[Military Subplane] Author: Golden Bomber
The narrative that the F-22 fighter is already behind has been on the Internet for many years. However, as the world's first fifth-generation aircraft to enter service, the F-22 has a huge impact and has never been really abandoned by the US Air Force. One of the most typical things is that European countries and even Japan have asked the United States to buy F-22s before, but the answers they have received are all "absolutely not for sale". Recently, there has been new news about the F-22, and someone has captured a "Raptor" fighter jet testing two new pods that have never been seen before. One is the IRST (Infrared Search and Tracking System) pod, and the other is the stealth external fuel tank. This seems to indicate that the U.S. Air Force is dissatisfied with the performance of the F-22 fighter and wants to improve in both areas. But it is known that this external pod affects the stealth of the "Raptor". So the question is, is this a helpless improvement made by the U.S. Air Force to improve the performance and perfection of the F-22, or is there another plan behind it?
▲ The F-22 fighter plane photographed at the Mojave Air and Space Port, picture source: Internet
At the moment, the latest F-22 to be revealed is from the Mojave Air and Space Port. Although the picture is a little blurry, it is not difficult to see that it is equipped with 4 external components: including two invisible external fuel tanks under the main wing and two new IRST pods on the outermost side, all of which have been made stealthy. These two upgrades made by the US Air Force can be said to be completely expected.
First of all, the F-22, as the most famous "short-legged" fighter of the US military, has a low endurance. In the subsonic cruising state, its combat radius is only about 800 to 900 kilometers, which is comparable to the F-35B, which has the shortest legs in the F-35 series. At supersonic speeds, the F-22 has a combat radius of only 700 to 720 km, which is less than half that of the F-15C and even inferior to the F-4E.
▲The range of the F-22 fighter, picture source: Internet
The fuel tank tested by the F-22 fighter this time is called LDTP, that is, low-drag fuel tank and external pylon. The biggest difference between the LDTP and all the 600 (2270-liter) gallon fuel tanks tested by the F-22 is that it has a special form factor that minimizes the damage to the fighter's stealth performance. But to say that it doesn't matter at all is impossible. However, the LDTP can be completely discarded before entering the war zone, not only the fuel tank itself, but also the pylons can be thrown away at any time, and it is clear that the F-22 will not really enter the battlefield with these burdens. The advantage of LDTP is that it can be used longer than the previous fuel tanks that were not stealth, and the F-22 can be thrown away when it is completely empty, unlike other fuel tanks that must be discarded early to ensure stealth capability.
▲F-22 fighter, picture source: Internet
Another new pod tested by the F-22 is the IRST pod, which stands for Infrared Search and Tracking System, which is a reconnaissance device used to detect stealth fighters from a long distance. The general working principle of IRST is to detect the infrared signal of the high-temperature tail flame emitted by the fighter jet, or the infrared signal generated when the fuselage of the fighter jet rubs against the air flow at high speed in a high-speed maneuvering state. IRST is mainly based on detecting infrared signals, which is a kind of passive detection, so it does not need the fighter to turn on the airborne radar, because it is not easy to expose itself, so IRST has long become a long-range detection means integrated on a large number of modern fighters. But the F-22 was the first fighter to fly in 1997, and there was no integrated IRST at that time. To make matters worse, the F-22 is not designed to be modular at all, its software and hardware are all combined, which means that if it wants to upgrade its IRST capabilities, it will need to add hardware. However, there is no room for transformation inside the F-22 fuselage, and if you want to install IRST inside it, you have to undergo a major operation, so in the end, the US Air Force can only be forced to choose the plug-in method.
▲The IRST of the J-16 fighter, picture source: Internet
Unlike external fuel tanks, the F-22 is meant to bring the IRST pod into the battlefield, and it is unrealistic to abandon it directly, but their destruction of stealth is self-evident. In addition, the pod also has an impact on the maneuverability of the F-22. With such a burden, the F-22 will fight with the opponent in the air, and the "air superiority" attribute will be greatly reduced. After all, flying with these things for Mach 2 is a big problem with stability. In addition, as an auxiliary means of detecting stealth fighters, the IRST pod is still unknown at what distance it can detect potential adversaries of the United States. The United States has previously sold the IRST system to Taiwan, and it is estimated that the actual detection range of the system exported by Loma is only about 100 kilometers. How far the new IRST pod, which was tested on the F-22 fighter jet, can actually detect is still a mystery. If the F-22's detection capability cannot be substantially improved, it will be completely worth the loss.
▲F-22 fighter, picture source: Internet
In short, the U.S. Air Force's pod test of the F-22 fighter jet exposed this time makes people feel a little confused, but it is not difficult to understand after careful analysis. After all, the F-22 is no longer young. It began planning as early as around 1985, and by 1991 the YF-22 won the production contract. In 1997, the first production F-22 was born, and in 2005, the F-22 entered service. The F-22 is very significant, it was born differently from all the fighters in the world before that point in time, it is a new thing, an epoch-making product. For more than 20 years, the F-22 has been holding the word air superiority to the death, and the world's fighter jets that can meet the standards it has set are only in the single digits.
The F-15 was initially aimed at the Soviet MiG-25, and the United States at that time was really frightened by it. The Americans were worried that the next generation of Soviet fighters was coming soon, so in order to rush for time, the F-22 was developed. The F-22 was born to replace the F-15 and to win the air battle against the Soviet Air Force over Europe. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed as soon as it appeared. Originally, the U.S. Air Force planned to buy more than 800 F-22s, but in the end, driven by the "arrogant" mentality and the balance of monetary interests, only 186 were built. The F-22 is indeed powerful, but it is also very old, its life is broken, its functions are not perfect, and there are many shortcomings. The United States has allocated 11 billion to upgrade the F-22, but this money spent on it has not caused even a splash. Tens of billions is a pitiful amount for upgrading the F-22, and the money has not even entered the threshold for the F-22 avionics upgrade, so the voice about the retirement of the F-22 has been very loud.
▲F-22 fighter, picture source: Internet
But the F-22 is gone, who will fill this vacancy? Therefore, the F-22 cannot be decommissioned, but can only be continuously improved so that it can catch up with the current era as much as possible. Back to the tests of these two pods. In the eyes of many people, these two upgrades of the F-22 are simply the powerless, helpless, and forced actions of the F-22 of the US Air Force in the face of the current competition, but in fact, the truth is not entirely so. The test is just the test itself, we all know that the pod is very damaging to the stealth performance of the F-22, and it is impossible for the US Air Force not to know, so the F-22 in real combat state will most likely not carry the above two pods.
The real reason for the U.S. Air Force to test these two pods is likely to be to refine the F-22's capabilities while allowing it to act as an incubator for sixth-generation fighters. As previously analyzed by the American "War Zone" website, the key mission of the F-22 at the end of its career is to do technology incubation for the research and development of the sixth-generation aircraft NGAD. How much fuel will be needed for the future sixth-generation aircraft, how far the new IRST system will be able to find targets, and what kind of size will be able to cram into the sixth-generation fighter without affecting performance? So at present, the F-22 should play this role, and these tests are by no means meaningless. But what is certain is that the F-22 fighter will definitely not hang these pods for air combat.