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Fighter jets are often advertised by their top speeds, and those speeds are often compared across fighter jet types and between Western and Soviet/Russian jets without context. But this quickly leads to apples-to-oranges comparisons. Additionally, few lists determine how a ‘top speed’ is achieved and whether it’s even achievable in real-world combat scenarios.
Importantly, fighter jets are designed for different missions and to meet different design doctrines. The MiG-31 is an interceptor; the F-35 is a stealth fighter. It doesn’t make sense to compare their speeds as though they’re equivalent. In fact, it’s reasonable to say that Russia does not have an equivalent fighter jet to the F-35 in service, with the Su-57 being better compared with the F-15EX. But that is beyond the scope. Here is why advertised fighter jet top speeds are frequently misleading.
Top Speeds Are Given At Altitude
One of the most obvious factors is that an advertised top speed is the speed the jet can reach at a high altitude where the air is thin, and drag is reduced. But this is typically not the altitude that combat aircraft fly during combat missions. The B-1B Lancer is a high-level bomber with a secondary low-bomber role. It is listed as having a top speed of Mach 1.25, making it the US’s only supersonic bomber. But it is only able to reach that speed at altitude and flying clean (without munitions), not during low-level bombing runs.
Helpfully, the Eurofighter Consortium provides two speed metrics for its fighter. It says the Eurofighter Typhoon has a maximum speed of Mach 2.0 at altitude and a maximum speed of Mach 1.25 at sea level. That is a significant drop. Most of the advertised speeds are at altitude. The USAF specifically says aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon reach their maximum speeds of Mach 2.0 at altitude.
The typical altitude for these figures is around 35,000 feet to 45,000 feet, although this can vary between manufacturers. Without a spec sheet specifying the exact altitude, even ‘at altitude’ can vary between fact sheets and result in apples-to-oranges comparisons.
Max Speeds Are Flying Clean
Another of the most obvious nuances for aircraft top speeds is that these figures are for the fighter jets flying clean, that is, without external stores like missiles, bombs, and drop tanks. This immediately affects comparable top speeds in a conflict. Fifth-generation fighter jets like the F-35 and F-22 carry their stores internally, meaning they don’t get this penalty. They can carry stores externally, ‘beast mode’ for the F-35, but this rarely happens, with the first documented combat case being the Israeli Air Force in 2025.
The Russian Su-35S is advertised with a maximum speed of Mach 2.25, while the F-15 is advertised at around Mach 2.5. The fifth-generation F-22 is Mach 2.25, and the F-35A is just Mach 1.6. However, in a theoretical match-off with the aircraft configured with air-to-air missiles, the Su-35S’s speed could fall below Mach 2 and the F-15 to around Mach 2 using plausible estimates.
Suddenly, the F-22’s speed advantage increases, and even its supercruise at around Mach 1.5 looks more competitive. Tellingly, most of the speed gap between the Su-35S and the ‘slow’ F-35A evaporates. As argued, the speed gap between the aircraft may be much narrower than spec sheets suggest. Russian fighter specifications, like those of many other manufacturers, can make maximum speed appear more operationally significant than it is in a typical combat configuration.
Design/Structural Max. Vs Real World Flying
In the 2022 movie, Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick tells the pilots, “The stress limit of the F-18’s airframe is 7.5. That’s the accepted limit. To survive this mission, you’ll pull beyond that, even if it means bending your airframe.” After demonstrating the run through the canyon, he is scolded by the commanding officer, saying he bent the F/A-18’s airframe and it might never fly again. While this is just a movie, it illustrates an important point: what an aircraft is physically capable of is not the same as what it is structurally designed for.
This has been a particular gripe with Russian/Soviet fighter jets. Cold War-era Soviet interceptors like the MiG-25 Foxbat were rated near Mach 3.2. But in operational service, Soviet pilots were restricted to around Mach 2.8, as pushing the jet faster could risk engine and airframe damage. MiG-25’s Tumansky R-15 engines were particularly vulnerable to overheating at very high speeds.
