Why America’s Two Top Fighter Jets Can’t Talk to Each Other

With the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II, the U.S. has fielded two of the world’s most sophisticated, maneuverable and stealthy fighter jets. They both function as airborne shepherds of America’s flock of older combat aircraft, using their state-of-the-art systems to communicate threats and targets on the ground and in the air.

Unfortunately, they have a difficult time communicating with each other.

The F-22, originally designed as an air superiority fighter, dates to the mid-1980s and was created to dispense near-invisible lethality against Soviet targets before the enemy knew it was there. The plane’s requirements for maximum stealth extended to its communications systems, since they can betray an aircraft’s location. But budget considerations and initial optimism about a post-Cold War world cut short its production. In 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the program.