Will Any Plane Ever Come Close to Beating the F-22 Raptor? |
The F-22 Raptor remains the most dominant air-to-air fighter ever built. That’s what she was built for, after all: to dominate the air, to serve as a pure air superiority platform. No airframe has ever integrated stealth, super cruise, extreme maneuverability, long-range sensors, and advanced avionics so successfully into a single platform. The result is the F-22—an aircraft a full generation ahead of its time, unrivaled in aerial combat.
Towards the end of the Cold War, as the Soviets unveiled intimidatingly capable fighters like the MiG-29 and Su-27, US war planners dreamed up a counterweight—a platform that would control the skies anywhere, no matter which Soviet aircraft was operating nearby.
The F-22 was the first true stealth air superiority fighter. Internal weapons bays reduce the radar cross-section (RCS) while a sculpted airframe and RAM coatings, designed specifically for front-aspect invisibility,........