F-22 RAPTOR | Too Dangerous to Share with the World

Video from the channel Aviation Wall about Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 7:10. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

An explainer on why the United States never sold the F-22 Raptor, not even to its closest allies, and on how the aircraft ended up with a reduced fleet.

Conceived to replace the F-15 Eagle, the F-22 is presented as the first fifth-generation fighter. It combines stealth, supercruise without afterburner, thrust vectoring, and air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons carried in internal bays. Israel, Japan and Australia asked to buy it, but in 1998 Congress passed a law banning its sale outside the country. The video attributes this to fears that its stealth technology, radars and production methods could leak. As an example, it recalls the theft of designs for the F-35, the C-130 and the F-22 itself by hackers. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the Air Force studied a downgraded export version, which Congress never funded.

The original plan called for more than 750 Raptors. The aircraft arrived in the midst of the low-intensity wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where its capabilities barely mattered. Meanwhile, the F-35 — cheaper and designed from the outset for foreign partners — became the international stealth fighter. The production line was dismantled, and the video describes a fleet with few mission-ready aircraft, on track to be retired.