Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is an American twin-engine, all-weather, supersonic stealth fighter aircraft.As a product of the United States Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the aircraft was designed as an air superiority fighter, but also incorporates ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence capabilities.
The production engines were fitted on the production F-22, and were first flown on the F-22's maiden flight on 7 September 1997. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] A total of 507 engines were produced. [ 10 ] The F119 Heavy Maintenance Center (HMC) for depot overhaul is located at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, with the first overall completed in 2013.
The last of 3,620 F-16s was built there in late 2017 after more than 39 years and then production moved to another factory in Greenville, South Carolina. In March 1992 Lockheed began to produce F-22 Raptor aircraft components at the facility. Additionally, the plant produces spare aircraft parts, radar units, and missile components.
Stealth aircraft will continue to play a valuable role in air combat with the United States using the F-22 Raptor, B-2 Spirit, and the F-35 Lightning II to perform a variety of operations. The F-22 made its combat debut over Syria in September 2014 as part of the US-led coalition to defeat ISIS. [49]
Flight testing for the F-22 continued until 2005, and on 15 December 2005 the USAF announced that the Raptor had reached its initial operational capability (IOC); with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Department of Defense focused on counterinsurgency at that time, F-22 production only reached 195 aircraft and ended in 2011. [67] [68]
In order to fly the F-22, Larson said he had to go through basic pilot training, consisting of 55 weeks of flying in trainer aircraft like the T-6 Texan II and a T-38 Talon.
This led to the Request for Information for the Advanced Tactical Fighter project in May 1981, which resulted in the F-22. [38] Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II. The USMC is leveraging the USAF's experience with "fifth-generation air warfare" in the F-22, as they develop their own tactics for the F-35. [39] According to Lockheed Martin in ...
In the US Air Force the naming convention for fighter aircraft is a prefix "F-", followed by a number, ground attack aircraft are prefixed with “A-” and bombers with “B-”. Fighter aircraft from the second world war onwards are sorted into generations , from 1 to 5, based on technological level.