F-22 Raptor
ICAO F22The air superiority fighter that was never exported and is almost never visible. Live F-22 positions, when there are any.
Flying right now
Live · 30s
No F-22 Raptor is transmitting ADS-B at the moment.
Military aircraft are not obliged to broadcast, so this happens regularly. The count refreshes every thirty seconds.
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Lockheed Martin
- Role
- Air superiority fighter
- Class
- L2J — Landplane, 2 jet engines
- Crew
- 1
- First flight
- 7 September 1997
- In service
- 2005
Operators airborne
Nothing of this type is up right now.
About the F-22 Raptor
Only 187 operational F-22s were built before the line closed in 2011, and export was prohibited by American law, so the entire world fleet belongs to one air force. That scarcity, plus stealth, means this page will show zero almost every time you load it.
It remains the reference point for air superiority: supercruise without afterburner, thrust vectoring, and a radar cross-section that shaped every fighter designed since. Deployments to Europe and the Pacific are announced rather than observed, because the aircraft do not advertise themselves.
The occasional sighting is a transit or a deployment moving with tanker support, where the tankers are visible even when the fighters are not.
Callsign prefixes
- RAPTOR
- Occasionally used on transits
- MYTEE
- A recurring deployment block
How to recognise it
- —Two engines with rectangular vectoring nozzles, and heavily canted twin fins.
- —A diamond-shaped wing planform and a flat, faceted fuselage.
- —Larger than an F-35 and unmistakably twin-engined.
Common questions
+ Why is the F-22 never on flight trackers?
Stealth aircraft do not broadcast their position, the fleet is small, and it operates from a handful of bases. Watching the tankers that support a deployment is usually more productive than watching for the fighters.
+ How many F-22s are there?
One hundred and eighty-seven operational aircraft were built. Attrition has reduced that, and a portion are older training airframes the Air Force has sought to retire.
+ Why was the F-22 never exported?
United States law prohibited it, on the grounds that the technology was too sensitive to release. Japan and Australia both enquired and were refused, which is part of why the F-35 exists as an exportable design.