During my last 15 years at Boeing I had my hands on every single F-22 that was produced. We were partnered equally with Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney. Boeing Seattle produced the Aft Fuselage section that houses the engines and the two wings sans control surfaces. In addition, Boeing was responsible for Avionics, Software and Training mockups.

The design is unique to say the least. Originally the AF wanted 700+ aircraft, but by the time the budgets were cut the final number was less than 200. When we shut the line, all the tooling (government owned) was broken down & shipped to a storage facility - just in case...

My job, as a Manufacturing Engineer, was to find better, faster, cheaper methods to build the hardware, & we did a good job, holding to roughly a 60% improvement curve throughout the program. The first shipset took over 80,000 manhours to complete & the last one cost somewhere around 8,000 manhours (the last two sort of hit the plateau for savings).

Because we shipped the final assemblies to Marietta Georgia for final assembly, we never got to see one fly off after delivery. Once, the AF flew one up to Seattle & for a couple of days it was parked out in front of our factory while we go to see it up close. The only other time I saw actual flight demo was at the Reno Air Races about 5 years ago. THey are quite impressive!

I consider myself fortunate to have had the experience to be part of this great aircraft's history & to be able to retire as the program ended was (and still is) awesome.

John R., Manufacturing Engineer - Retired (darn it feels good to say that!)

By the way, BobC357, the joke up here is that Douglas bought Boeing out with Boeing's own money - they just kept the Boeing name for looks. If you look at most of the Corporate hierarchy, you will find McDonnel Douglas personnel, not Boeing folks.