US rolls out most expensive jet - 1st F-22 Raptor delivered!

Posted on: Oct. 28th, 2004 || Source: news.bbc.co.uk | E-mail Article | Print Article

The first of a fleet of the world's most expensive fighter jet, the FA-22 Raptor, is being commissioned into the United States Air Force.

The US military has ordered 277 planes, the first of which was due to roll out onto the tarmac at its manufacturing base in Georgia on Wednesday.

Irrelevant?

The other part is that, at a cost of about $260m (£142m) each, the Raptor is designed to fight a potential Soviet enemy that no longer exists, and a Third World War that - if it ever happens - will be very different from what could have been imagined in 1981.

Some years ago there was a serious attempt in the Congress to scrap the whole project, especially as the revised cost exceeded four times the original estimate.

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