Lockheed Martin FB-22
proposed bomber aircraft for the US Air Force derived from the F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin FB-22 was a proposed supersonic stealth bomber aircraft for the United States Air Force, derived from the F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter. Lockheed Martin proposed its design in the early 2000s with support from certain Air Force leaders as an interim "regional bomber" to complement the aging U.S. strategic bomber fleet, whose replacement was planned to enter service after 2037. The FB-22 was to leverage much of the design work and components from the F-22 to reduce development costs.
Lockheed Martin suspended work on the concept following the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which called for a new and much larger strategic Next-Generation Bomber by 2018; this program had morphed into the Long Range Strike Bomber.
Background
In March 1999, the Air Force released a Long Range Bombers white paper in response to a Congressional mandate for the service to update its bomber roadmap. The paper stated that the service's current fleet of strategic bombers consisting of the B-52, B-1, and B-2 would be sufficient until around 2037, when they will need to be replaced by a new "capability" with an acquisition program starting in 2019. However, this target date frustrated members of Congress who hoped to see greater budgetary emphasis on the bomber mission. Furthermore, the subsequent 2001 Department of Defense (DoD) Quadrennial Defense Review identified increasing threats to U.S. power projection, and the Air Force's aging bomber fleet. One of the key threats identified by the review was the increasing prevalence of sophisticated air defense systems which could deny airspace access to any aircraft without stealth capability. In November 2001, the Air Force released an updated white paper on Long Range Strike Aircraft, which acknowledged these challenges and also anticipated a strategic shift from nuclear deterrence to conventional precision bombing and network-centric warfare for global power projection in potentially unexpected conflict zones.
The public source identifies “Lockheed Martin FB-22” as proposed bomber aircraft for the US Air Force derived from the F-22 Raptor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lockheed, Martin and FB-22.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q994664. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2037, 2006, 2018 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lockheed Martin FB-22” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.