Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

Updated: October 2026 – A dark gray jet pulls up almost vertically, seems to hang in the air and then rotates around its own axis while the flat nozzles at the tail visibly swivel up and down: that is the F-22 Raptor. It is the US Air Force’s air superiority fighter, the first operational stealth combat aircraft in this role and, for European spotters, one of the rarest sightings of all. Here you learn how the Raptor came about, what defines its technology, how to recognize it instantly and when it ever shows up over Europe at all.

What is the F-22 Raptor?

The F-22 is a single-seat, twin-engine fighter that combines three qualities in one aircraft: a shape that is hard for radar to detect, supersonic flight without afterburner and extreme agility thanks to thrust vectoring. Its main job is to control the airspace. It can also drop precision bombs from its internal bays.

Its story begins in 1981 with the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF), a US Air Force program for a successor to the F-15 Eagle. In October 1986, two teams reached the final round: Lockheed with Boeing and General Dynamics on one side, Northrop with McDonnell Douglas on the other. Both built prototypes. The YF-22 first flew on September 29, 1990, and on April 23, 1991, the Air Force announced that the Lockheed team had won. Pratt & Whitney also prevailed on the engine with what became the F119.

The work was divided up: Lockheed built the forward fuselage and the control surfaces, the center fuselage came from Fort Worth, and Boeing contributed wings, aft fuselage and avionics integration. Final assembly took place in Marietta in the US state of Georgia. On September 7, 1997, the first F-22 took off there for its first flight. In December 2005, the Air Force declared the Raptor operational, first with the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley, Virginia. More on the group behind it is on the page for Lockheed Martin.

Why there are only 195 Raptors

Originally the Air Force wanted around 750 aircraft. With the end of the Cold War and rising costs, the number was cut in several steps until the final cap of 187 production aircraft was set in 2009 – together with the test aircraft that makes 195. The last Raptor left the factory in December 2011 and was handed over on May 2, 2012. If you divide the total program cost of about 67 billion US dollars across the production aircraft, each one comes to about 360 million US dollars.

A two-seat F-22B trainer version was planned but was canceled as early as 1996. That means for you: every F-22 you see is a single-seater. The aircraft can be told apart mainly by their equipment standard. Older aircraft in the Block 20 standard are used mainly for training, while the more modern Block 30/35 aircraft make up the combat fleet. From the outside you can hardly see the difference.

Then there is the export ban: since fiscal year 1998, US defense budgets have prohibited using funds for selling the F-22 to other governments. Interested countries such as Japan or Australia therefore never got a Raptor. Both rely on the F-35 Lightning II instead.

The technology: stealth, supercruise, thrust vectoring

Stealth shape: the entire airframe is designed so that as little radar energy as possible returns to the emitter. Edges run parallel to one another, panels and access hatches have serrated edges, and the vertical stabilizers are canted. The air intakes lead to the engines through S-shaped ducts, so the compressor blades are not visible from the front. Radar-absorbent material is added on top.

Internal weapons bays: so that external stores do not disturb the shape, the Raptor carries its armament inside the fuselage. In the fighter configuration that means up to six AIM-120 AMRAAMs in the large belly bay and one AIM-9 Sidewinder each in the two side bays. For ground targets, about two 1,000-pound JDAMs or up to eight small GBU-39 glide bombs fit inside. A 20 mm M61A2 cannon with 480 rounds sits behind a hatch on top at the right wing root. For ferry flights the F-22 can carry external fuel tanks under the wings – but then it is no longer stealthy.

Supercruise: the two F119 engines deliver so much thrust that the Raptor can fly supersonic without afterburner, at about Mach 1.7 to 1.8. With afterburner it reaches more than Mach 2 at high altitude.

Thrust vectoring: the flat, rectangular nozzles can swivel up and down by up to 20 degrees. This allows maneuvers at very low speed and high angle of attack that you hardly see otherwise – exactly the moves the demonstration team shows at airshows. Incidentally, the flat nozzles mix the hot exhaust jet with ambient air faster and thereby reduce the infrared signature.

The three features that are enough to identify it

The Raptor has a very distinctive silhouette. Three looks are enough to separate it from almost everything else in the sky.

Final certainty comes from the serial number and tail code on the vertical stabilizer. The Scramble database is useful for cross-checking.

F-22, F-35 or another jet?

The main risk of confusion is with the smaller sister, the F-35, and, from a distance, with other jets with twin tails. The finder narrows it down in three steps.

Feature	F-22 Raptor	F-35A Lightning II	F-15E Strike Eagle
Engines	2	1	2
Nozzles	flat, rectangular, swiveling	round	round
Vertical stabilizers	2, canted outward	2, canted outward	2, vertical
Seats	1	1	2
External stores in normal operation	none	mostly none	tanks, bombs, missiles
In Europe	only on visits	stationed and with many air forces	stationed at Lakenheath

The Russian Sukhoi Su-27 also has two engines and two vertical stabilizers, but round nozzles set far apart, vertical fins and a long tail stinger. The guide Recognizing fighter jets in Europe gives a broader overview.

