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The first tranche of F-22s were not designed with the wiring or avionics necessary to fully support today's F-22 software. The were intended and are still used as training aircraft for crew familiarization and maintainer education.

However, the basic airframes are sound. Instead of trying to spin up the F-22 line again which is a ship that sailed 15 years ago when the stored tooling was destroyed, these first 30 or so F-22s could be completely stripped down to their basic airframes, and rebuilt to the latest F-22 configuration. The cost per airplane would be close to the original purchase price of the aircraft, but it would be money well spent in a future war against China.

The Air Force is always short sighted in trying to retire good aircraft to "save money" to spend on the newest toy.