[quote="John PSimmons"]The original order was for 138, but only 21 were built... for obvious reasons. Very cool tech. We have some amazing hardware working in our defense.[/quote

It is not so obvious to me, please explain. Much of the cost is because of the few purchased, the design and development cost spread over 20 instead of 138. THANKS JIMMA.

The obvious part is that evals are written in one year intervals; everyone gets accolades from program starts, but no one is held accountable for program failures; the best and brightest don't ascend to the highest levels of govt / they're politically bright, though, so they make decisions to please the current boss; mission is justification for nothing; etc.

Programming decisions are made 5 years and further out, but they're also made on an annual basis. So, this year, our leadership decides to get rid of all of the F-15s and half the F-16s and replace them with 750 F-22's, which by the way, have these promised incredible mission ready rates, etc, all to be delivered more than 5 years out. The savings from retiring airplanes will fund half the buy. They start the irreversible decommissioning process before the first airplane even comes off the assembly line. Now new military leadership who need to make a name for themselves rolls in every 2-3 years and you don't make a name continuing what the last guy did and their GS/SES deputies just want to stay on their career track, and new programs help them move up as well. Then after the first 20 airplanes come on line, we realize that the MR rates are half what they promised and the capabilities are only half what they said, and the decommission savings never really materialized...but later Blocks promise more. Since it will cost more $$$, this year's decision-makers decide let's halve the buy, but add even more capability programs, because with those new end capabilities, to those now making their names on the backs of this program, 1/2 a buy is still better than none. Then, in a subsequent annual decision process, someone needs to find more savings, so they halve it again, or they halve another program like the B-2 because, well, we need this more than we need that. Meanwhile, the datalinks allow them to talk to each other, but not other assets, etc. That costs more money. And it can't take full advantage of new weapons systems like AIM-9X, so the gap between legacy aircraft with new weapons and the new airplane is decreasing.....so let's suddenly go a different route, let's stop spending money to upgrade this airplane and divert dollars to develop its replacement. But don't worry, we'll take savings from programs like the B-2, but that's ok because we'll buy 1,200 of them......and the cycle repeats.