Photo: USAF/Staff Sgt. Don Hudson
Mach 2, or 1,534 miles per hour (2,469 kph). That’s how fast an F-22 Raptor can go when it really pushes that pair of Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines to their limits. To get a better understanding of how fast that is, consider the fact it can travel the distance between Dallas, Texas, and Boston, Massachusetts, in less than an hour.
Speed has always been a solid requirement for fighter aircraft, and as one of the few representatives of fifth-generation flying warriors, it had to at least be able to travel at two times the speed of sound. Sure, it’s not as fast as the F-15 Eagle, or the Russian MiG-25, but it sure is in the select and very restricted Mach 2 club.
The image shown here depicts an F-22 performing what is called a high-speed pass. The plane is piloted by Maj. Josh Gunderson, the leader of the F-22 demonstration team, and the maneuver was performed during the Wings Over Houston Airshow at Ellington Airport at the beginning of October.
We are not told by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), which released the photo not long ago, exactly how fast the airplane was going, but you can bet your money it didn’t break through the sound barrier, as that is not allowed. Yet judging by the two vapor tutus that are visible around its waist, the thing was surely not creeping along either.
Generally speaking, such maneuvers call for planes to accelerate to about 94 percent of the speed of sound, making for one of the rarest and most spectacular maneuvers during air shows open to civilians.
And we must also congratulate a USAF staff sergeant for this image that goes straight into our Photo of the Day section, as capturing such a fast-moving machine on film must not have been easy.
The image shown here depicts an F-22 performing what is called a high-speed pass. The plane is piloted by Maj. Josh Gunderson, the leader of the F-22 demonstration team, and the maneuver was performed during the Wings Over Houston Airshow at Ellington Airport at the beginning of October.
We are not told by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), which released the photo not long ago, exactly how fast the airplane was going, but you can bet your money it didn’t break through the sound barrier, as that is not allowed. Yet judging by the two vapor tutus that are visible around its waist, the thing was surely not creeping along either.
Generally speaking, such maneuvers call for planes to accelerate to about 94 percent of the speed of sound, making for one of the rarest and most spectacular maneuvers during air shows open to civilians.
And we must also congratulate a USAF staff sergeant for this image that goes straight into our Photo of the Day section, as capturing such a fast-moving machine on film must not have been easy.
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