The U.S. Air Force’s $169-billion budget proposal for 2021 lavishes hundreds of millions of dollars on the service’s small fleet of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters.

The Air Force is working hard to boost the F-22’s ability to communicate with other forces while also developing a new command-and-control system that could change the way the Raptor force fights.

But all of these improvements build upon a basic warplane design that dates back to the 1980s. In light of all the money the Air Force is spending on the F-22, it’s worth remembering that the plane itself is not new.

In fact, it’s so old that its main computer runs on microprocessors that were state-of-the-art in home P.C.s … in 1982.

The age of the F-22’s core systems inspired former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman in 2009 jokingly to describe the Raptor as unhackable. "No one in China knows how to program the '83 vintage IBM software that runs them," Lehman told The Wall Street Journal.

The Air Force’s budget proposal for 2021 asks for $665 million for research and development related to the five front-line F-22 squadrons.

The flying branch had six combat-coded F-22 units until a hurricane in 2018 inflicted major damage on Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and compelled the service to disperse to other units the Raptors from Tyndall’s resident combat squadron.

Lockheed Martin built just 195 F-22s before production ended in 2011. Eight were test models. Today just 183 F-22s are operational, accounting for just 13 percent of the Air Force’s 1,377 fighters.

The F-22 first flew in 1997. It entered service in 2005. Nine years later in 2014 the type flew its first combat mission, over Syria. Since the first Syria sorties, the F-22 force has stayed busy deterring Iran, China and Russia and contributing to the coalition air contingent targeting Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

The Air Force steadily has upgraded the Raptors with new software and weapons. The flying branch in recent years shifted its focus to the F-22’s connectivity.

The Air Force and Lockheed in 2020 plan to begin installing on F-22s the Link-16 datalink, which allows U.S. and allied forces to swap location and targeting data via voiceless radio message.

Link-16 is standard on U.S. and allied planes, ships and air-defense systems, but the F-22 at present doesn’t include the system. That’s because the F-22 with its stealth features could give away its location by broadcasting Link-16 messages.

Raptor pilots wordlessly can communicate with each other by way of the F-22’s unique, highly-secure datalink. But to communicate with, say, the pilot of a nearby F-16, a Raptor pilot must open a radio channel and just … talk.

It’s a big flaw in the F-22’s way of operating. The Raptor with its stealth and powerful sensors could help direct other forces in combat, provided it voicelessly can communicate. The Air Force at present is willing somewhat to compromise the F-22’s stealth in order to make it more of a collaborative system.

The other big change could affect how the F-22 finds targets and coordinates with other U.S. and allied forces. The Air Force is beginning a major shift in its command-and-control architecture.

The service for decades has deployed E-3 and E-8 radar planes respectively to detect targets in the air and on the ground then relay coordinates to fighters including F-22s. But the E-3 and E-8 both are large, slow aircraft with enormous electronic signatures.

The Air Force has decided the radar planes cannot survive in combat with a high-tech foe. To replace them, the flying branch is developing the new Advanced Battle Management System, an information network that could connect fighters, bombers, drones and other forces so they can exchange information and assign planes to targets.

The F-22 is helping the Air Force to work out exactly what ABMS should be and how it should work. The first field test of the basic ABMS architecture took place around Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in December 2019.

For the test, the military brought together Air Force and Navy aircraft, a Navy destroyer, an Army air-defense sensor and missile unit, a special operations unit and commercial space and ground sensors, the Air Force explained in a statement.

Air Force QF-16 target drones flew toward U.S. air space. Air-, surface- and space-based sensors detected the drones. “In quick succession using new software, communications equipment and a ‘mesh network,’ the information was relayed to the USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer deployed in the Gulf of Mexico,” the Air Force explained.

“The same information was passed to a pair of Air Force F-35s and another pair of F-22s. Also receiving the information were commanders at Eglin AFB, a pair of Navy F-35s, an Army unit equipped with a mobile missile launcher known as HIMARS and special forces on the ground.”

The Air Force’s parallel efforts to connect the F-22 to F-35s and other forces facilitated the ABMS experiment, according to Will Roper, the flying branch’s chief weapons-buyer.

The F-22 continues to improve despite its age. The latest improvements to its communications systems could be the most profound. The Raptor’s basic design might be more than 30 years old, but it’s still at the cutting edge of military aviation.

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.