Table of Contents
| Judgment call | Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker | Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor |
|---|---|---|
| Generation | Fourth | Fifth |
| Designed to counter | The F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle | The Su-27, the MiG-29 and new Soviet air defenses |
| First flight, service | May 1977 (T-10 prototype); service from June 1985 | September 1997; operational December 2005 |
| Stealth | None | 0.0001 sq m from some angles, per Lockheed Martin |
| Radar | N001 pulse-Doppler; finds a 3 sq m target head-on at 50 to 62 miles (80 to 100 km) | AN/APG-77 active electronically scanned array |
| Thrust vectoring | None on the baseline jet | Yes, pitch only, plus or minus 20 degrees |
| Supercruise | Not credited with it | Yes, above Mach 1.5 |
| Thrust-to-weight | 1.07 with 56% fuel | 1.25 with 50% internal fuel |
| Air-to-air missiles | R-27 and R-73, carried outside on 10 hardpoints | Six AIM-120 and two AIM-9, carried inside |
| Number built | About 680 | 195, including 8 test aircraft |
| Exported | Widely, from China to Angola | Never; U.S. law bars foreign sales |
The F-22 exists partly because of the Su-27
This is not a comparison between two jets that happened to be built at the same time. The Sukhoi Su-27 was the Soviet answer to the F-15 Eagle, and the F-22 was the American answer to the Su-27.
Sukhoi’s T-10 prototype first flew on 20 May 1977. It was reworked so heavily that the production T-10S bore only a superficial resemblance to it, and the Su-27 entered service in 1985.
By then the U.S. Air Force had already started the Advanced Tactical Fighter program in 1981. Intelligence reports cited new Soviet surface-to-air missiles, the A-50 radar plane and the spread of Su-27 and MiG-29 class fighters as threats that would erode the F-15 and F-16.
The result was the F-22 Raptor, which first flew in September 1997 and became operational in December 2005.
So the fair question is not whether the F-22 beats the Su-27. It was designed to. The question is by how much, and where the older jet still holds its own.
Stealth: the gap that decides the fight
The F-22’s exact radar cross-section is classified. In 2009 Lockheed Martin said that from certain angles it is about 0.0001 square meters, roughly the radar return of a steel marble.
The Su-27 has no stealth shaping at all. It is a large fighter that hangs its missiles outside the airframe.
What that means in practice comes from simple physics. Detection range scales with the fourth root of a target’s radar cross-section. The Su-27’s N001 radar was designed to find a 3-square-meter target head-on at 50 to 62 miles (80 to 100 km).
Plug the Raptor’s best-angle figure into that relationship and the same radar would see it at roughly 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km). That is a back-of-envelope estimate, not a test result, but it shows the scale of the problem.
The Flanker pilot's best tool is not the radar
The Su-27 carries an OLS-27 infrared search and track sensor in front of the cockpit, credited with 50 to 62 miles (80 to 100 km) of range. Radar stealth shaping does not hide engine heat, although infrared range depends heavily on the target’s angle and engine setting.
The F-22 has the opposite advantage. Its AN/APG-77 radar is estimated to reach 125 to 150 miles (200 to 240 km) against a 1-square-meter target. The Su-27, with no stealth shaping and missiles hung outside, does nothing to shrink its return.
Speed: the Su-27 is faster on paper, the F-22 in practice
The Su-27 has the higher published top speed, Mach 2.35 at altitude against Mach 2.25 for the F-22. That gap is real but small, and both figures need afterburner.
The number that matters more is supercruise, which means holding supersonic speed without afterburner. The Air Force says the F-22 cruises at greater than Mach 1.5 that way, and its published supercruise speed is Mach 1.76.
The Su-27 is not credited with supercruise. Afterburner drinks fuel, so a Flanker that wants to stay supersonic runs short of fuel much sooner than a Raptor doing the same thing.
Close in: the Su-27’s best hope
If a Su-27 survives to the merge, it is in its element. It was the Soviet Union’s first operational fly-by-wire fighter, and with low wing loading and powerful controls it stays controllable at very low speeds and very high angles of attack.
Test pilot Viktor Pugachev first demonstrated the Cobra maneuver in a Su-27 in 1989, pitching the nose up to about 120 degrees angle of attack. It made the Flanker an airshow legend.
