The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II are usually separated by mission, geography, and even service culture, so when they appear in the same patch of sky it is a carefully staged glimpse into how American airpower is changing. The rare occasions when both fifth generation fighters fly together, whether over a combat zone or an airshow crowd, reveal how the United States is knitting a small fleet of elite air superiority jets to a much larger force of multirole stealth aircraft. Those joint appearances are not just crowd-pleasers, they are a public window into the tactics, technology, and politics that now shape U.S. air dominance.
The airshow moment that sparked the question
The most visible answer to when you will actually see an F-35 and F-22 share the sky comes at major aviation events, where the United States puts its most advanced hardware on display for allies and the public. At the Royal International Air Tattoo, the USAF used a combined flypast of both jets to dramatize how its fifth generation fleet works as a system rather than as isolated aircraft, turning a routine demonstration into a statement about how modern airpower is evolving. That carefully choreographed formation, captured in a widely shared clip that highlights the number 35 and references Jan as part of its captioning, shows the Raptor leading while the Lightning II maneuvers alongside, a visual shorthand for the way the older jet’s air dominance pedigree is now paired with the newer fighter’s sensor fusion and networking.
What makes that scene so striking is how rarely the public sees it. Operationally, the two aircraft often work in different theaters or at different phases of a mission, and training sorties that mix them are usually conducted far from spectators. The Royal International Air Tattoo appearance, where At the Royal International Air Tattoo, USAF planners deliberately put both stealth jets into the same frame, is one of the few times casual observers can watch the pairing in daylight and in close formation. A companion version of the same footage, again emphasizing the number 35 and tagged with Jan in its description, underscores that the service wanted viewers to notice not just two exotic silhouettes, but a combined capability that will define U.S. airpower for decades.
Why pairing the Raptor and Lightning II is so unusual
Part of the reason the joint flypast feels so rare is that the F-22 and F-35 were built for different slices of the air combat problem. The Raptor was conceived as America’s First Fifth generation Fighter, optimized to sweep the skies clear of enemy aircraft before anything else arrives, with extreme maneuverability, supercruise, and stealth tuned for air-to-air dominance. The Lightning II, by contrast, was designed from the outset as a multirole platform that trades some of that raw dogfighting edge for the ability to carry sensors and weapons suited to strike, electronic attack, and close air support, which is why the same airframe now appears in Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps inventories.
Those divergent design choices mean the jets are often separated by mission set and basing. The Raptor fleet is relatively small and concentrated, while the Lightning II is proliferating across U.S. and allied units, a contrast highlighted in detailed comparisons of the Raptor and F-35 that stress how the former remains a boutique air dominance asset in the US Air Force arsenal. When they do come together, the pairing is usually for specific integration training or high-visibility demonstrations, not routine patrols, which is why a single formation at a European airshow can generate so much attention among aviation watchers.
Inside the twilight “burnerfest” that shows their personalities
If the Royal International Air Tattoo flypast is the polished portrait, the combined twilight performance sometimes dubbed a “burnerfest” is the candid close-up. In a recent sunset show, The US Air Force brought its F-35A Lightning II and F-22 Raptor Demonstration Teams together, letting each aircraft run through its solo routine before closing with a joint pass that filled the sky with afterburner plumes. Watching the Lightning II and Raptor Demonstration Teams fly in such tight sequence makes the differences in their flight characteristics obvious, from the F-22’s abrupt vectoring to the F-35’s smoother, sensor-driven presentation.
For me, that kind of display is more than spectacle, it is a live-fire lesson in how pilots and maintainers think about these jets. Demonstration teams are chosen to showcase the outer edges of an aircraft’s performance envelope, and when they coordinate a combined routine they are implicitly telling the audience that the two platforms are part of a single story. The twilight show, captured in high definition and shared widely with viewers as a glimpse of the future for everyone to enjoy, turns the abstract idea of “fifth generation integration” into something visceral: two very different machines, each pushed to its limits, still able to fly in concert when the mission demands it.
