| | Thursday June 20, 2013 |
|
| |
| F-22 Upgrades in Deficit Crosshairs |
 |
|
The deficit-reduction stalemate in Washington has put the Pentagon on a collision course with $500 billion in "automatic" budget cuts over the next 10 years. 28-11-2011 - Washington -- But even before last week's failure of Congress' "supercommittee" to find an alternative solution, the Defense Department faced potential cuts of as much as $400 billion over 10 years. Any chance that might trigger some "rush orders" to get a jump on the historic budget ax that's likely to fall?
That question seemed especially relevant last week when the Air Force announced the award of a new contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. for upgrade work on the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet.
That's the same F-22 that was terminated two years ago but still lives on in production with a cap of 187 aircraft -- about half the original number. It was the first big weapons program ditched by the Obama administration, which argued that the U.S. could afford only one next-generation fighter jet -- the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Although the F-35 has had its share of problems, nothing compares with the woes of the F-22, which have made it the poster child for defense critics. And yet the U.S. is still pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into it.
Budget ax may target F-22
It is not clear exactly how much the latest contract is worth. There was confusion when the military announced that the deal was a "potential $7.4 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity contract." That turned out to be incorrect; instead, the Air Force deal had actually boosted the potential value of an existing program to $7.4 billion, according to Reuters news service.
A DoD spokewoman told Reuters that the latest deal "cleared the way for funding of further upgrades in 2012, the last year of the program." She did not, however, disclose the value of the latest deal.
By way of background, the F-22 upgrade program was awarded to Lockheed in 2002, with nine one-year options. This past February, the company received a $760 million deal for its 2011 work.
The dollar amount will likely be about the same in 2012 -- unless the deficit-reduction budget ax takes aim at the remaining funds.
Built by Lockheed's aeronautics unit in Marietta, Ga., the F-22 has been responsible for hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in work in Central Florida. Among the region's large defense contractors with lucrative F-22 contracts: Lockheed's Orlando missiles and training-systems units, and Melbourne-based Harris Corp.
Jet 'bailout' justified?
In some ways, the upgrade work on the F-22 could be seen as a sort of "bailout" of the problem-plagued fighter jet. Since the first Raptor was fielded in 2005, technical problems have prevented a single jet from taking part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or in any other conflict.
Among the malfunctions: oxygen problems in the cockpit that caused pilots to lose consciousness, and navigation problems that led to an embarrassing return to base over the Pacific Ocean in 2007 for a dozen jets on a flight to Japan.
For defense proponents, it is an uncomfortable irony that the most-expensive, most-capable jet in the U.S. arsenal has never fired a shot. They remain convinced that rehabbing the F-22 fleet is worth the money. Consider this testimony in February from then-outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates:
"We are committed to investing money in upgrades to the F-22. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in the FY '12 budget to upgrade the F-22," he told Congress. "Some of the lessons learned from the F-35 and the F-22 are being put into upgrades for our existing, fourth-generation aircraft, that our people believe, with those upgrades, can take on the adversary's best aircraft."
Source: Orlando Sentinal
|
 |
|
|
COMMENTS:
|
What's your opinion? (all fields required)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
