Stealth, supercruise, advanced sensors, and exceptional maneuverability give the Raptor a specialized role in establishing air superiority. Internal weapons and thrust-vectoring engines help preserve low observability while allowing the aircraft to engage at long range or maneuver aggressively when a fight becomes visual.
INTERACTIVE MODEL LOADS WHEN NEARBY
2016 / ModernAirframe B
F-35A Lightning II
Lockheed Martin · Conventional multirole fighter
HISTORICAL FIELD NOTE
The conventional-runway F-35A combines low-observable shaping, sensor fusion, and internal weapons carriage with the lightest airframe and largest internal fuel load of the three F-35 variants. It entered U.S. Air Force operational service in 2016 and is designed for both air-to-air and precision-strike missions.
PERFORMANCE
SPECIFICATION BREAKDOWN
METRICF-22 RaptorF-35A Lightning II
Top speed
Mach 2+APPROXIMATE / PUBLISHED
Mach 1.6REFERENCE VALUE
Ceiling
65,000 ftREFERENCE VALUE
50,000 ftREFERENCE VALUE
Range
1,850+ miAPPROXIMATE / PUBLISHED
1,200+ nmiAPPROXIMATE / PUBLISHED
Archive milestone
Service entry · 2005REFERENCE VALUE
Service entry · 2016REFERENCE VALUE
Nation
United StatesDESCRIPTIVE VALUE
United StatesDESCRIPTIVE VALUE
Primary role
Air superiorityDESCRIPTIVE VALUE
Conventional multirole fighterDESCRIPTIVE VALUE
Values are concise archive references and can vary by variant, payload, configuration, altitude, operating conditions, and source. Range may describe different published measures where a directly comparable figure is unavailable.
