A social-media style sighting report of a suspected F-22 Raptor transiting the northern Adirondacks region of New York, with the poster noting the aircraft did not appear on FlightAware and speculating a Vermont Air National Guard connection, offers little in the way of verifiable operational detail, but it is illustrative of a recurring pattern in military aviation observation. Fighter aircraft, particularly fifth-generation platforms like the F-22, do not broadcast ADS-B Out information in a way that is picked up by consumer flight-tracking services during tactical or training profiles, and many military flights operate under call signs or transponder modes that are deliberately excluded from public feeds like FlightAware or FlightRadar24. The Vermont Air National Guard's 158th Fighter Wing, based at Burlington International Airport, flies F-35A Lightning IIs (having transitioned from F-16s), which raises a minor inconsistency in the original poster's guess, though the broader Northeast is also regularly transited by active-duty and Guard F-22s from bases such as Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia or the 1st Fighter Wing, especially during training sorties, air sovereignty patrols, or NORAD-related taskings tied to the Eastern Air Defense Sector.
For working pilots, particularly those flying in Class E and G airspace over the Adirondacks and northern New England, this kind of sighting is a useful reminder that military traffic operating at high speed and often at low observed altitudes may not be visible on TCAS-integrated traffic displays or ADS-B In apps if the aircraft is not squawking discrete codes or broadcasting position data compatible with civilian systems. Military Training Routes (MTRs) and Military Operations Areas (MOAs) crisscross this region, and while many are published in charts and NOTAMs, transient fighter traffic conducting point-to-point transits or unpublished training missions can appear with little advance warning. Pilots operating VFR in the area, especially those flying gliders, general aviation aircraft, or business jets transiting at lower flight levels near the Adirondacks, should maintain heightened visual scanning discipline and monitor appropriate ATC frequencies, since see-and-avoid remains the primary defense against a high-closure-rate encounter with a fighter that may not appear as a traffic target.
More broadly, this kind of grassroots aircraft-spotting report reflects the growing public and enthusiast interest in tracking military air activity, fueled by tools like ADS-B Exchange, which captures some military ADS-B Out signals filtered out of commercial trackers, and by informal networks of spotters who cross-reference sightings with squawk codes, radio chatter, and visual identification. This activity has real operational relevance: it underscores the persistent gap between what civilian pilots and dispatchers can see on standard traffic displays versus the actual density and unpredictability of military air traffic sharing the same airspace, particularly in the Northeast corridor where NORAD intercepts, Guard training, and transient fighter movements are common. For flight departments and charter operators routing through this region, it reinforces the value of checking NOTAMs for active MOAs and MTRs, maintaining situational awareness on Flight Following even in nominally uncongested airspace, and recognizing that "not showing up on FlightAware" is not evidence of an aircraft's absence, but rather a limitation of the tracking ecosystem itself when it comes to military operations.