F-22’s Supercruise to Be Improved by New Stealthy Fuel Tanks

The F-22’s upcoming stealthy conformal fuel tanks promise a game-changing boost in range, bolstering its supercruise capabilities and combat effectiveness.
F-22’s Supercruise to Be Improved by New Stealthy Fuel Tanks
A U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Va., on Dec. 15, 2015. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Mike Fredenburg
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Commentary
The F-22 is scheduled to receive new stealthy conformal fuel tanks that will give it increased range with minimal impact to its overall stealthiness and aerodynamic performance. And it will also increase the utility the F-22 gets from its supercruise.
Since the first low-rate production F-22 was delivered to the Air Force in June 2003, the F-22 has been hailed by many as the premiere air-dominance fighter. And despite never having engaged in air-to-air combat with an enemy fighter, the F-22 maintains that reputation. Even today, the F-22 is still the stealthiest production fighter in the world.
It’s fast, it’s agile, and it sports one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful fighter radars ever put on a fighter. Also, the 30-plus antennas blended into the fuselage and wings allow it to passively detect and track radar signals from all directions out to over 250 nautical miles. This passive tracking ability is unmatched by any other fighter, including the F-35. To top it off, its aerodynamics and powerful F119 engines allow it to cruise at supersonic speeds without having to engage its fuel-guzzling afterburner—known as supercruise.

Comparison With Competitors

In terms of most of the specifications you want in an air superiority fighter, the F-22 is still superior to newer fighters such as China’s J-20, which isn’t as stealthy and can’t supercruise, and Russia’s SU-57, which is significantly less stealthy. One way to characterize the difference between the F-22, and the SU-57 and the J-20, is that the F-22, while being multirole, was primarily designed to be an air-dominance fighter. In contrast, both the SU-57 and the J-20 were designed to be multirole fighters from the outset, with much more emphasis on being strike fighters.
Given that the J-20 is being built in numbers that will exceed those of the F-22, and that the SU-57 so far numbers less than 10, we will focus on the J-20 for purposes of comparison.

One of the areas that the F-22 doesn’t excel in relative to other large air superiority fighters is its fuel capacity and range. Sure, the F-22’s excellent aerodynamics allow it to match the range of the much smaller, blockier F-35A, which has the same internal fuel capacity as the F-22, but it comes nowhere close to matching the range of the plane it was supposed to replace, the F-15 Eagle. And fuel capacity is about more than range and endurance; it’s also about the extent to which a fighter will be able to execute the high-speed, high-G defensive and offensive maneuvers that can make the difference between success and failure, life and death.

Finally, in going up against a peer competitor such as China or Russia, inflight refueling availability close to contested air space will be significantly reduced. Bottom line, while there are some scenarios where more fuel may not make much of a difference, there are far more scenarios in which having more fuel will be an advantage. Perhaps even a decisive advantage.

This brings us back to China’s J-20, which on paper looks inferior to the F-22 as an air superiority fighter with the big exception of fuel capacity. Indeed, the J-20’s internal fuel capacity of 4,166 gallons is 54 percent greater than the F-22’s 2,700 gallons. While this may or may not translate into 40 percent more range/endurance for the larger J-20, it almost certainly translates into at least 50 percent more range.

This is where the new, low-drag, stealthy conformal fuel tanks enter the picture. Assuming they can carry the same amount of fuel as the older non-stealthy drop tanks, 1,200 gallons, they should eliminate much of the J-20’s endurance and range advantage. For the purposes of this discussion, we'll also presume that the new tanks can handle high-G maneuvers and that the air drag they add will be small enough so as to not take away the F-22’s ability to supercruise. If they don’t meet these criteria, much of their advantage is eliminated.

With all the above assumptions in place, we should get better than a 40 percent increase in range. This large increase in range and endurance means that the F-22 will be able to significantly increase the time in which it can supercruise. This is important, because on a typical mission, an F-22, after spotting the enemy, can climb to a much higher altitude and go supersonic prior to launching its missiles, significantly increasing their range. A fighter without supercruise can also execute this maneuver, but it will burn a lot more fuel and it can’t maintain supersonic speeds for nearly as long.

So, the ability to enter and exit a battle at supercruise is a significant advantage, and the longer a fighter can maintain supercruise, the more offensive and defensive flexibility it has. And a longer ability to supercruise should increase the F-22’s survivability. Bottom line, while supercruise isn’t a silver bullet, having it is a significant advantage, and having more fuel increases this advantage.

So, while the new fuel tanks won’t address the F-22’s high cost per flight hour and low sortie generation rates, it will greatly improve the F-22’s ability to perform its role as a beyond-visual-range air-dominance fighter. And that’s a very good thing.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Mike Fredenburg
Mike Fredenburg
Author
Mike Fredenburg writes on military technology and defense matters with an emphasis on defense reform. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and master's degree in production operations management.
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