by Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
What are the fastest military planes in the world, those warbirds for whom breaking the sound barrier is just the starting point?
You’ll find fighters jocks are flying the fastest ones, which a couple of exceptions. Let’s look at five American fighters, two from Russia, one from China – and a couple of other jets that no one could possibly get close to.
Tops on the list is the F-15 Eagle, developed by McDonnell Douglas, which is now part of Boeing. The first F-15 flew in 1972, and since then, there have been a number of fighter and “Strike Eagle” versions. The latest fighter variant has a maximum speed of Mach 2.5 (1,650 miles per hour.) By some accounts, it’s the most successful modern fighter – the F-15 has more than 100 kills in aerial combat while suffering no losses.
The F-22 Raptor checks in right behind the F-15. The stealth fighter can hit Mach 2.25 (1,500 mph), and was a joint project between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Its powerful twin jets give it “supercruise” {supersonic capability) at a speed of Mach 1.5. Originally, the Air Force wanted to buy 750 Raptors to replace the F-15. But political opposition, largely due to the program’s high cost, resulted in only 195 being built.
Three other US fighters can hit Mach 2.0 or slightly below.
More than 4,600 F-16 Fighting Falcons have been built and are in service all over the world. The plane was built by General Dynamics from 1974 to 1993, and is now manufactured by Lockheed Martin. It has a maximum speed of Mach 2.0 (1,480 mph), and was the first fighter built to withstand 9-G maneuvers.
The F/A-18 Hornet was designed to be both a fighter and an attack plane, and can reach Mach 1.8 (1,190 mph). And the F-35 Lightning can hit Mach 1.6 (1,200 mph). There are three primary variants of the plane – the F-35A (conventional takeoff and landing), the F-35B (short takeoff and vertical-landing) and the F-35C, which flies from aircraft carriers.
What are the fastest fighters the American planes could come up against?
The Russian Su-27 Flanker is the only plane that comes really close to the F-15 in terms of speed, with a top speed of Mach 2.35 (1,550 mph). It was designed to be a direct competitor of the F-15 and to defend against the US B-52 and B-1 long-range bombers. The Su-27 first flew in 1977.
China licensed the design to build the Shenyang J-11, which is believed to have a similar top speed.
Meanwhile, Russia’s MiG-29, which was developed at roughly the same time as the Flanker, can fly as fast as Mach 2.25 – faster than the F-16, not quite as fast as the F-15.
Two other American planes are worth noting, even though they aren’t designed for combat.
The venerable Lockheed Sr-71 Blackbird reconnaissance is the fastest non-experimental plane in history. It had a top speed of Mach 3.3 (2,193 mph), was one of the first planes with stealth capability and conducted top-secret missions for the Air Force for more than three decades before being retired in 1998. The Blackbird could reach altitudes of up to 85,000 feet.
And then there’s NASA’s X-43 – no plane has ever come close to its mind-blowing top speed of Mach 9.6 (7,366 mph). The plane was built to explore the capabilities of “scramjets” – the supersonic combustion ramjets. Those engines have no moving parts and use high vehicle speed to compress incoming air before combustion.
