The F-22 Raptor has been the unchallenged icon of American air supremacy for years—a sexy, stealthy jet designed to dominate the skies. Designed in the final years of the Cold War and introduced as the world’s first true fifth-generation fighter, it married unparalleled stealth, maneuverability, and brute combat capability. But time is finally catching up to it, and the Air Force is confronted with tough questions today about whether it should continue to upgrade it or start to let it go.
The Raptor’s largest challenge is that it is specialized. It was built to dominate air-to-air combat, not to be a versatile workhorse for all mission kinds. Its stealth design requires guns to be housed internally, which restricts payload capacity. If it hangs arms outside, it forfeits the very stealth capability that makes it so lethal. That constraint has resulted in the Air Force regularly relying on older fighter planes, such as the F-15, for missions demanding greater firepower or less attention to stealth.
It’s not easy to upgrade the Raptor, either. Its avionics are based on an old architecture, and unlike newer aircraft with modifiable systems, the hardware and software of the F-22 are hard and costly to make compatible with the latest technology. It’s also harder to maintain—its special stealth paints and expert composite panels are expensive and labor-intensive to fix.
Expense is a big reason for the effort to phase out some of the fleet. The Air Force has asked to retire 32 Block 20 Raptors—training aircraft with old sensors, weapons, and electronic warfare capabilities. To upgrade them to combat levels would cost nearly a decade and nearly $3.5 billion, which Lt. Gen. Richard Moore finds wasteful when the same could be spent on newer aircraft.
Phase them out and free up hundreds of millions of dollars a year, which could then be put into programs such as the F-35 or the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter of the future.
Not everyone is pleased with the plan. Members of Congress have asked why comparatively young airframes have to be junked, and have been urging studies to see what it would require to keep them in action. This split reflects a broader issue: the Air Force’s fighter force is smaller and older than ever before, and has raised questions about its preparedness for prolonged high-end combat.
Despite retirement rumors, the Raptor is not vanishing overnight. The Air Force has invested billions in the coming years to upgrade the Raptor to keep it current—upgrades such as increased range, more capable sensors, stealthy outside fuel tanks, improved electronic warfare equipment, and improved communications equipment. The hope is to make the F-22 deadly enough to serve as a holding action until its eventual replacement materializes.
That replacement will most likely be from the NGAD program, a line of systems based on a sixth-generation fighter. It’s seen to have much further range, better stealth, next-generation adaptive engines, and weapons that incorporate both conventional missiles and possibly directed energy systems.
There’s already a prototype that flew, and there are contracts pending on the aircraft and its engines. But its fate is uncertain. The estimated price—perhaps approaching $300 million per plane—has raised eyebrows even within the defense establishment.
For the time being, there isn’t a replacement for the Raptor. Should NGAD be delayed or experience cost overruns, the Air Force will be forced to continue operating enhanced F-22s with the F-15EX for years more than anticipated. Meanwhile, other countries are developing their stealth jets and long-range missiles and closing the technological edge that has long allowed the United States to dominate the skies.
The F-22 controversy isn’t so much whether a jet remains relevant—it’s a question of balancing today’s operational needs against the investment in tomorrow’s technologies. Whichever way it’s decided, it will determine the shape of American air power for generations to come.
