Gambit, please hear me out and through.
Supercruise
the word is a juxtaposition of supersonic and cruise.
Supercruise is then the ability to maintain flight above Mach1, period.
Supercruise
the capacity is doing so without using afterburners.
Any jet with enough dry thrust can do that. To be precise, many jets can
maintain supercruise today and
any of them can get there on dry thrust.
Supercruise hides the following facts however : power, drag, load and fuel fraction.
There are many ways to combine these :
A- a given engine dry thrust used on different aircrafts.
Any engine generating a supersonic exhaust flux can supercruise alone as in a rocket. If applied to a heavy enough or not sufficiently aerodynamic body however, it will not be powerful enough to attain M1 and thus the combination will not supercruise.
B- a drag factor can be changed up or down in many ways.
Have a more aerodynamic shape; reduce friction : either by flying in more rarefied air ( HA ) or by disrupting the air through any method thus cutting down its density, etc.
C- load variation : once the above two are combined, load comes into play and reducing overall weight favors achieving supercruise while heightening it can nullify the ability.
D- fuel availability : once the above three are combined the quantity of fuel available can be enough to supercruise for 1 Nautical Mile or for 1 000 NM.
Many fighters and at least one civilian aircraft ( Concorde ) can supercruise. This however varies in practical use.
Any plane that can fly over M1 on dry thrust can de facto reach that speed without afterburners. Which does not mean however that it can do so usefully. Thus, one must factor in all of the above to find what results can be gotten from this ability.
If you use say 80% of your fuel through dry thrust to reach M1, supercruise means getting airborne, breaking Mach, flying 1 NM, turning around and landing. In such a set-up, it would not matter what military load you carry, tactical application would be zero.
Using afterburners to reach M1 is the solution as it consumes more fuel for a shorter period but less overall and leaves more of the total available to cruise afterwards. Since drag is reduced considerably past the sound barrier and less fuel needs to be consumed, the result would be a greatly improved supercruise distance by that same aircraft. The same as above then provides say 40% instead of 20% remaining fuel and 10NM instead of 1.
Let us suppose for an instant that your M1 able engine-aircraft combination does not have afterburners. You would be left with one choice to augment supercruise distance : diminish load to reduce drag.
Strip the aircraft of all unnecessary weight : take off the weaponry for instance! The combo can now supercruise longer but tactical application is again zero. You can reach the enemy in time but not fight it once there.
Another precision : supercruise capacity varies in distance as we just saw but also in speed. Supercruising for an hour at M1 gets you less distance covered than supercruising at M1.4 for an hour and that in turn less than supercruising at M1.8.
Finally, the law of diminishing returns applies to all of the above so that all supercruise options outlined come at a cost that gets higher and higher as performances increase, again possibly resulting in zero tactical application under varying scenarii.
All of the above means that supercruise itself can be had without any military benefits ensuing and that each context of use is different, i.e. the word itself does not define the qualitative advantages of its implementation.
Is then the F-22 better at it than the rest?
You bet it is : head and shoulders above the rest in fact! The Raptor can supercruise at M1.5 / M1.7 with full air superiority armament ( 6 AIM-120 + 2 AIM-9 ) for over 200NM ( exact number being classified ).
Let us be clear : no other aircraft in use or under development as of today ( Feb_March 2015 ) can or will match this, period.
The best - Rafale / Typhoon / Gripen can supercruise at 1.4, 1.3 and 1.2 Mach in combat configurations respectively for instance, sure but ...
in all three cases, with less than maximum number of missiles and/or less than maximum number of external fuel stores.
Taking the Rafale as an example to avoid offending sensibilities, it goes something like 6 MICA ( out of a possible 10 ) and no fuel tanks or 4 MICA and a supersonic belly tank and so on, all at M1.4. That means the load and fuel fraction factors are well below the full configuration and tactical application below the ideal 100%. Range, for one, would be severely reduced.
To get to M1.5 on dry thrust, Rafale or Typhoon would need to be in clean configuration ( nothing hanging out ) which brings us back to zero tactical application.
Again, the Raptor can achieve its numbers with all fuel and weapons or full configuration if you prefer, thanks to its all internal stealth design.
Even then the cost however is immense : 25% reduction in max. range for 100NM travelled and again, the law of diminishing returns makes anything beyond more and more costly.
Oh! And for all, even the Raptor, this is only possible at high altitude.
What all of this means is that : the Raptor is
the only plane that can boast of
routine use of supercruise vs
less than a handful that can make
possible ( or occasional ) use of it and a
long list of aircrafts that have the ability itself but just can
not extract
any military use from it.
I hope you were able to last through this long diatribe of an explanation and that it will come in handy.
And, I am sorry to say this as it may sound disrespectful but it is not, merely preventive, without doubting your credentials, my sources for the above include the USAF itself. Here are a couple simple examples
F-22 demonstrates 'supercruise' for first time
" …
In the context of the F-22 Raptor,
supercruise is
defined as the ability to cruise at speeds of one and a half times the speed of sound or greater without the use of afterburner for extended periods in combat configuration.Jul 21, 1999
"
Sustaining the target Mach was not difficult for the Raptor," said Col. C.D. Moore, Combined Test Force commander, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. … "
F-22 Raptor > U.S. Air Force > Fact Sheet Display
" … The F-22 engines produce more thrust than any current fighter engine. The combination of sleek aerodynamic design and increased thrust allows the F-22 to cruise at supersonic airspeeds (greater than 1.5 Mach) without using afterburner -- a characteristic known as supercruise. Supercruise greatly expands the F-22 's operating envelope in both speed and range over current fighters, which must use fuel-consuming afterburner to operate at supersonic speeds. ...'
and a shorter version of my post for the most impatient of PDF members :
What Is Supercruise? (with pictures) from which :
" … A supercruise aircraft generally utilizes afterburners to accelerate from subsonic to supersonic velocity, although this is because of concerns about fuel efficiency rather than strict necessity, in most cases. …"
And a very good day to you all, Tay.
... even more if right the first sentence is already wrong ? '2015' is not the fifth but already the sixth J-20 to fly. 
