Air Force Says It Can’t Build More F-22 Raptors After Ending Production at 187 Jets

The Air Force built only 187 F-22 Raptors instead of the 750 once planned, and now says it can never build another one.

Story Snapshot

Production of the F-22 Raptor stopped in 2009 after 187 jets, far short of the 750 originally planned.
The Air Force found in 2017 that restarting the line would cost about $50 billion for 194 more jets.
Mission-ready rates have fallen as low as about 40% in recent years, even as China’s stealth fighter fleet grows.
The Air Force is spending roughly $8 billion to upgrade the existing jets instead of building new ones.

A Fleet Frozen In Time

The F-22 Raptor was supposed to be America’s answer to future threats, with plans calling for as many as 750 jets. Instead, the government stopped buying them in 2009 after just 187 were built. Lawmakers and Air Force leaders at the time argued the jet cost too much and the country faced no country capable of matching it in the air. That decision has never been reversed.

After production stopped, Lockheed Martin’s assembly line was shut down. Tooling and equipment used to build the jet were repurposed or destroyed. That means the Air Force cannot simply flip a switch and start building more Raptors, even if today’s leaders wanted to. The industrial setup that made the F-22 possible is largely gone for good.

Starting Over Would Cost Billions

A 2017 Air Force report spelled out just how hard a restart would be. Building 194 more F-22s would cost about $50 billion, the report found. That includes nearly $10 billion just to rebuild the start-up work, plus more than $40 billion to actually build the jets. And the first new Raptor wouldn’t roll out until the mid-to-late 2020s at the earliest.

Earlier studies from the RAND Corporation, done before the 2009 shutdown, showed the same warning sign. Restarting production after even a short pause could cost hundreds of millions of dollars per jet, with total shutdown-and-restart costs estimated between $225 million and $720 million in that era’s dollars. The math never got easier. It only got worse.

Readiness Problems Add To The Strain

The small fleet is also struggling to stay in the air. Government data cited in defense reporting shows the share of F-22s ready for a mission fell to around 51% to 52% in 2018 and 2019, then dropped further to about 40% in 2024. Stealth coatings and specialized parts make the jets expensive and difficult to maintain, and there simply aren’t enough spare aircraft to spread the workload.

With no way to add new jets, the Air Force is instead pouring money into the ones it already has. Reports describe an upgrade program worth about $8 billion, adding new infrared defense systems and stealthier fuel tanks meant to keep the Raptor fleet useful into the 2030s. Critics see this spending as proof the jet is still needed badly, even as the fleet stays capped at under 190 airframes.

A Widening Gap With China

The debate has sharpened as China builds up its own stealth fighter fleet, the J-20. Defense writers argue the F-22 was designed specifically to beat the kind of advanced fighters and air defenses that China is now fielding in growing numbers, and that America simply doesn’t have enough Raptors to answer that buildup on its own.

Not everyone agrees the original 2009 decision was clearly a mistake. Much of the public argument comes from opinion writers and defense commentary sites rather than the original 2009 budget records or congressional testimony that laid out the government’s reasoning at the time. Whether a bigger buy back then was truly affordable, given other budget demands, remains an open question that the public record does not fully settle.

What isn’t in dispute is the bottom line facing today’s Air Force. The jets that exist now are the only ones the country will ever have unless a future administration is willing to spend tens of billions of dollars and wait years for delivery. For a country that prizes military readiness and fiscal responsibility in the same breath, the F-22 story is a reminder that some choices, once made, can’t be undone at any price.