At the end of the 20th century, he McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, the all weather jet fighter that was responsible for 36 of the aerial kills of Iraqi jets during Operation Desert Storm, will be 25 years old and ready to retired. Its replacement, and the cornerstone of the US air superiority in the dawn of the 21 century, will be the Lockheed F-22 Advanced Technology Fighter a pilot's dream with state of the art Stealth technology as well as super cruise. The ability to go supersonic without the use of an afterburner, thus making it less vulnerable to detection by enemy radar. The F-22 is being developed by Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics, with Pratt & Whitney supplying the power plant. During the fall of 1990, two F-22 prototypes flew 74 test sorties, logging nearly one hundred hours of flight time. In addition to super cruise and Stealth technology more advanced than that of the F-117, the plane has an integrated avionics "suite" with very high speed integrated circuit VHSIC technology and thrust vectoring propulsion that allows the engine exhaust to be aimed, thus providing highly improved maneuverability. The YF-22 also has significantly reduced takeoff and landing distances. After the YF-22 engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase, which in August 1991, and the successful flights of EMD aircraft in 1995, the Air Force plans to procure as many as 648 F-22s Initial operational capability is planned for the year 2002. 

Propulsion

Performance

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