% of the F-15. Its stealth, agile aerodynamics, and integrated avionics make the F-22 a high-speed aircraft that is difficult to detect, greatly improving survivability. Supersonic cruise capability. The F-22 fighter jet is powered by Pratt & Whitney's F119 engine, which allows it to fly at up to 1.6 times the speed of sound without afterburner. The engine has a single thrust of 15,800 kN, and its core engine has excellent work efficiency and a substantial increase in turbine-temperature, so that the engine has supersonic cruise capability, so that the F-22 has greatly extended the flight speed and range range compared with the current fighter. And in order for an active fighter to achieve such a flight state, afterburner must be used. The F-22 has a maximum flight speed of Mach 2.5 and a combat radius of 1450 km. The range is twice as large as that of the F-15. The combination of stealth and supersonic cruising not only gives the F-22 excellent survivability, but also enhances its surprise attack advantage in tactical operations. Over-stall maneuverability. The F-22 fighter attaches great importance to aerodynamic characteristics in the process of model pre-research, design, test demonstration and verification, and its exquisite aerodynamic design, integrated avionics, large thrust-to-weight ratio engine and thrust vector control technology make the aircraft have higher maneuverability than similar fighters in service in various countries around the world. In particular, it has the ability to maneuver at overstall and supersonic speed. It has incomparable advantages in combat radius, climb rate, turning radius and acceleration performance.
The usable angle of attack of the aircraft is up to 50°~60°, and its roll speed is 30° per second, and the nose heading can be changed by almost 90°. Its high maneuverability will make it a "Bird of Prey" to escort deep strike bombers. Precision engagement capability. The F-22 achieves an optimal combination of stealth and on-board weapons. As an air superiority fighter, it can be equipped with AIM-120C medium- and long-range air-to-air missiles (up to six), AIM-9X close-range combat missiles, and a 20mm rapid-fire cannon on board. As a ground attack aircraft, it can also carry two GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) weighing 454 kg and other ground attack weapons, in addition to other new weapons in the future. The combination of stealth, supersonic cruise control, integrated avionics and precision-guided weapons gives the aircraft the ability to accurately attack air and ground targets. In the future, it may also seize air superiority entirely using the means of information warfare.
High reliability and maintainability. In the development of the F-22 fighter, high reliability and low maintenance were taken as one of the design goals. It is required that in a given time period, it will fly twice as many sorties as a fighter of its class, while the number of direct maintenance personnel per flight hour will be halved, and the time for the aircraft to take off again will be reduced by 1/3. The aircraft is designed to have a service life of 8000 flight hours, and all its main structural components are replaceable without affecting its stealth characteristics. The engine parts are 40% smaller than those of the same type, easy to maintain, and the time to exchange for any part is no more than 20 minutes. This feature will help enhance the flexibility of operations and reduce the life-cycle cost of weapon systems.