Stealth Fighter Headed to Eurpoe

A U.S. Stealth Fighter Is Headed To Europe—But Which One?

Either the F-22 or the F-35 is headed across the Atlantic.

By Andrew Moseman

USAF

Before the summer is out, one of America's stealth fighters will head across to pond to be stationed in Europe. But so far the Air Force is being coy about whether the F-35 or the F-22 is taking the job.


Military.com reports that on Wednesday, Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa, said USAF would be "welcoming back U.S. fifth-generation assets into the European theater later this summer. ... The integration of fifth-generation assets allows the coalition to maintain the air superiority advantage by complementing the capabilities of our powerful fourth-generation fleet."

Fourth-generation jets include fighters like the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet. Aircraft with stealth abilities, like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, qualify as fifth-generation. (Tshe U.S. is currently in the opening stages of developing sixth-generationfighters for decades to come).

So Wolters could be talking about the F-22 or the F-35 going to Europe, and he declined to elaborate any more at this time. Both have been stationed there before—the F-22s in 2015, Military.com says, and the F-35s for the first time last May. Either plane would prepare airmen stationed in Europe for the new challenge of servicing a futuristic sensor-heavy plane.

A simultaneous European development is the U.K.'s announcement of the Tempest, a new British-built fighter set to fly by 2035. During his press conference, Wolters called on America's ally to make sure its new plane would be compatible with the F-35. According to Business Insider, Wolters said:

    "One of the key ingredients that has to go into any future systems is to make sure that it's interoperable with existing systems and certainly the systems that that UK is embracing. As the UK decides to go forward with a system that could be called Tempest, we would hope that it would be as interoperable as possible with the great system that they've just acquired ... the F-35B."