The Air Force is successfully testing a number of classified sensor systems on the F-22 using technology that will be applicable to the Next-Generation Air Dominance system, officials said. The new technology could also extend the Raptor’s service life.
“The F-22 team is working really hard to implement a modernization plan to bring advanced sensors, connectivity, weapons and other capabilities into the field,” Brigadier General Jason D. Voorheis, senior officer in charge of the Air Force’s fighter and high-speed program, told reporters last month at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference in Dayton, Ohio.
“The Raptor team recently conducted six flight tests to demonstrate advanced sensors,” Voorheis said, and the service is planning a rapid prototyping process to integrate the sensors into the aircraft, he said.
“We are executing this successfully, and that will lead to a rapid launch (Middle Tier of Acquisition program) in the near future,” Voorheis said.
Service officials have said the sleek, chisel-like pods seen on an F-22 test flight last year are advanced infrared search and track (IRST) systems — which may also include other sensors — that will improve the F-22’s ability to detect hard-to-spot aircraft. The Air Force’s fiscal year 2025 budget request for the F-22 describes ongoing testing efforts using IRST. This is part of an F-22 improvement campaign that calls for $7.8 billion in investments through 2030 — $3.1 billion for research and development and $4.7 billion for procurement.
Several years ago, Air Force leaders said the F-22 would likely be retired around 2030. In recent months, however, officials have backed away from that statement, with Voorheis saying, “From a retirement perspective of the F-22, I can’t give you a date.”
“What I can tell you is that we are focusing all our efforts on modernization to maintain that air superiority and combat capability in a highly competitive environment for as long as necessary,” he added.
That’s a notable change from 2021, when then-Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr. unveiled his “4+1” fighter jet plan, which called for the F-22 to be replaced by NGAD around 2030, while retaining the F-35, F-15E and EX, and the F-16. The “plus 1” was the A-10, but in March 2023, Brown said the A-10s would be phased out faster than expected and would likely all be retired by 2030.
The planned retirement of the F-22 in 2030 caused a stir when Brown revealed the plans for the fighter jet, as the type is expected to have sufficient structural life to last into the 2040s. Military officials said at the time that the F-22’s 1980s-era stealth technology, while modernized, would be overtaken by new sensors in the hands of peer adversaries such as China.
Voorheis cited one key to the F-22’s potentially longer lifespan: a new computing environment with a government reference architecture, or “GRACE.” It is open-architecture software that will allow “non-traditional F-22 software” to be installed on the fighter, he said. It will enable “additional processing and pilot interfaces,” he added.
Voorheis is not the only official to suggest that the F-22 could remain in service longer than expected. In July, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command, said he believed the Air Force should keep not only the F-22 but also the 32 older Block 20 Raptors that the Air Force has twice asked Congress to retire.
The F-22 is “a fantastic aircraft,” Wilsbach said at the time. “We are currently planning several upgrades for the jet,” and even the Block 20, which does not meet the current standard, is valuable for training.
“If we had to use the Block 20s in a combat situation in an emergency, they would be very capable,” he said.
Meanwhile, Air Force officials have begun pushing back the schedule for the sixth-generation NGAD, long considered the successor to the F-22 and the Air Force’s primary air superiority fighter. Wilsbach noted in July that there is “no replacement for the F-22 until an NGAD contract is awarded,” and just weeks later, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced that the Air Force was “taking a break” on the NGAD.
The new technology that modernizes the F-22 “supports all future programs,” Voorheis said, such as NGAD. “And we will use this technology on every platform in the future.”
Overall, the modernization effort will “ensure that the F-22 remains the (world’s leading) air superiority fighter and maintains its first look, first shoot, first kill advantage,” Voorheis said. The F-22 “is our bridge to the NGAD,” and the technologies that go into the Raptor will be transferred to the NGAD “to ensure our ability to achieve air superiority in the future highly competitive environment.”
