"Smartace11" wrote in message
...


Quite often the blank sheet of paper that a design starts with will
get redrawn thousands of times as technology advances, software
develops, concepts emerge, etc. Raptor is going to water a lot of eyes
when it finally goes operational and the fact that it's taken fifteen
years will soon be overlooked.

I worked on the ATF (soon to become F-22/F-23) engines in 1983!

Therein lies the catch. A lot of parts on the F-22 were obsolete 8 yrars
ago,
like processors. The DoD used to be the largest source for electronics
and the
biggest employer of software developers. Now it is just a drop in the
bucket
and all the latest technology in both hardware and software goes to the
entertainment industry. We couldn't even get software peiople for the B-2
because Hollywpod was hiring them all at ten times teh salary DoD was
paying.

Worse still, much of the F-22 exists in pre-95 Ada.