Service history: from Kadena to Syria

The first deployment abroad led to Kadena on Okinawa in February 2007. On the way there, a software error when crossing the date line caused six aircraft to lose navigation and communication systems; they returned to Hawaii with their tankers, and the error was fixed within two days. In the following years Kadena became a regular destination for Raptor rotations, and in 2009 the first deployment to the Gulf region followed.

The F-22 flew its first combat mission on September 22, 2014, against positions of the so-called Islamic State in Syria. In the following months the Raptor mainly dropped GPS-guided bombs there and supported other aircraft with its sensors.

The first aerial victory was scored by an F-22 launched from Langley on February 4, 2023: off the coast of South Carolina it shot down a Chinese high-altitude balloon with an AIM-9X. A few days later, Raptors also took down two more unidentified flying objects over Alaska and Canada’s Yukon.

The rare appearances in Europe

For spotters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Raptor is a real stroke of luck. It is not stationed here, and its visits are short and often announced at short notice.

Individual Raptors appeared at airshows in Great Britain as early as 2008. The best-known appearance, however, was the first Europe deployment in August and September 2015. Four F-22s came to Spangdahlem in the Eifel region and flew short side trips from there to Łask in Poland and Ämari in Estonia. The background was the tension after Russia’s annexation of Crimea: the Air Force wanted to show that it could bring its Raptors to Europe quickly and train with NATO partners. For many spotters in Rhineland-Palatinate it was a rare chance to photograph the F-22 right on their doorstep.

In July 2016, a Raptor traveled to the Royal International Air Tattoo in Fairford, one of Europe’s big military airshows. In the years after, F-22s kept turning up on rotations along NATO’s eastern flank. Specific dates are rarely announced in advance for security reasons.

How to track military traffic via ADS-B and why fighter jets are often missing there is explained in the guide Tracking military aircraft online. Tankers and transports accompanying a deployment are often a better clue than the jets themselves.

Where the F-22 is stationed today

All Raptors fly for the US Air Force. According to the available information, the distribution most recently looked like this; deployments and restructurings happen regularly, so check the current status before a trip.

Location	Units	Tail code
Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia	1st Fighter Wing (27th, 94th and 71st Fighter Squadron), plus the National Guard	FF
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska	3rd Wing (90th and 525th Fighter Squadron), reserve squadron	AK
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii	Hawaii National Guard with active associate squadron	HH
Nellis AFB, Nevada	Weapons school and test unit	WA, OT
Edwards AFB, California	Flight testing	ED

Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida used to be an important Raptor location as well, with the training squadron. After severe damage from Hurricane Michael in 2018, the F-22s left the base; the aircraft were distributed to other locations, and the training squadron initially moved to Eglin in Florida.

Around 2020, about 150 aircraft in the Block 30/35 standard and 37 older Block 20 aircraft for training were in service. Their future has been disputed for years: the Air Force wanted to retire them, and Congress has not approved this so far. Lockheed Martin had already proposed in 2017 to bring them up to the combat standard, but this was not implemented at the time. So the Raptor will keep flying for a while – exactly what the fleet looks like in fall 2026 is something you should look up for the latest information.

The Raptor in museums and at airshows

Because the type is in active service, there are only a few examples on display. The National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton has an early Raptor in its collection; check before your visit whether it is currently on display. The first YF-22 prototype was previously on loan there and now stands in the Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base in California. You can find tips for visiting Dayton on the spot page National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Anyone there can compare the Raptor directly with its predecessors, from the F-15 to the SR-71 Blackbird.

You will experience the F-22 most spectacularly in flight, though. The Air Force maintains its own F-22 Demonstration Team from Langley, which performs mainly at airshows in the US and shows the thrust-vectoring maneuvers there. For spotters from Europe that means: if you want to see the Raptor for sure, plan an airshow trip to the US or watch for announcements from big European military airshows. How to approach such events is covered in the post Photographing airshows.

Photo tips especially for the F-22

The Raptor is dark gray, fast and performs maneuvers that hardly any other jet flies. A few tricks help.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

If you want to put the Raptor in context as a special sighting, the guide Spotting rare aircraft helps.

Conclusion

The F-22 Raptor is an aircraft of superlatives with a very small production run: only 195 built, never exported, still the benchmark for air superiority fighters. For you as a spotter, that makes it one of the most sought-after entries of all. Flat nozzles, two engines and canted vertical stabilizers give you the type; tail code and serial number give you the origin. In Europe it remains an exceptional guest – if you want to see one for sure, travel to an airshow in the US.