How early training missions taught them to work together
Long before the public saw Raptors and Lightnings looping over airshows, U.S. planners were quietly testing how to make them cooperate in combat. In one early operational integration training mission, Air Force units flew mixed packages of F-22s and F-35s with the explicit purpose of improving the integrated employment of fifth generation assets and tactics. That exercise treated the two jets as complementary nodes in a single network, with the Raptor using its stealth and altitude to sanitize the airspace while the F-35 pushed its sensors and data links to build a broader picture for the entire force.
Those sorties were not about showmanship, they were about solving practical problems like deconflicting sensor coverage, sharing targeting data, and deciding which cockpit should make which call. The training was described as a step toward routine fifth generation integration missions, a phrase that captures how the Air Force wants this pairing to feel inside the force even if it remains rare in public. By the time the jets appeared together at events like the Royal International Air Tattoo, they had already spent years learning to trust each other’s strengths in the far less glamorous environment of instrumented ranges and mission debrief rooms.
Different jets, different price tags, and the Reddit-era debate
Outside the fence line, the question of why the United States did not simply build more F-22s instead of fielding a large F-35 fleet has become a staple of online argument. In one widely read Comments Section on Reddit, users lay out a blunt version of the tradeoff: the F-22 is an air superiority fighter that is very good at one thing, while the F-35 is far cheaper per unit and can fill multiple roles that older fourth generation aircraft used to handle. That cost and versatility calculus helps explain why the Lightning II is now the backbone of allied air forces, while the Raptor remains a relatively small, specialized community.
From my perspective, those debates often miss how the two programs now depend on each other. The United States cannot afford to send its limited Raptor fleet to every hotspot, so it leans on the growing number of F-35s to provide stealthy strike, electronic warfare, and intelligence gathering, reserving the F-22 for the most demanding air dominance tasks. The online back and forth about whether America should have bought more Raptors instead of so many F-35s captures a real frustration about sunk costs, but it also underscores why pairing the jets in training and operations is so important: the force that exists today has to make the most of both designs, not rerun a procurement decision that is already in the past.
Combat operations where both jets shape the same fight
The rare public flypasts are only part of the story, because the F-22 and F-35 increasingly influence the same real-world operations even when they are not photographed wingtip to wingtip. During the regime change assault on Venezuela known as Absolute Resolve, planners assembled a massive air package that included More than 150 aircraft and drones once President Trump gave the order at 10:46 p.m. Eastern, a scale that required careful orchestration of every available high-end asset. In that context, fifth generation fighters were not solo stars but key contributors to a much larger strike and surveillance architecture that also featured bombers, tankers, and unmanned systems.
Further reporting on the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro spells out how central those stealth fighters have become. The aircraft involved were listed explicitly as Fighters that included F-35s, F/A-18s, E/A-18s, and F-22s, alongside Bombers such as B-1 bombers and a range of Unmanned aircraft that provided persistent surveillance and strike options. Even if the Raptors and Lightnings were separated by altitude blocks or mission timing, they were shaping the same battlespace, with the F-35’s sensors and strike capacity complementing the F-22’s ability to deter or defeat any attempt by Venezuelan or allied forces to contest the air. That kind of operation is a reminder that the most consequential “formation” is not always the one visible in a single photograph, but the web of roles each aircraft plays in a complex campaign.
What Venezuela revealed about the F-35’s growing weight
The Venezuela campaign also highlighted how quickly the F-35 has moved from controversial program to indispensable workhorse. In the lead-up to Absolute Resolve, Marine Corps units had already used the F-35B variant to impose costs on Venezuelan forces, with one analysis arguing that the Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter made Venezuela pay a big price through precision strikes and persistent presence. Exercises such as Valiant Shield were cited as crucial in giving the Indo Pacific Command Joint Task Force the practice it needed to integrate forces from multiple services, a template that then informed how F-35s were used in the Western Hemisphere.
