Jarod Hamilton’s March photos showed the F-22 Raptor in a new configuration with stealthy external fuel tanks and external pods. The setup points to a range increase from about 590 nautical miles to 850, with the pods reportedly carrying infrared search-and-track sensors or other optical targeting systems.
Hamilton, a California-based aviation photographer, got the clearest look yet at the aircraft’s latest layout in March. The images matter because the F-22 has long lacked infrared search-and-track capability, a gap that left it without its own optical way to scan for and designate ground targets.
F-22 range and sensor gap
A clean F-22 Raptor has a combat range of about 590 nautical miles. The new stealth drop tanks are described as good for 850 nautical miles, narrowing a limitation that has trailed the aircraft against the Su-57, at 670 nautical miles, and the J-20, at 1,100 nautical miles.
The sensor pods carry a different kind of fix. The F-22 was originally supposed to receive IRST systems similar to the F-35’s Electro-Optical Targeting System, but after the USSR collapsed in 1991, budget cuts made those systems too expensive to integrate into the jet.
March of this year
In March of this year, Hamilton photographed the F-22 in the configuration that is now drawing attention because it combines range and targeting changes on the same airframe. The timing matters because the F-47 is not expected until the 2030s, leaving the F-22 as the stopgap with the most room for incremental upgrades.
That long delay helps explain why a jet designed without those tools is now being fitted with them in external form. During the War on Terror, the F-22 had limited strike capabilities against enemies without an air force, and later upgrades added GPS- or laser-guided munitions, but the lack of IRST remained a structural weakness.
Le Tourneau and the F-22
U.S. Air Force Capt. Nick “Laz” Le Tourneau, the commander of the F-22 Raptor Aerial Demonstration Team, performed over Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Sept. 20, 2026, and flew there on Sept. 19, 2026 as part of the Naval Air Station Oceana Air Show Beach Blast. His flights were separate from the March photos, but they kept the aircraft in view as the new layout drew attention.
The unanswered point is the simplest one left by the photos: which specific sensors or systems are inside the new external pods. Until that is spelled out, the visible change tells the larger story — the F-22 is being pushed to carry more range and more targeting reach while the service waits for the F-47.
