Before the Raptor, fighters were “fourth generation” — fast, agile and radar-equipped, but visible and reliant on numbers. The F-22 rewrote the definition by combining, in one airframe, four traits that had never been fielded together: a very low radar cross-section from all aspects, the ability to cruise supersonically without afterburner, thrust-vectoring maneuverability, and a computer that fuses every sensor into one clear tactical picture.

The result is an aircraft that can see first, shoot first and leave before it is ever detected. Every fifth-generation fighter since — the F-35, China’s J-20, Russia’s Su-57 — is measured against the template the F-22 Raptor set in 2005.

Stealth is not one trick but many working together. The Raptor’s airframe is shaped so that its edges — wings, tails, bay doors, inlets — are aligned into a few directions, scattering radar energy away from the emitter. Radar-absorbent coatings soak up what shaping cannot deflect. And because bombs and missiles hung under the wings would light up on radar, the F-22 carries everything inside: six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9 Sidewinders in internal bays, opened only for the split second it takes to fire. The penalty is maintenance-hungry coatings and a smaller weapons load than a non-stealthy jet — the price of being nearly invisible.

Most fighters need fuel-gulping afterburner to break the sound barrier. The Raptor’s two F119 turbofans produce so much dry thrust that it can hold roughly Mach 1.8 without reheat — extending range, missile reach and time on station while staying efficient and harder to spot on infrared. The same engines drive two-dimensional nozzles that pivot the exhaust up and down, letting the jet point its nose in ways aerodynamics alone forbid. Together they make the F-22 both a sprinter and an acrobat — a rare combination even a generation later.

The Raptor is famously expensive, and the figures depend on how you count. The flyaway cost — the price of one more jet off the line — is commonly cited above $143 million. But spread the programme’s roughly $67 billion in research and procurement across just 195 airframes and the programme-unit cost balloons toward $350 million each. Cite whichever you mean and say so. Either way, the number is why the Air Force’s planned 750 jets became 381, then 195: the F-22 was simply too costly to buy in the quantities first imagined, and the line closed in 2011.