When it officially entered military service in 2005, the U.S. Air Force hailed the F-22 Raptor as an "exponential leap in warfighting capabilities."
American taxpayers ultimately paid $67 billion to buy 187 of the planes, which had been in development since 1986 "to project air dominance, rapidly and at great distances" with technical capabilities that "cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft."
