The F-22 Is One Tough Stealth Fighter (But It Has Just 1 Problem)

But in January 1989, the U.S. Air Force put a cap on the cost of the F-22’s avionics at $9 million per aircraft in production. At that time, Lockheed’s paper design had over $16 million of avionics in each aircraft.America’s F-22 Raptor is one of the world’s most advanced warplanes. But it has several weaknesses. For one, it’s blind in the infrared though several of its potential rivals have infrared-search-and-track sensors, effectively allowing them to scan for enemy warplanes’ heat signatures.The last U.S. fighter to have an IRST sensor built in during development was the F-14 Tomcat. The F/A-18 Super Hornet now has the option of carrying a centerline droptank with an IRST, which will make it expensive to actually drop in combat.(This article by David Archibald originally appeared at War is Boring in 2017.)The F-22 also lacks side-looking radars, which allow an aircraft to fire a missile that requires mid-course updates from the aircraft’s radar while continuing to provide tracking data after turning more than 90 degrees away from the path of the missile.

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