F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

For a few years after its introduction, aviation enthusiasts feared that the F-22 Raptor's performances at airshows would be limited to the same "high and level" passes which had sucked so much life out of demonstrations by the air force's other stealth aircraft, the F-117 Nighthawk and the B-2 Spirit.

However the top brass relented, perhaps hoping to enlist public support for the procurement of large numbers of such an expensive aircraft, and the Raptor started performing banked "photo passes" like this and then expanding the demonstration envelope to include thrust-vectoring maneuvers made possible by its ability to angle the jet exhausts while in flight.   Although the Russians had been performing mind-boggling thrust-vectoring displays for many years in their Sukhoi and MiG fighters, the Raptor remains the only western fighter with this capability, which makes even non-technical airshow viewers stare in amazement.

Something else which came as a surprise to enthusiasts was the Raptor's ability to pull clouds of vapor, sometimes entirely obscuring the entire aircraft under a fast-moving cloud - a new type of "stealth" that no-one had previously thought of!   Up to this time, the American "vapormeister" had been the F-18 Hornet, but the F-22 has now added this all-important crown to its list of achievements.