Upgraded F-22 To Live & Fly Into 2060s

By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior Maven

(Washington, DC) Supercruise speed, unmatched aerial maneuverability, advanced stealth properties, the world’s best thrust-to-weight ratio, and a new generation of weapons, radar, communications systems, and sensors are a few of the many attributes associated with the well-known F-22 Raptor, a 5th generation aircraft the Air Force plans to fly into the 2060

The F-22 Raptor: More Upgrades and Enhancements

Many might wonder how a fighter jet that first took to the sky many years ago is still considered the pre-eminent air dominance platform in the world and expected to sustain its superiority for decades into the future.

Indeed continued global air dominance is not fully assured in a fast-changing threat environment. Yet, U.S. Air Force and Lockheed F-22 developers continue to engineer improvements and upgrades to the aircraft designed to enable its relevance and effectiveness moving into future decades.

With some structural maintenance and reinforcements as needed, the F-22 airframe themselves have remained viable, much like many legacy aircraft. At the same time, however, apart from its external configuration, today’s F-22 is an almost entirely new airplane due to a wide range of technological and performance enhancements.

F-22 Raptor as depicted on a Tweet from Lockheed Martin.

Many of the F-22’s core attributes have withstood the test of time, as its speed, stealth, and aerial maneuverability make it hard for even advanced modern air defenses to track; the F-22’s Supercruise ability enables the aircraft to maintain mach-speeds without needing an afterburner.

This extends engagement time, dwell time, and combat range, as the Raptor can sustain combat operations without burning as much fuel and needing to return.

F-22 Raptor Upgrades

Upgrades to the Raptor have been going on for years and arrived in successive waves.