Dying hardware defence - [sector focus: defence]

Even as it entered service in 1997, the US fighter aircraft the F22 Raptor was beginning to look out of date. Not to the F15 Eagle pilots who were angling to fly replacement for their aircraft which now had serious problems with obtaining spare parts; it represented the latest in stealth and other technologies. But the F22 was based on components that their manufacturers thought should be phased out in favour of newer models and suffered during its development from components being marked as close to the end of their production lives before the aircraft itself was to be delivered to the US Air Force.