Unhappy with the progress of the F-22 testing program and with the reluctance of officials at Edwards to speed it up, Air Force Chief of Staff General John Jumper declared himself to be the defacto head of the testing program, and said that his staff (and Lockheed Martin) already have found more efficient ways to get through the test program's required checkpoints. There will be a huge and continuous dogfight from now through September before a decision is made on how many F-22 Raptors to buy. The current theory is 339, but some Pentagon officials want this cut to 180. The Air Force, on the other hand, wants to push the number to 762, including two wings for each of the ten Air Expeditionary Forces and hundred of F-22-Block-4s (which carry eight bombs instead of only four and have synthetic aperture radar) to replace F-117 and F-15E strike fighters. The air Force even wants a stretched FB-22 which has more fuel and bombs and a side-looking synthetic aperture radar.--Stephen V Cole