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 Welcome to a new era in military aviation: the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II - the world's only 5TH Generation Fighters. These aircraft signal the arrival of battle-changing systems and are the only fighters that will defeat the threats of tomorrow.
5TH Generation Fighters represent a quantum leap in air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities that provide an order of magnitude increase in operational effectiveness over legacy fighters. These capabilities ensure air dominance for the U.S. military and allied joint forces from Day One and for decades to come.
The Future Is Now
The 5TH generation fighter's quantum leap in survivability and lethality, coupled with dramatic improvements in sustainability and deployability, will ensure critical warfighting capability across the full range of air dominance missions while allowing unprecedented cohesiveness to the joint force and allied fighter fleets. 5TH generation fighters will dominate any foreseeable threat environment and ensure joint and combined operational flexibility for decades - extremely important given the uncertainty and volatility of today's global environment.
Defining the 5TH Generation Fighter
5TH Generation Fighters are unique and revolutionary aircraft designed from the beginning to integrate a wealth of technologies for the first time into a single platform. Advanced stealth, fighter agility, integrated information and sensor fusion, and a new level of reliability, maintainability and deployability - all are uniquely found in the only 5TH Generation Fighters in production or development today.
Advanced Stealth
Very low observable stealth is designed into the F-35 and F-22 from the very beginning - it is not something that can be added onto a legacy platform. Stealth-defining designs require upfront integration of shape, materials and propulsion, coupled with the internal integration of weapons, fuel, avionics and sensors. The result is a very low observable platform even when fully configured for combat.
Stealth was first introduced with the F-117 Nighthawk. Designed to attack alone and at night, it revolutionized precision strike capability in lethal environments. Yet it lacks maneuverability and is not a multirole platform. Today, 5TH generation fighters bring advanced stealth to the light of day, and it is stealth that enables 24/7 operations in any environment, against any threat.
Extreme Fighter Performance
Subsonic, supersonic, high g's, quick acceleration even loaded with air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons, the F-22 and F-35 are true fighters while still incorporating their unmatched VLO stealth signatures. The F-22, with its unique features of high-altitude supercruise and thrust-vectoring, surpasses any existing or planned fighter.
 Information Fusion
The F-35 and F-22 also feature unrivaled integration of advanced avionics, which fuses information to give pilots complete 360-degree situational awareness. This enables pilots to concentrate on tactics - they are relieved of the effort to interpret separate data inputs and manage multiple sensors. Just as with VLO stealth attributes, integration of avionics must be built in from the beginning. Embedded, net-enabled capability allows the fused information to be further enhanced from data provided by off-board assets. Furthermore, information gathered by these onboard sensors can also be immediately uplinked and shared with commanders at sea, in the air or on the ground, providing an instant, complete view of ongoing operations.
Advanced Sustainment
5TH generation fighters are designed to be significantly more reliable, maintainable and deployable than the fighters they replace. Upfront design emphasis has been placed on supportable advanced stealth, systems reliability and maintainability, onboard systems diagnostics and health monitoring, reduced support equipment, intelligent support systems, paperless technical support and worldwide supply chain management. With a smaller deployment footprint, 5TH generation fighters use half the airlift to deploy and operate and expose fewer personnel to risk. Such capabilities result in less force required, less total ownership cost and more expeditionary capability.
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F-22 Farnborough Airshow Demo
F-22: Operational, Relevant, Revolutionary
F-35B STOVL Ground Test
F-35B STOVL First Flight