Combat aircraft fighting for ... sales! This year Russia has begun--and China allegedly will begin--flight trials of fifth-generation fighters, joining America in the elite world of stealth, supercruise, thrust-vectoring and aesa radars.

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Aircraft: combat

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Combat aircraft fighting for ... sales! This year Russia has begun--and China allegedly will begin--flight trials of fifth-generation fighters, joining America in the elite world of stealth, supercruise, thrust-vectoring and aesa radars.

The United States remains the global pace-setter in fighter development, the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor having entered US Air Force service at the end of 2005. The F-22A has a maximum weight of 36.6 tonnes and combines all-aspect stealth with Mach 1.78 supercruise, thrust-vectoring and the fusion of data from off-board and on-board sensors, the latter including the Northrop Grumman/Raytheon APG-77 aesa radar.

The US Air Force originally calculated a need for 740 F-22s, but production has been capped at 187. The last 24 were ordered in FY09 for $ 4343.5 million, indicating a unit cost of $ 180 million. The final delivery will take place in early 2012.

It has been estimated that restarting production with a five-year batch of 75 F-22s would give a unit production co...

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