Previously, we often said that the American F-22 was seriously lagging behind the J-20 and F-35 in terms of situational awareness because of the long production years and the lack of infrared search and tracking systems, distributed aperture systems and helmet display systems. Considering that the design concept of the F-22 is to adapt to the needs of air combat in the European theater, it is also a rare short-legged heavy fighter, whose combat radius is insufficient and cannot adapt to the combat environment in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, the F-22 is still a fighter with excellent stealth performance and flight performance, which is far a notch higher than the F-35. Considering that the United States is far away from developing the next-generation fighter NGAD, how to continue to improve the F-22 has become a priority goal for the US military?
Speaking of the improvement of the F-22, it is necessary to mention the air combat style of the stealth fighter: covert engagement and first fire of the enemy in the silent state of the radar are very important. This requires the F-22 to make up for the shortcomings of the infrared search and tracking system, and it is best to have a distributed aperture system, which can increase the combat radius is more perfect. Now the US military's refinement of the F-22 has finally come up with a solution: a pod equipped with stealth external fuel tanks and an infrared search tracker under the wings. The U.S. candid photographers photographed an F-22 taking off from Edwards Air Force Base in the air, carrying a very obvious modification of the auxiliary fuel tank and infrared pod to reduce the cross-sectional area of radar reflection. The wishful thinking of the Americans was to provide the F-22 with a stealth-treated auxiliary fuel tank that could be carried in the event of an engagement, which was used to provide a combat radius. Then, the infrared search and tracking system is used to increase its passive detection ability in the silent state of the radar. The U.S. military's assessment reports that even one fighter carrying IRST in one of the four F-22 squadrons would provide an incredible increase in situational awareness. If the four F-22s cooperate to provide a large-area search, it can solve the shortcomings of its backward situational awareness to a large extent.
One improvement that the F-22 has also made is to equip it with mirrored surfaces, an upgrade that is said to be associated with improved optical stealth. Let's return to the topic this time: Can these two improvements of the F-22 solve the shortcomings between it and the J-20? The answer is that it can make up for certain shortcomings, but it cannot fundamentally solve the problem. First, even if the F-22 obtains an infrared search and tracking system, because the pod is mounted, it can avoid increasing the flight resistance of the fighter and greatly destroying its stealth performance. We must realize that even the pod that has undergone stealth modification will obviously destroy its stealth performance, otherwise China would have developed a stealth pod for the J-20 a long time ago; second, the F-22 is not enough to have an infrared search and tracking system, because it cannot be equipped with a distributed aperture system, and it cannot solve the problem of situational awareness within a 360-degree range, which is still not enough in a high-end war environment. You can understand it this way, the F-22 has obtained the forward passive detection capability, but it cannot perceive the risk of approaching in other directions; third, the stealth treatment of the auxiliary fuel tank is also a chicken rib, not only increases the drag, destroys the stealth performance of the fighter, if it is thrown away before the start of the air battle, it is a bit expensive, if not thrown away, it will also greatly affect the maneuverability of the F22.
It can be seen that the F-22 has indeed solved some of the problems of coping with high-end warfare after such improvements, but it will bring new problems. If the United States ultimately chooses to promote such a program, it is more likely to assess the benefits than the disadvantages, which is worth our vigilance. However, to say that the F-22 can fully make up for its technical shortcomings by tinkering with it is disrespectful to technology. The reason is simple, if this scheme is feasible, the J-20 and F-35 will not go far to integrate these functions into the airframe. Therefore, the F-22 is completely on the basis of destroying stealth performance and flight performance, and it is really difficult to pursue making up for shortcomings.