| The United States Air Force has hundreds of fixed wing, swing wing, and rotary wing aircraft, ready to be deployed. However, the Air Force's premier aircraft are a trio of stealth planes, constituting a fighter element, a fighter-bomber element, and a bomber element. These are respectively, the F-22 Raptor, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the B-2 Spirit. These the airplanes can perform almost all of the duties of previous planes. They are also three of the six official 5th Generation aircraft. | composite |
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| The fighter aspect of the Air Force is the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor Advanced Tactical Fighter. The F-22 was designed in 1991 by Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks as part of the Air Forces ATF development program. This program was initiated to find a suitable replacement for McDonnel-Douglas's mighty F-15 line of aircraft, which have never been downed by an enemy air interceptor in air-to-air combat. However, the program's goal soon expanded to replace all F-4, F-8, F-14, F/A-18, F/B-18, F-104, F-111, A-6, and A-8 series aircraft. Nevertheless, the F-22 came through, beating out nine other entries for the air forces full defense contract, including Boeing's F-23 prototype. |
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The Air Force's fleet of F-15s are aging, being slowly upgraded into -D type Streak Eagles and -E type Strike Eagles. They will soon be replaced by the F-22.
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The F-23, designed by Boeing and entered as a prototype into the Air Force's ATF competition, was not chosen in favor of the F-22.
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