24 entries · five categories
Every figure, traced back to where it came from
Military specifications are rarely settled facts. A single fighter's combat radius can differ by hundreds of kilometres between the operator's fact sheet, a think tank's estimate, and a press report. The approach here is straightforward: label the source and certainty of every data point, put competing claims side by side where they conflict, and leave a blank where the answer genuinely isn't known.
Enter the aircraft archive- Empty weightOfficial
- 19 700 kgPublished directly in the U.S. Air Force fact sheet. Usable as fact.
- Supercruise speedEstimated
- Ma 1.82The Air Force only states "greater than Mach 1.5". This figure is an open-source estimate derived from thrust and drag.
- Frontal radar cross-sectionDisputed
- 0.0001 m²Published estimates span an order of magnitude (0.00005–0.0004 m²). Treat any figure quoted to four decimal places with suspicion.
- AN/APG-77 peak powerNot disclosed
- Not disclosedNever released. Better to say so than to repeat a number with no traceable origin.
Featured
F-22A
F-22 Raptor
The first fifth-generation fighter to enter service, and the first airframe to combine stealth, supercruise, and high agility.
F-35A
F-35A Lightning II
The most-produced fifth-generation fighter. Its design runs opposite to the F-22's — trading peak flight performance for sensor fusion, multirole capability, and affordable scale.
J-20
J-20 Mighty Dragon
China's first fifth-generation fighter and the only in-service fifth-generation design with canards. Almost none of its specifications have been officially released.
Su-57
Su-57 Felon
Russia's first fifth-generation fighter. Its aerodynamics and agility are widely respected; its stealth is where assessments diverge most sharply.
M1A2 SEP v3
M1A2 Abrams
The U.S. Army's main battle tank. Pairing a gas turbine with depleted-uranium armour was a radical choice at the end of the Cold War; thirty years on, both its costs and its benefits are clear.
DDG-51 Flight IIA
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
A general-purpose destroyer designed at the end of the Cold War and still in production — already the most numerous large surface combatant ever built.
AIM-120D
AIM-120 AMRAAM
The Western standard medium-range air-to-air missile. It made "fire and forget" real — and what that changed was how air combat is organised, not the outcome of any single engagement.
M4A1
M4A1 carbine
The U.S. military's standard carbine. Its influence comes less from performance than from modularity — one rifle became a platform standard.