Farnborough sees display of military might

FARNBOROUGH, England (CNN) -- The first day at the world's biggest air show here in Farnborough is usually taken up by the now tedious Airbus vs. Boeing numbers game.

This mainly consists of discussions about which company has held back how many orders to make a splash.

Monday actually started off slowly with only one big order -- from five-year-old Etihad Airways based in Abu Dhabi -- to fill the press halls as it split a massive order between Airbus and Boeing.

Now, the show can switch to where the real action is: the military. Boeing and Airbus parent EADS are among the world's biggest defense companies.

Their never ending battle to provide the U.S. Air Force with a refueling tanker spilled over here now that the Department of Defense has to go back on the award of the contract to EADS and let Boeing try again.

Politics and patriotism is certainly part of this as many in Congress were furious that the European giant, even with a big American defense company as lead contractor, was given the $35 billion deal in February. Watch F-22 Raptor in action »

EADS said again Tuesday that much of its plane is American-made and that Boeing will also source some of its parts overseas. These are global companies with global sourcing and the days of the U.S. vs. Europe are over.

Beyond that there are the static military displays. Helicopters, UAV's, transport planes and this year an Israeli spy plane are parked out by the runway. We hope to get a peek inside that later.

What no one got a peek inside is the F-22 Raptor fighter jet.

The F-22 had never flown outside the U.S. before and only made one brief eight minute demonstration on Monday.

It flew in from a British Air Force base and after wowing the crowd with its agility, it flew off into the clouds. The stealth jet is apparently just stuffed with too much technology to be parked on the civilian airfield here in Farnborough.