Hunza Valley

TEN TOP AIRPLANE`S
With the tens of thousands of airplane models that have been built and flown since the days of the Brothers Wright, how is it even possible to come up with a list of the greatest planes of them all? 
It’s a fair question, and it’s one we’ve spent a great deal of time discussing before we even embarked upon the journey. At first glance, the exercise seems a bit silly. After all, planes come in so many different shapes and sizes, with an equal number of mission types to match. How could you possibly choose just one? 
But the more we thought about it, the more sense it made to us. To start with, we needed to acknowledge that there are a lot of great airplanes. There are also a lot of historically significant airplanes, which is a more exclusive club, we decided. But finally, there is a level of greatness that you can indeed measure using a few distinct and, in most cases, at least somewhat quantifiable categories, such as how many were built or what its top speed is or how long it was in service. 
But looking at the different kinds of mission types, i.e., training, personal transportation, commercial transportation, fighters, bombers, reconnaissance and more, we decided to narrow things down even more by asking ourselves if there were a top dog among those planes. Say what you will about it: It costs a boatload of dough, $350 million a pop, all up. It was late. It was way over budget, and some say in today’s global political world, we don’t even need it. But from a pure design perspective, the F-22 is the all-around most capable airplane ever, and by a good margin. The F-22 is the only full-up fifth-generation air-superiority fighter in the world that’s in full production and that’s fielded. And besides, it’s better than the others, anyway. The F-22 is capable of a supercruise (that is, sustained faster than the speed-of -sound flight without afterburner) of Mach 1.85; it’s incredibly maneuverable—the first time we saw a slow flight demonstration, we were absolutely spellbound, as this plane is capable doing things that look aerodynamically impossible; it features stealth technology; and, with a range of 1,600 nm without long-range tanks, it can go a long ways between refuelings.


MY OPINION
The F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter is almost invisible to radars. This aircraft carries a powerful array of weaponry. It is the most advanced and most expensive production fighter aircraft to date. Many of sensors and avionics of this plane remain classified. This advanced aircraft was adopted in 2003. It was never offered for export customers, even other allies and NATO countries. Currently it is the best fighter aircraft ever built. Engines of the raptor allow the aircraft to supercruise over long ranges, while thrust-vectoring nozzles, combined with a triplex fly-by-wire flight control system, make it exceptionally maneuverable.  Requirement for a new fighter was issued in the early 1980s, which would replace the F-15 Eagle. United States designed this aircraft in order to restore a technological edge which the US had enjoyed for many years over Russians and other Western countries. It was somewhat eroded in the mid 1980s when Russians introduced a very capable Su-27 air superiority fighter, which could meet the F-15 Eagle on equal terms, and MiG-29 multi-role fighter.
The F-22 started life as a straightforward air superiority fighter. However since its introduction this aircraft lacks a formidable air threat from other countries fighters. Later it evolved towards the multi-role fighter, as ground attack capability was added.