When Technology Flies

The F-22 Raptor has got to be the coolest plane I've ever seen. I work in an office building about 5 miles south of Dobbins Air Base where Lockheed does the final assembly and testing of the F-22. My side of the building just happens to face north so when I hear the roar of jet engines, I'm often treated to a maiden flight from a new Raptor. In fact, some of them have recently been flying sans the gray on gray paint scheme. It's kind of interesting to see. The color is a mixture of tan and dark brown. Most of the tan color consists of the radar absorbing material that the plane is made out of. The plane itself is a marvel to see. It's about twice the size of an F-16 and during many of the fly-bys the little F-16 looks like it's just about at maximum military power (as fast as you can go without lighting the afterburners) and struggling to keep up. One day I saw the Raptor hit the end of the runway and go straight vertical. I've seen an F-15 do this on numerous occasions at airshows. The Raptor outclimed the F-15 considerably. One of my neighbors works on the F-22 program and he said that one of the test piolots asked a flight engineer what they could do to fly the plane more effectively. The enigneer's reply... "Don't touch anything."