1. First flight was on September 7th, 1997
F-22 never took off till 7th September 1997. Prior to then YF-22, F-15 and YF-23 prototypes had being tested, but none seemed to have attained the objective capabilities set. Therefore the US Air Force still needed to replace them with a swifter weapon. The idea to build F-22 was conceived in 1982 but its realization came in 15 years later.
Coming up with the complete set F-22 took so long that, the assembly of a flyable F-22 started 10 years from the time of design.
