F-22 Chrome paint jobs

A second “Chrome” F-22 has been spotted at Nellis Air Force Base operating alongside other aircraft taking part in Red Flag exercise.
As we have reported in detail last year, there’s a sort of mysterious F-22 Raptor flying over Nevada since November. First caught on camera on Nov. 19, 2021, the unmarked stealth aircraft sports a peculiar “mirror-like” coating, never seen before on a Raptor. The reflective metallic coating covers most of the outer “skin” of the aircraft leaving very evident panel lines, including some saw tooth ones above and on the sides of the fuselage (typical of stealth aircraft), as well as some unusual curvilinear ones (on the wings in the flaps area).

https://theaviationist.com/2022/03/19/s ... 22-raptor/

Shot in the dark here...

Testing new material for NGAD maybe? The F-22 has a flight envelope that few if any modern aircraft can come close to. Are they testing these materials at extreme end of the F-22's flight envelop?

My guess is that it has to do with lazzors!

https://youtu.be/cvkDcrbLP2s

Look At The Second ‘Chrome’ F-22 Raptor
March 20 2022

Nicknamed “Disco” or “Symbiote” F-22, the new Raptor with a reflective coating has been one of the highlights for the photographers gathered outside Nellis Air Force Base for Red Flag 22-2.
A second F-22 with a mirror-like coating has been spotted flying out of Nellis AFB, Nevada. As already explained, the new coating on this second stealth aircraft appears to be much different than the one on the Raptor [IDed as airframe #04-4065] that made its first appearance in November 2021: it features smaller, mirror-like tiles applied on the nose section, weapons bay doors, fuselage and also inner and outer face of the twin tails.

https://theaviationist.com/2022/03/20/s ... new-shots/

The "Symbiote" F-22 launching from Nellis AFB. (Image credit: Max Bradley)

Pretty bird. I'd love to fly right beside it and check it out...if he'll let me. LOL

It almost looks like the metal finish on old Mig-21's back in the day. Pretty bird, really is.

I wonder how they're looking at the tradeoffs... It's visual signature must have jumped considerably, yet its IR and possibly even RCS sig is likely lower. I don't know if there's such thing as a "laser signature". Anything's possible, including the possible emergence of a Chinese/Russian laser weapon - and this is the best defense.

It could also be disinformation, but if so it looks like a pricey head fake....

Some more recent shots taken near Nellis

This sounds like a reasonable possibility. Would have been nice if the article linked the original document...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f ... ghter-tech

The Pentagon's Fiscal Year 2023 budget request documents provide interesting details that may help add a bit of explanation to the sudden jump in unignorable testing of new features on the F-22 Raptor, all of which The War Zone was first to report on. The documents describe how the F-22 is being used as something of a test surrogate for technologies that are being developed under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, as well as adopting technologies that have been designed for NGAD, but can be fielded early on the F-22 to meet emerging threats.
***
Technology maturation, risk reduction, studies, demonstrations and prototypes of classified F-22 development efforts. The F-22 Advanced Technology Development (ATD) program is conducted using a rapid acquisition construct leveraging commercial best practices such as agile and lean. This allows the F-22 Raptor enterprise to develop, test, and field software/hardware from multiple programs (product lines) using a scheduled cadence for capabilities as they mature.
***
This is quite telling as, according to our abbreviated review, no other aircraft section in the budget, including the F-35's, had any language of this nature. It also may comport with some of the highly peculiar modifications we have seen in recent months on test and tactics development-oriented F-22s. These include now no less than three types of exotic metallic-like coatings that are thought to work to reduce the F-22's signature, specifically in the infrared spectrum, while having a low negative impact or even shrinking the jet's notoriously small radar signature. It's also worth noting we have seen these types of coatings on F-117s and even a Navy F-35 in recent months, as well, but the F-22 seems to be really pushing the capability into the operational test environment and some of the coatings are remarkably intricate mosaic-like arrangements

The F-22 lives and fights at some extreme flight profiles/envelopes few if any aircraft can come close to. What better way to test the durability of such new materials then putting it on the Raptor.

IF the Raptor can get some technology transfer from the NGAD, this could mean the F-22 could possibly be operational longer than expected. Who knows...

The bank shot with the black tiles is mine. I was fairly close and can tell you they are weird looking coatings from different angles. Don't seem to mind the limelight either

I was at Nellis AFB for a few days back in October and was lucky enough to catch one of these weird machines.

F-22A Raptor 04-4065 by Andrew Evans, on Flickr

F-22A Raptor 04-4065 by Andrew Evans, on Flickr

F-22A Raptor 04-4065 by Andrew Evans, on Flickr

Ghad she is beautiful!!

Im just waiting for some bored pilot and his ground crew to tell them to paint it like Starscream. At any rate it is interesting to see this new material showing up and being tested on stealth aircraft like F-35...

I think they're even testing this new stuff on the F-117.