Industry data shows how that operational demand is being matched by production. A recent corporate update noted that the F-35 Breaks Delivery Record, Continues Combat Success, with the company’s Releases section and Newsroom highlighting how the program’s output has ramped up out of FORT Worth to meet U.S. and allied orders. That surge in deliveries, combined with the Marine Corps F-35B deployment history referenced in the same report, helps explain why the Lightning II now appears in so many order of battle charts. When an operation like Absolute Resolve is planned, commanders can count on having F-35s available in multiple variants, while the smaller F-22 fleet is allocated more sparingly to the highest priority air dominance tasks.
How the jets literally teach each other new tricks
Inside the cockpit, the relationship between the two aircraft is not static. Pilots and tacticians have spent years using joint training to transfer techniques from one community to the other, a process captured in detailed accounts of how the F-35 and F-22 teach each other new tricks. Both jets can carry the AIM-9X short-range dogfight missile, for example, but only the F-35 can aim the missile far off boresight using its helmet-mounted display, a capability that has encouraged Raptor pilots to rethink how they position their aircraft in a merge even if their own systems cannot yet employ that exact tactic.
From my vantage point, that kind of cross-pollination is one of the most important, if least visible, reasons to put the jets in the same airspace. When Both aircraft train together with weapons like AIM series missiles, they are not just rehearsing formations, they are experimenting with new ways to divide labor in a fight, such as having F-35s act as forward scouts that pass targeting data back to F-22s that remain electronically silent. Those experiments then feed into formal tactics manuals and future hardware upgrades, ensuring that each new software drop or weapons integration is informed by how the other jet actually fights rather than by abstract engineering assumptions.
Airshow schedules as a roadmap to future sightings
For aviation fans who want to know when they might next see the two jets in the same sky, the demonstration calendars offer some clues. The 2026 US Air Force F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team Appearance Schedule lays out a detailed list of Date and Event pairings, from early season shows to marquee gatherings like the Texas Capital Airshow in San Marcos, TX, where the Raptor is slated to perform. When those events overlap with F-35 demonstration appearances or static displays, the odds of catching both aircraft at least on the same ramp, if not in the same formation, go up significantly.
Some of those appearances are already generating buzz. A promotional video confirms that the F-22 Raptor Demo Team is headed to the 2026 sun ‘n fun aerospace expo in Lakeland, with organizers urging fans to secure tickets and promising a packed #airshows lineup. Separate coverage notes that the Air Force’s Raptor Demonstration Team Releases its Schedule through official channels, with the Raptor Demonstration calendar emphasizing how each stop is meant to showcase air dominance for the Raptor to audiences across the country. For spectators, cross-referencing those dates with known F-35 appearances is the most practical way to plan for a rare side-by-side encounter.
Training wings and autonomous teaming point to what comes next
Beyond the headline demonstrations, the day-to-day work of operational wings is steadily tightening the bond between the two aircraft. Throughout 2025, one F-35A Lightning II wing reported that it sharpened its combat capabilities by participating in complex joint exercises, including large scale scenarios like Eagle 25-1 that forced pilots to refine tactics in crowded, contested airspace. Those events often include simulated or actual integration with F-22 units, even if the Raptors are not always named publicly, because replicating a realistic high-end fight now assumes that both fifth generation types will be present somewhere in the battlespace.
At the same time, industry is already experimenting with how the Raptor and Lightning II will work alongside autonomous systems, which will further change what it means to see them “together.” General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has announced that, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and L3Harris Technologi, it conducted a successful crewed-uncrewed teaming demonstration in which an F-22 Raptor controlled an MQ-20 Avenger drone using advanced tactical datalinks and software-defined radios. As those concepts mature and similar work expands to the F-35, the mental image of two manned jets flying in formation will give way to a more complex picture: stealth fighters at the center of a constellation of unmanned wingmen, all sharing data and tasks in real time.
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