Nowadays, when it comes to the most advanced fighter jet in the United States, many students unanimously regard the F22 as the best fighter jet. This fighter jet, which was finalized in 2005, was in service many years earlier than the F35, but it is still the strongest fighter jet in the United States. Has the United States regressed instead of making progress in fighter jet research and development technology over the years? It is obvious that the reason is not like this.

Weapons and equipment are not the fiercely competitive mobile phones and computers in the market. This does not mean that they are late or necessarily the most advanced. The F-22 was finalized in the 1990s. Therefore, compared to the recently launched F-35, its onboard equipment and manufacturing technology are not at the same level. This can be understood from the fuselage skin technology and engine power level of the Raptor and Lightning 2. The structural skin of the Raptor fighter jet uses many old-fashioned rivets, and the brightness and integrity of the structure are far inferior to the sophisticated Lightning 2 Raptor F119-PW-100 engine, which is the most advanced dual rotor small bypass turbofan engine of the last century. It is more complex and reliable than the F-100 engine used in the F-15. Most importantly, it does not require an additional thrust of 117 kilonewtons (173.4 kilonewtons), which many countries have been unable to surpass so far. The high thrust of F119 is based on new materials and new processes. The blades of the three-stage compression fan and turbine are made of titanium alloy structure and are welded using linear friction welding. The blades are welded using more advanced diffusion bonding technology, which not only greatly reduces quality, but also improves the overall high temperature resistance and structural strength of the blades. Therefore, it can be considered that the high thrust of F-22 is based on innovation in processing technology and materials.

After inheriting the advanced processing technologies mentioned above, the F-35 has made more breakthrough innovations. Firstly, its F135 engine inherits the basic structure of the F119, including a three-stage fan, a six stage high-pressure compressor, an annular combustion chamber with pneumatic nozzles and a floating wall flame tube, a single-stage high-pressure turbine, and a single-stage low-pressure turbine opposite to the direction of the high-pressure turbine and the afterburner. In order to increase thrust, the bypass ratio is increased to increase air intake. Its maximum thrust is 18 tons, with a total thrust of about 14 tons and a thrust to weight ratio of 10.5, which is more than 10 times that of the F-22 using the F119 engine. More importantly, the engine adopts intelligent design for the first time. According to information disclosed by Western media, the F-135 engine can automatically report its operating status to ground logistics personnel, list required maintenance items and replacement parts, and even automatically calculate combat damage and repair limited damage. If this report is true, the F135 will be the most powerful engine in the world. The entire F-35 fuselage is also filled with information-based machines. The onboard computer replaces the pilot's responsibility for over 70% of the operational calculations, while the vector control of the F-35B engine is mainly completed by the fly by wire control computer.

However, even so, the F-35 with a single engine configuration cannot compare to the F-22 in many performance aspects after technological improvements. Due to the integration of too many technologies into one fuselage, the overweight problem of the F-35 has not been solved, which has prevented it from conducting supersonic cruising to this day. It is destined to be a low altitude fighter with Raptors, as it cannot match the speed of the F-22.

Source: Military of Strong Countries