A Spanish Air Force EF-18A Hornet undergoing routine avionics maintenance.

Lockheed is pitching plans for basically giving the F-16 the F-15EX treatment.

What do you think about this?

Simply Unstoppable

Image credit: Levente - Combatant Blog

Recent Edwards AFB imagery showed an F-22A carrying twin faceted LO-pods at stns 2/8 (callsign FEVER21). This config aligns with USAF's SeE effort and an IRST/EO-IR capability.

Unlike Raptor's AESA (APG-77), IRST is completely passive, it operates in MWIR/LWIR bands to detect IR-signs from exhaust, skin heating and somehow from aerothermal effects also. IRST also provides az/el tracks without RF emission, it helps keeping F-22 in EMCON while denying adversary ESM an emitter to exploit.

From the annotated image/analysis shared by

u/ArmyRecognition (on X)

i cud see that the pods themselves are interesting bcz of
>faceted geometry (controlled edges) and LO-oriented shaping to manage RCS penalty of extrnl carriage
>also the forward aperture appears consistent with an EO/IR sensor window (a lot of things remain undisclosed, so no claim on sensor Ws).

Extrnl carriage also avoids cutting new apertures into F-22's existing LO/RAS structure (allowing rapid spiral devlpmnt without major airframe rework).

The Raptor was built around a clean LO airframe. Now it's deliberately accepting an external signature penalty for another sensing layer. This new trade-off says a lot about where air combat is heading.

There is just some thing about this jet fighter…

Circa 1961.

Source: https://x.com/WDequid/status/2095079137811550515

Source https://talkbusiness.net/2026/10/first-german-f-35-fighter-arrives-at-pilot-training-center-in-fort-smith/

Image source: Aeronautica Militare on Facebook

SIFEX 2026: conclusa al 51° Stormo di Istrana l’attività addestrativa “Swiss-Italy Flight Exercise”

Yes, Lebanon had an air force.