Yes, the USAF admitted, the A-10 survived the war as well as its fast competitors; and yes, they had to admit that the A-10 flew more sorties per day because it took way less maintenance; and yeah, it was true that you could buy nine—that’s nine—A-10s for the price of one F-117. But the F-117 was new and fast and “stealth” and all black like the Batmobile—every childish high-tech BS mess the USAF has always loved, whereas the A-10 was slow and ugly and—worst of all—cheap.
via Pando: The War Nerd: More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America.
The USAF is about money, not defense, and there was huge money in the F-117 program. Especially because the aircraft didn’t work very well. One of the creepy, weird features of the US defense procurement business is that programs that don’t work make much more money for the big contractors than the ones that do what they promised. There’s money in those fixes, and re-fixes, and fixing the last fix. Trillions, in fact.