{"id":119853,"date":"2021-11-22T11:58:31","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=119853"},"modified":"2021-11-22T11:58:31","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:58:31","slug":"f-22-in-striking-mirrored-silver-spotted-at-nellis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=119853","title":{"rendered":"F-22 in striking mirrored silver spotted at Nellis"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_119854\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-119854\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-119854\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis-500x281.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis-500x281.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/F-22-Silver-coating-nellis.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-119854\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo credit S. Caceres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some sort of mirror-like finish was spotted on this F-22 Raptor near Nellis AFB. It&#8217;s supposed that this is some sort of testbed for a laser-based search and tracking system. It&#8217;s also possible it&#8217;s being evaluated as a coating as a defense against a laser-based weapon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/43228\/f-22-raptor-covered-in-mirror-like-coating-photographed-flying-out-of-nellis-afb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Drive has the scoop<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A highly intriguing U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter was caught in the camera lens of talented aviation photographer Santos Caceres as it blasted out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada on the morning of November 19th, 2021. The aircraft is seen largely covered in a tile-like reflective metallic coating that is unlike anything we have seen on a Raptor ever before.<\/p>\n<p>While the F-22 can look drastically different when its intricate skin coating and delicate composite stealthy structures are in various states of repair, one sporting polished metal has never been seen before nor does it make any outright operational sense. Note how the coating has been carefully applied to not interfere with the jet&#8217;s many key access points, sensor and antenna areas, and other critical systems.<\/p>\n<p>While what we are exactly seeing here is still up for debate, it looks like the Raptor in question has a mosaic of reflective material applied to its normal skin for some sort of testing purpose. It just so happens that we have seen something uncannily similar before, but on an even more exotic airframe.<\/p>\n<p>In June of 2020,\u00a0<em>The War Zone<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/34225\/stealthy-son-of-ares-jet-seen-covered-in-mirrors-during-mysterious-flight-tests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">exclusively reported that one<\/a>\u00a0of Scaled Composites Model 401 &#8216;Son Of Ares&#8217; demonstrators had flown a number of test flights over Naval Air Weapons Center China Lake covered in a highly-reflective metallic coating. It had a similar patchwork quality to what we are seeing here on the F-22. At the time we posited that this could be for testing advanced infrared sensors and even possible low-power laser systems and their targeting capabilities against a &#8216;mirrored&#8217; target.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>More at the source. Whatever it is, it looks awesome. Reminds me of seeing a highly polished aluminum WWII-era warbird like the B-29 Superfortress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some sort of mirror-like finish was spotted on this F-22 Raptor near Nellis AFB. It&#8217;s supposed &hellip; <a title=\"F-22 in striking mirrored silver spotted at Nellis\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=119853\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">F-22 in striking mirrored silver spotted at Nellis<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119855,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119853\/revisions\/119855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}