F-22 Raptor: Now you see it ...

The government spent 11 years and $40 billion making sure it's nearly invisible, but Uncle Sam is hoping to show its newest fighter jet to as many people as possible Saturday at the Charleston air expo.

The Air Force will put its F-22 Raptor fighter through the paces in the Lowcountry skies just before the storied Thunderbirds take off.

For aviation buffs, the Raptor will be just as impressive as the Air Force's precision flight team. When it tangles with the Thunderbirds' F-16s in war games, the F-22 wins 98 percent of the time.

Al Norman, the F-22's chief test pilot — the guy who literally wrote the book on the jet — tried to put the machine in perspective Tuesday for about 65 South Carolina policymakers and economic development officials: "There's no other airplane in the world that can do anything close to what the Raptor can do."

Packed with two 35,000-pound thrust jets and enough computing power to run a good-size corporation, the F-22 has a "God's-eye view" of its surrounding and "cruises" at Mach 1.5 — roughly 1,155 mph.

With engines that tilt 24 degrees in either direction, the F-22 can turn tighter than a pilot's body can withstand. And on a radar screen it has the profile of a large bird thanks to engineers who tucked the engines and weapons under the skin of the machine.

"If someone gets a quick glimpse of us, it doesn't matter because we're not there anymore," Norman said. "It's almost like R2-D2 is riding with us and we're just Luke Skywalker using the Force. We just feel an airplane that goes anywhere and does anything we want it to do."

It takes two and a half years to make a Raptor, which costs a vertiginous $137 million apiece, according to Texas-based Lockheed Martin Corp., the lead contractor on the plane.

Lockheed Martin has delivered 117 F-22s to the Air Force since it started making them in 1996.

Saturday's Raptor flight will be particularly exciting for the 285 or so Goose Creek workers who build simulators to train F-22 mechanics. AAI Corp., which owns the Goose Creek factory, is one of 1,000 suppliers working on the jet — a list that includes aviation heavyweights like Boeing Co. and Pratt & Whitney.

Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, is trying to land contracts that would bring Charleston more F-22 work. Its current contract calls for 66 more of the vanguard jets and ends in 2011. Recently, federal money earmarked to tack on a few more Raptors was diverted to fix F-15s, the jets that the F-22 was designed to replace.

Lockheed Martin Communication Manager Rob Fuller said Tuesday that now is the time to "capitalize on the F-22 investment."

"Nothing can touch us now," he said. "But the other guys aren't just sitting around."