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Lawmakers press Gates for more Super Hornets |
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By Roxana Tiron
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Posted: 01/06/09 05:40 PM [ET] |
Nearly two dozen lawmakers are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to fund more F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets in the 2010 budget.
Boeing, which builds the fighter jets, has been eyeing the opportunity to sell more planes to the Navy for more than a year.
Now, the company is receiving intensified support from lawmakers who in December urged Gates to continue buying the battle-tested jets and consider another multi-year Navy contract with Boeing. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and 21 other House members sent a letter to Gates in mid-December, but the letter only was made available on Tuesday. Boeing manages the F-18 Hornet program out of St. Louis, Mo., Akin’s district.
The lawmakers expressed serious concern about a projected gap of strike-ready fighter jets on aircraft carriers as the Navy is in the process of buying the next-generation fighters, Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter. Among the lawmakers signing the letter are Reps. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.)
Boeing will reach the end of a five-year contract with the Navy for Super Hornets this year. The company is also slated to deliver another 89 aircraft to the Navy beyond the multiyear agreement. Those remaining airplanes will be delivered by 2012, when the domestic requirement for the Super Hornets would end.
Navy officials, including the chief of naval operations, have said that the service will face a shortfall of at least 69 fighter jets by 2017. Some predict that number could go as high as 200. The shortfall will continue until the service completes the procurement of Lockheed Martin's F-35C Joint Strike Fighters by 2025.
The Navy bases its fighter needs on three assumptions: that older versions of the F-18 (the A through D models) will fly for another 10,000 hours and won’t need to be replaced with the Super Hornet; that the Navy’s variant of the new Lockheed Martin-built Joint Strike Fighter will be ready over the next decade and that the Navy will be able to buy 50 JSFs a year.
However, the Navy has uncovered problems with plans to extend the life of its F/A-18 Hornets that could burden efforts to mitigate a shortage of strike fighter aircraft. The Navy last summer found that keeping the A- through D-model Hornets flying longer will require additional inspections, modifications and a longer time out of service.
Meanwhile, the Super Hornet is expected to share carrier decks with the JSF until 2030.
The stakes are high for Boeing. The company fears that it could be inched out of the domestic fighter jet business if the Navy does not buy more Hornets after 2012. Boeing and Lockheed are the only two U.S. fighter assembly companies.
Lockheed beat Boeing in the competition to build the JSF and stands to see work from that win for several decades. Boeing is a subcontractor for the F-22 Raptor. It is also the prime contractor on the Air Force’s F-15, but that fighter is also slated for termination over the next several years.
Boeing officials fear that by the time the Navy or Air Force want a new strike fighter or bomber, there will be only one company with the design, engineering and production capability left to step up to the plate — and it will not be Boeing.
Gates told the lawmakers that he asked Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter to send his response to their concerns, according to congressional sources. The submission of the 2010 budget could be delayed until at least April, rather than the beginning of February, as the new Obama administration will try to leave its imprint on the Pentagon’s funding
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