Here’s Why The US Air Force Will Soon Have Over 30 Extra F-22 Stealth Fighters

Development of the F-22 Raptor initially started in the Cold War, with the Air Force planning to purchase 750 of the next-generation fighters. But the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it disappeared any peer adversary that justified the US spending vast sums of money on high-end and expensive systems. The Navy’s A-12 Avenger II was canceled, and the Air Force’s F-22 and B-2 programs were heavily truncated. In the end, only 187 serial production F-22s were procured, of which over 30 were training variant Block 20 that are not combat worthy.