Sometimes, yet at times, the clash between the F-22 Raptor of the U.S. Air Force and the Eurofighter Typhoon of Europe is debated extensively. The two are the peaks of aerospace engineering from their respective countries, and both have titles that make the pilots take them into account. It is really difficult to name “the best one” as it is barely possible to be true since each one of them has been created for a different goal, and this difference is quite obvious in their performances.
In fact, the F-22 made by Lockheed Martin and fielded in the late 1990s, is an aircraft that was conceived to achieve superiority in the air by stealth and information. It really isn’t about being flashy in a dogfight; rather, it’s about attacking first and disappearing long before the enemy is even aware of the strike. The fighter’s radar-evading configuration, capacity for supercruise, vectored-thrust engines, and high-tech avionics all turn it into a stealthy killer of air dominance.
The Eurofighter Typhoon, which is the result of a 15-year-long multinational development project and was launched in the early 2000s, opted for a different way. The makers of the airplane stressed its speed, agility, and adaptability as its major attributes. Coming from the delta-canard wing and light frame, the Typhoon is a customer service genius, providing a rapid, immediate response to the command of the pilot. It is not as good as the F-22 in stealth, but it employs stealth coating and keeps a relatively small radar signature for a fourth-generation fighter. Moreover, the military aircraft’s PIRATE infrared search and track system is probably the main reason that it is the silent hunter, in that it is capable of detecting the heat signatures of even low-observable aircraft; thus, a stealth aircraft is not a haven anymore.
Both have their own advantages in terms of performance. The F-22 is capable of performing extreme aerobatic and tiny circles due to its thrust-vectoring nozzles, whereas the Typhoon is equipped with strong engines and low wing loading that provides the aircraft with extremely fast acceleration and high agility in close quarters. Such a feature of the Typhoon makes it extremely threatening in a visual-range fight.
This uncle story is from the 2012 Red Flag exercise in Alaska, where German Typhoons and U.S. Raptors clashed face-to-face. In some of the dogfights, the Typhoons were successful in getting the best of their American counterparts, and as a result, the pilots joked about them having “Raptor salad for lunch.” Those days, however, the conditions were very important—Typhoons were flown without heavy tanks or guns, while Raptors with external fuel tanks that limited their maneuverability. It would be hard for that kind of situation to happen in a real fight.
There are also stories of the F-22s’ victories, among which one is that training fights are so complex and nuanced. Those exercises are arenas for learning, with safety limits and rules that do not always correspond to reality.
Though only one thing, however, was really clear: the F-22’s thrust-vectoring gives it amazing control, but at the same time, the jet may lose energy in the fight. In case the pilot is too aggressive, the jet is capable of going slow, and thus an “energy fighter” like the Typhoon can have the opening as it is the one that keeps the energy. A skilled pilot with proficient handling of the Typhoon will be able to utilize this benefit to repel the battle and counterattack with the use of short-range missiles.
Nonetheless, dogfights have hardly been situations of close-in fights. The outcome is decided well before the aircraft meet each other. This is the scene where the F-22 is revealed to be really good. Armed with stealth and powerful radar, it is possible to track and attack targets beyond what is visible to the naked eye. Its AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, which are effective at ranges of over 70k, facilitate the attacking first, leaving adversaries guessing.
According to experts, the Typhoon’s PIRATE system can pick up subsonic targets at a distance of over 100 kilometers under perfect conditions, but to detect a stealth fighter like the Raptor is far more tough. In contrast, the F-22 radar can discover impending threats approximately 220 kilometers away and fire at about 180 kilometers, thus giving it a first strike advantage.
Besides the gear, multinational exercises such as Red Flag and Arctic Defender are the major highlights of the importance of the pilots’ training and teamwork. NATO pilots employ such scenarios to probe out their strategies, find out by sharing other pilots’ views, and prepare for very problematic situations where coordination is the key to survival, just as U.S. Air Force Col. Kevin Jamieson has often said, success is as much the result of well-synchronised planning as of the raw performance of the aircraft.
In conclusion, the comparison between the Raptor and the Typhoon has reflected an old maxim: fighters cannot do everything. The F-22 is unrivaled in stealth and long-range strike, while the Eurofighter is an aggressive opponent in close combat. Air superiority is not so much about owning the ‘perfect’ airplane as it is about pilots’ tactics to utilize the strengths of their plane while exposing the opponent’s weaknesses.