JUST HOW GOOD WOULD AN F-22/F-35 HYBRID FIGHTER REALLY BE?
Alex Hollings | February 2, 2023
Initially pitched to Japan as a fighter that could counter emerging threats posed by China, Lockheed Martin’s proposed F-22/F-35 hybrid may have been a losing financial proposition, but if it had come to fruition, it would have been the most capable fighter the world had ever seen.
America’s F-22 Raptor is widely considered the most capable air superiority fighter in history, but its dated avionics, expensive maintenance, and abbreviated production run have doomed the platform to an early demise. With just 186 Raptors delivered before its production facilities and supply chain were cannibalized in favor of F-35 production, America’s Raptors are an endangered species the Air Force now expects to begin phasing out of service in the early 2030s.
F-35 (top) and F-22 (bottom) (U.S. Air Force photo)
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, on the other hand, lacks the Raptor’s hot rod performance. But what it lacks in horsepower, it makes up for in the most advanced data-fusing suite of avionics ever fielded in a tactical aircraft. And while the capabilities offered by the F-35’s computer power may not seem as sexy on paper, the advantages they provide are so pronounced, they are actively reshaping how countries approach air warfare.
Combining these two already-legendary platforms into a single hybrid aircraft would have resulted in the most broadly capable and dominant fighter ever to fly, eclipsing both of the jets it would be based on and emerging as the new yardstick by which all future fighters would be compared. But for all the hype such a fighter rightly deserves, the concept itself came just a bit too late to make financial sense.
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/just-how-good-would-an-f-22-f-35-hybrid-fighter-really-be/
