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The Australians might want to buy F-22s, but Congress banned exports. Much like the F-15, the previous air superiority fighter, for which external sales were very limited.



Perhaps you mean the F14 which was only ever sold to Iran. Iran and US remain the only operators of F14 till date.


The F-15 was initially sold only to a relatively small set of foreign operators - Israel and Japan. Saudi Arabia was added in the early 80s, but it took 20 years after that before another foreign operator was introduced.

Now, the F-15 is flown by the Israel, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the USA - but SK, Qatar and Singapore were all sold the F-15 after the F-22 made its first flight.

Had F-22 production continued, it's quite possible we would have seen a similar pattern there.

EDIT: in comparison, the F-16 is operated by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, the UAE, Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Chile, Venezuela, and of course the USA. 26 countries vs 7.




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