i was reading debt of honor by tom clancy and he called the f-22 the rapier. today it is known as the raptor. the book was published in 1994. was there a name change on the f-22?
I don't believe the production model aircraft had even flown at that point and so there were all kinds of 'considered' names floating about waiting to see if the jet would look kewl and survive EMD to reach production.
'Superstar' (From Lockheeds original F-80 'Shooting Star')
'Lightning II' (A better choice for the aircraft than the F-35 because both the P-38 and the F-22 are _purpose built HIGH altitude, twin engine, interceptors_)
'Rapier' (A logical outgrowth of the Convair series Dart and Dagger, supposedly shot down to remind now-GD who had the pecking order rights...).
'Raptor' was not originally thought all that cool so much as sounding like a wordplay from the recent 'Jurassic Park' dinos.
There were a couple other derogatory nicks I remember. 'Bathtub' and 'Constellation' deriving from the deep jowl of of undernose and the 'Lockheeds Last Great (Commercial Airliner) Success Story' respectively.
