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Air Force to request money for four F-22s |
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By Roxana Tiron
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Posted: 11/12/08 01:07 PM [ET] |
The Pentagon has directed the Air Force to allocate up to $50 million to purchase parts for four additional F-22 fighters.
The decision, announced by the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, John Young, could anger some members of Congress who have pressed Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Air Force leaders to purchase as many as 20 additional F-22s.
Congress appropriated at least $140 million to the Pentagon to buy items for the F-22 that take a long time to produce, such as electronic warfare and radar components. In a letter last week, four key House members, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and ranking member Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) pressed Gates to obligate the entire $140 million that Congress appropriated to buy parts for a total of 20 F-22s. Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee Chairman Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and subcommittee ranking member Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) also signed the letter.
In announcing the decision to allocate only $50 million, Pentagon officials said they would request additional money to buy the four fighters in the war-supplemental request. It isn’t clear how much the Pentagon will request to buy the fighters in the war supplemental, but each plane costs $142 million.
Young said in a statement Wednesday that the decision to request four aircraft in the supplemental and to allocate money to purchase parts for those planes will give the new administration time to decide whether to buy additional F-22s. Whether to continue buying the expensive fighter will be one of the main decisions on defense spending that Barack Obama will have to make as president.
The issue of whether to buy more F-22s has been a sore point between the Pentagon leadership and the Air Force, and partly led to the ousting of the secretary of the Air Force and the service’s chief of staff earlier this year, both of whom had argued for more fighters.
In its 2009 budget request, the Pentagon included money neither to keep producing the F-22 nor to shut down the production line at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., plant. But Air Force and industry officials have heavily lobbied Congress and the Pentagon to extend production of the Raptor. Congress appropriated $500 million in the 2009 budget to continue or to shut down the production.
That production is slated to end after 2011 when Lockheed Martin is scheduled to deliver the last of 183 aircraft.
Supporters of the F-22 extend beyond Lockheed. The fighter’s extensive supplier base has joined in the fight to save the F-22. More than 1,000 companies that employ about 25,000 people in more than 44 states are involved in the fighter’s production.
Stopping production would affect three major aircraft-assembly plants. About 1,800 Lockheed workers in Fort Worth, Texas, build the largest section of the F-22. A Boeing plant in Seattle constructs the tail and rear section. Lockheed’s Marietta facility builds the forward fuselage and assembles the Raptor.
The Air Force has said that it needs 381 F-22s to maintain air superiority, but Pentagon leaders so far have green-lighted production for only 183 jets.
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