Shouldn't the purchase of the F/A-22s wait until they have been tested?

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:13:36 GMT, walt moffett
wrote:

On 22 Feb 2004 14:00:17 -0800,
Henry J. Cobb wrote:
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/wood021204.html
The Air Force has spent $32 billion on its new F-22 supersonic stealth
fighter. Twenty aircraft have come off the production line and
hundreds more are planned.
...
But rigorous, independent field testing -- to find out if the F-22
actually works -- hasn't yet begun.


To conduct rigorous, independent field testing you need planes to test
and it is a unfortunate part of the arms business that it costs money
to design, build, test and field the things.

Imagine the same conversation has occurred over and over going back to the
invention of the sharp stick.

Sharp sticks don't cost $150M, I agree that some testing can wait
till after production starts, but you now have a situation where
you have 20 F-22 all of which are at different builds...

Its going to be an absolute nightmare to keep the fleet at any one
build standard.

Cheers