The trouble is that the F-22 is not a clumsy opponent. Their wing loading is almost identical on paper: 77.2 lb/sq ft for the Raptor and 377.9 kg per square meter, about 77 lb/sq ft, for the Su-27 with 56% fuel.
Both are rated to 9 g. The Raptor has more thrust for its weight, 1.25 with half its internal fuel against the Su-27’s 1.07 with 56%, and it has thrust-vectoring nozzles that the baseline Su-27 lacks.
Three Su-27 myths that keep getting repeated
The Su-27 does not have a variable-sweep wing; it is a fixed, cropped delta. The baseline Su-27 has no thrust vectoring; that came later on the Su-30MKI, Su-35 and Su-37, and it is the F-22 that has vectoring nozzles in this matchup. And the F-22 is not invisible to radar, it is hard to see from certain angles, which is a very different claim.
Weapons and sensors
In its air-to-air configuration the F-22 carries six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9 Sidewinders, all inside its weapons bays, plus an M61A2 20 mm cannon with 480 rounds. Carrying weapons internally is what lets it stay stealthy while armed.
The Su-27 has up to 10 external hardpoints and a 30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon. Its standard air-to-air load is a mix of radar-guided R-27 and infrared-guided R-73 missiles.
The gap in avionics is a generation wide. The F-22 fuses its radar, electronic warfare and off-board data into one tactical picture for the pilot. The Su-27 relies on its N001 pulse-Doppler radar, a 1970s-generation set with a conventional dish antenna, backed by the OLS-27 infrared sensor.
The Raptor is still being improved. In September 2026 one was photographed over California carrying new external sensor pods, possibly infrared search and track, after stealthy external fuel tanks appeared on test jets in March 2026.
Where the Su-27 still wins
Numbers and reach. Around 680 Su-27s were built, and the type still serves in Russia, Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Angola.
Only 195 F-22s were built, and the last was delivered in May 2012. Every defense appropriations act since fiscal 1998 has barred selling it abroad, so the U.S. Air Force is its only operator.
The Su-27 also has the fighter-versus-fighter combat record. Ethiopian Su-27s shot down two Eritrean MiG-29s in February 1999, and both Russia and Ukraine fly the type over Ukraine today; Ukraine had lost 19 of them by April 2026.
The F-22 flew its first combat sorties over Syria in 2014, dropping bombs. Its first air-to-air kill was a Chinese surveillance balloon off South Carolina on 4 February 2023.
The U.S. Air Force has owned Su-27s
Two Su-27P fighters were delivered to the United States from Belarus in 1995, so the service that flies the Raptor has had the real Flanker to study.
The Flanker also grew into a whole family. Its airframe became the Su-30, Su-33 and Su-35; our Su-27 vs Su-35 comparison shows what changed when Sukhoi rebuilt it with thrust vectoring and a new radar.
Who would win in a dogfight?
The F-22, and in most scenarios the Su-27 pilot would never know a dogfight had started. A stealthy fighter with a longer-ranged radar and missiles in its bays gets the first shot from well beyond the range at which the Flanker could see it.
The Su-27’s chance is a visual-range fight, where its infrared sensor, R-73 missiles and superb low-speed handling count. Even there it meets a jet with better thrust-to-weight, the same wing loading and vectoring nozzles of its own.
A fairer match for the Raptor is Russia’s later Flanker, covered in our F-22 vs Su-35 comparison, or its fifth-generation rival in F-22 vs Su-57. For the wider field, see our ranking of the best fighter jets in the world.
Neither jet is going away soon. The F-22 deployed to Israel for the February 2026 strikes on Iran, and the Air Force plans to hand its role to the Boeing F-47. Russia intends the Su-57 to replace the Su-27 eventually.
FAQ
Sources and references used for research and fact-checking.
About the Author
Tim is the owner and lead editor of AeroCorner since 2019, overseeing aviation content covering aircraft, airlines, airports, and the broader aviation industry. Through years of researching, writing, editing, and publishing aviation-focused content, he has developed extensive practical knowledge of commercial aviation and air travel. Based in Asia and a frequent traveler himself, Tim also brings firsthand passenger experience to AeroCorner’s coverage. Outside of publishing, he has also explored aviation firsthand through hands-on flight training in New Zealand.