Air Force wants to speed up production of F-35Air Force wants to speed up production of F-35
By BOB COX
rcox@star-telegram.com
Air Force leaders want to speed up production of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II fighter jet as soon as 2010 or 2011, but where the money will come from remains to be seen.
Gen. Norton Schwartz, President Bush’s nominee for Air Force chief of staff, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had been given the green light to develop a 2010-15 budget plan based on having an additional $5 billion a year for new aircraft.
Schwartz said the Air Force would like to rapidly increase F-35 purchases above those now projected, from 48 planes in 2013 to as many as 110 a year by the middle of the next decade.
The general’s comments surprised some in Washington and reportedly even the Air Force, since a new president and administration will take office in January with their own budget priorities. Most defense experts have said they don’t expect a big increase in weapons.
But one defense analyst said the Bush administration has told the Air Force and Navy to develop six-year spending plans assuming that significantly more money will be available.
"I’ve been told by people who deal with OMB [Office of Management and Budget] that it supports a plan to recommend $57 billion in defense budget increases for 2010" and beyond, said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer for the Lexington Institute think tank and a consultant to Lockheed Martin.
Much of the money would go to rising fuel costs, replacing equipment worn out in Iraq and other needs. Thompson says he’s been told that about 60 percent would be for investments in new planes, ships and other equipment.
Restoring earlier cuts
The Air Force and the Navy have said they expect to have fewer fighter jets available than desired by late in the next decade, as they are forced to retire older planes the F-35 is supposed to replace before new aircraft are purchased.
Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager, said the company has been in discussions with the Pentagon’s joint strike fighter program office about the Air Force’s plans.
"We think they will add some aircraft in 2011," Crowley said. As of now, the Air Force plans to order 24 planes that year, with increases to 42 and 48 in 2012 and 2013.
Crowley said an increase would be welcome and make up for earlier cuts in the planned production rates.
Lockheed and the Pentagon hope to receive additional orders in that period from foreign buyers to smooth out production rates and bring down the cost per airplane.
Crowley said Lockheed would like to see additional orders in the pipeline so that by 2013, the U.S. would buy 130 planes, instead of the 90 now budgeted.
"People forget that we had a similar or greater ramp [increase in production] on the F-16" in the late 1970s, Crowley said.
Boosting production
With 17 test airplanes in some stage of production, 14 low-rate production aircraft on order and an additional 19 or 20 expected to be purchased in 2009, Crowley said Lockheed is beginning to hire additional F-35 production workers at its west Fort Worth plant.
The company is also estimating how many additional personnel might be needed to boost production beyond 2010 if more orders materialize, Crowley said.
The Pentagon is in the midst of its biannual long-range budget planning, a detailed proposal that will set out desired spending levels on troops, weapons and other costs for a six-year period beginning in 2010.
That plan will be scrubbed, vetted, sent to OMB for review and revised between now and January, when the final draft will be forward to the White House for inclusion in the fiscal 2010 budget request that Bush will leave prepared for the next president.
Steven Kosiak, defense budget analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington, said the budget exercise "is to some extent a real plan . . . and to some extent it’s a Pentagon wish list."
Where’s the money?
With a new administration set to take office in January, Kosiak said the Air Force’s desire for additional money to increase F-35 purchases may fall into the "wish list" category.
"A new administration is going to do a substantial review" of the Bush defense budget proposal, Kosiak said, and will likely make major changes to the plan for 2011 and beyond.
He said aside from the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pentagon spending on new weapons programs has increased 44 percent during the Bush administration, a rate only slightly less than the buildup of the Reagan years.
Even the Lexington Institute’s Thompson says it’s hard to see where significant additional funding for the Pentagon and Air Force will come from, regardless of whether John McCain or Barack Obama is the next president.
"The fact a different administration would have to decide on spending the money and the fact we are facing a budget deficit of $500 billion makes any increase problematic," Thompson said.
Crowley acknowledged the uncertainty of the budget discussions but likes the direction the Pentagon seems to be taking. "At a time when many programs are being questioned or cut, we’re fortunate to be one of the few being increased," he said.
The Air Force’s wish list apparently still includes more F-22s, also built by Lockheed.
Gen. Schwartz was asked by senators for his views on how many F-22s were needed, a subject of considerable disagreement between his predecessor, Gen. Mike Moseley, and the Pentagon leadership. That very public disagreement was one of the factors observers say that led to Defense Secretary Robert Gates firing Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne in June.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pressed Schwartz for his opinion on whether the Air Force needed to buy more than the 183 F-22s approved by the Pentagon and keep the Lockheed production line operating beyond 2011, a decision that needs to be made in 2009.
Schwartz replied: "Sir, my personal position is that I believe that 183 is not the ceiling on the low end, but that 381 is too high on the high end. So yes, I think, we should preserve production at least for the near term."
Planned U.S. orders of F-35s
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Future
Air Force 8 12 24 42 48 1,621
Navy/Marines 8 18 19 40 42 547
Total 16 30 43 82 90 2,168
Source: Defense Department 2008 budget
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