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The pilots.
Dave Majumdar
November 29, 2016
With Russia and China deploying advanced new fighters and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), the task of gaining and maintaining air superiority over an increasingly more lethal battlespace falls to a small and elite group of U.S. Air Force pilots flying the mighty Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
Conceived during the waning years of the Cold War, the stealthy high-flying supersonically cruising Raptor was designed to defeat the most fearsome weapons the Soviet Union could hurl at the United States and NATO during a third world war in Europe. However, with the end of the Cold War and subsequent 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the F-22 was left without a mission—or so it was thought. Indeed, the second Bush and Obama administrations cancelled the F-22 program in 2008 after only 195 aircraft—187 production planes—were ordered because they made the assumption that high-end state-on-state conflicts were a relic of the past. However, as it is becoming increasingly apparent, they were wrong.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature...orlds-best-fighter-it-has-secret-weapon-18549