F-22 Database and photo thread

TY 084 & 093 over the skies of Hawaii in December 2019 Pacific Air Chiefs Symposium.


HH 052. Shaka!

The more I look at F-22 the more I'm disappointed by how "boring" it looks. It's not bad but the appearance is so conventional.

How time flies. The F-22 is 22 years old counting from its first flight...

The more I look at F-22 the more I'm disappointed by how "boring" it looks. It's not bad but the appearance is so conventional.

Maybe one of the reasons why this stealthy F-15 was chosen over the more futuristic looking YF-23.

It always irks me when someone calls an F-22 a stealthy F-15. Sure the F-22 is a two engine twin tail single pilot fighter jet, yet the F-22 has as much in common with the F-15 as the F-35 has with an F-16. Btw, it could also be said that the F-35 is also very conventional looking as well and thus being boring in its appearance.

How time flies. The F-22 is 22 years old counting from its first flight...

After 22 years and only in recent years has their been any real competition to rival it.

How time flies. The F-22 is 22 years old counting from its first flight...

After 22 years and only in recent years has their been any real competition to rival it.

Very true. It seems like US lead in military aircraft and their technology is getting bigger all the time. F-14 and F-15 became operational in mid-1970s and it took over 10 years before Su-27 became operational with roughly similar capabilties as F-15A had. Before that it was not as clear lead although F-4 was in many ways superior to contemporaries and became operational well before MiG-23 and Saab Viggen for example.

It always irks me when someone calls an F-22 a stealthy F-15. Sure the F-22 is a two engine twin tail single pilot fighter jet, yet the F-22 has as much in common with the F-15 as the F-35 has with an F-16. Btw, it could also be said that the F-35 is also very conventional looking as well and thus being boring in its appearance.

I never said F-22 didn't have great performance. Just that the appearance is boring. But in the end the conventional look of F-22 also means it loses out to Northrop's F-23 design in some ways in stealth, like having additional corner reflector in the rear between the vertical and horizontal stabs. That's just physics.

Frankly F-23 would be better suited for how Raptors are actually used with focus on supercruise, range, and stealth.

It always irks me when someone calls an F-22 a stealthy F-15. Sure the F-22 is a two engine twin tail single pilot fighter jet, yet the F-22 has as much in common with the F-15 as the F-35 has with an F-16. Btw, it could also be said that the F-35 is also very conventional looking as well and thus being boring in its appearance.

From some angles and with the blended wing/body and short swept wings and similar dimensions the F-35 does look like a stealthy fat F-16 to me but maybe it's all subjectively only in the eye of the beholder and certainly nothing to stress over .

How time flies. The F-22 is 22 years old counting from its first flight...

After 22 years and only in recent years has their been any real competition to rival it.

Still looks fantastic to me, albeit I'll concede moreso from certain angles vs. others. Head on and from the back... downright sinister looking IMO. From the side it looks much more conventional. The top and bottom views are absolutely gorgeous IMO. Love the shape of the production F-22's wing, and the perfectly smooth/buttoned up underside just screams of spit and polish.

The vertical tails are its most damning feature (aesthetically). But they're a huge part of its ability to pull off maneuvers no other jet can, and at least they're not as big as the prototypes. The air intakes look rather uninspiring, but again contribute to its overall stealthiness in a huge way.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... except in the case of the X-32. I don't know that even the engineer that came up with that shape could look at it and say, "wow, it's beautiful", LOL

I think the wing of the X-32 was a thing of beauty, but only the wing.

The original BA concept looked like this. As it had to meet three service requirements, it suffered; internal weapons, resized LPC etc.

The original BA concept looked like this. As it had to meet three service requirements, it suffered; internal weapons, resized LPC etc.

I love it.

The original BA concept looked like this. As it had to meet three service requirements, it suffered; internal weapons, resized LPC etc.

I love it.

How did something that started off like that, wind up looking like the X-32? The production F-32 looked a lot better too, yet this X-32 ugly duckling was what the DoD was looking at when making their final decision. Wow. All I can say is the engineers working on the X-32 should have known.... meeting specs or not, that thing wasn't going to go over well.

Does anyone know where the X-32 demonstrator(s) are today, such that I never make the mistake of having to see it "in person"?

“How did something that started off like that, wind up looking like the X-32?“

Already answered, to wit — “...three service requirements.”

More internal weapons carriage equals more empty spaces which equals more weight. More weight equals more vertical propulsion/thrust which, for a direct lift system, means resized low pressure compressor (LPC) which adds weight which means...the viscous cycle begins. IIRC it also had some issues w directional stability.