Select US fighter Jets Advertised Top Speeds | |
|---|---|
F-15E and F-15EX | Mach 2.5 |
F-22 | Mach 2.25 (supercruise at Mach 1.5+) |
F-16 | Mach 2.0 |
F-35A | Mach 1.6 |
F/A-18 (and EA-18G) | Mach 1.8 |
The bigger issue is that many online discussions may talk about the outer boundary of what an aircraft is capable of under particular conditions, without regard to the damage that it would cause to the aircraft. In an extreme Top Gun-style scenario, the jet may survive or win the day, but it may also be the last mission it ever flies. Another issue is comparing the outer boundary of Russian fighters with the restricted boundary of Western fighters.
Supercruise Is Particularly Important
Another major issue is that people often compare the top speeds of fighter jets, even though they are of little use in many real-world contexts. For example, after the Vietnam War, the USAF analyzed the data from 100,000 F-4 Phantom II combat sorties. High-speed limits maneuverability. While the fighter has a top speed of Mach 2.2, it was found that its pilots didn’t fly it at that speed during combat scenarios, nor at Mach 2.0, Mach 1.8, or Mach 1.6.
There were only a few minutes above Mach 1.4 and a few hours between Mach 1.2 and 1.4. This was true even when the Phantom II flew into the combat area urgently. Going supersonic guzzles fuel, collapses the combat radius, and reduces time over the area of interest. Supercruise is directly designed to address this issue. It makes supersonic speeds useful.
In terms of the fighter jet with the highest sustainable speeds, that accolade arguably goes to the F-22 Raptor with its supercruise of Mach 1.5 or more. In third or fourth place could be the Eurofighter (Mach 1.3) flying clean, which is not very helpful in a combat setting. The Chinese J-20 is also thought to supercruise and likely outpace the Eurofighter, especially with internal stores. The Su-57’s performance is unclear, especially with its interim engines. Its internal bay woes appear to have been resolved.
Speed & Maneuverability Are Russian Branding
It is also worth noting that different companies/countries have different incentives when it comes to what to emphasize in their aircraft. They can take on marketing personalities. Dassault emphasizes the ‘omnirole’ abilities of its Rafale, while Sweden’s Saab emphasizes the low operating cost and dispersal abilities of its Gripen E. That said, Aviation Week reported criticism of Saab for overselling and misrepresentingcosts. Taking off from semi-prepared runways and highways is also something all Western jets can do (e.g., in Finland).
Saab is an example showing that Western jets are not immune to exaggerated marketing to achieve their desired ‘personality’. Key selling points of the F-35 are its stealth, situational awareness, and networking. It also greatly increases the capabilities of fourth-generation fighter jets (e.g., Eurofighters, F-16s) it operates with. Speed and maneuverability have traditionally been Russian marketing and talking points.
Almost comically, Russian jets show off their supermaneuverability with the famous Cobra maneuver without explaining why killing airspeed and energy would do anything more than present a sitting-duck target for a homing-in missile. It may be intuitive to think of air forces as being rational actors that make cold, calculating decisions based on classified specs. But decision-makers are still human, and they can be influenced by a range of factors, including visual and relatable ‘wow’ factors.
Some Figures Are Testbed Cases
The incoming GE Aerospace GE9X engine is advertised as having achieved 134,300 lbf during testing, breaking all records. Yet it is set to enter service with a lower thrust rating (105,000 lbf) than its predecessor (110,000 lbf). This shows that test runs and certified real-world performance are not the same. Many aircraft have set their records during testing, never to match that speed again in real-world use.
One excellent example is the Douglas DC-8, a quad-engined narrowbody airliner that went supersonic in 1961 for 16 seconds and reached Mach 1.012. This was achieved during a dive under certain conditions. Like other conventional tube-and-wing aircraft, its typical speed was around Mach 0.82. The fact that the DC-8 could and did fly Mach 1.012 does not mean it was marketed or listed as a supersonic airliner with a Mach 1 top speed on its spec sheets, or that it was faster than any modern commercial airliner.
Another great example is the Soviet MiG-25, which was generally restricted to Mach 2.35-2.5 in normal operations and was only permitted to fly at Mach 2.83 in dashes. There are reports of it reaching around Mach 3.2 while escaping Israeli missiles in 1973. Reportedly, the engines were destroyed. But perhaps the biggest issue is comparing apples to apples. If a fighter flew at Mach X in a specific shallow dive scenario, that’s fine, but it should not be compared with the advertised sustained speed of another aircraft.
