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Rick posted this elsewhere...


US House seen approving funds for 20 F-22 fighters

Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
Tue, 9 May 2006

WASHINGTON: The U.S. House is likely to approve an extra $1.4 billion this week to buy 20 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22 fighter jets in fiscal 2007, rejecting a Pentagon plan to buy F-22 parts and build the planes the following year.

To View Pictures of the F-22 Fighter, Click Here

Josh Holly, spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee, said the vote could occur as early as Wednesday and passage was likely. The extra money is in the committee's $512.9 billion annual defense spending bill.

The Senate's $517.7 billion defense spending bill has the same amount of additional funding for the radar-evading F-22, making it likely the measure will be enacted, according to congressional aides and defense analysts.

The extra money for the $62.6 billion F-22 program could start a campaign for funds to buy more than the 183 airplanes the Air Force says it can now afford, the analysts said.

"The Air Force has never backed away from its official position that 381 F-22s are required to provide an adequate fighter force for the future," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "Anything it does with regard to the F-22 is in some measure related to meeting that ultimate goal."

House and Senate committees rejected the administration's "incremental funding" plan for the F-22, saying it was important to buy whole planes, not just parts.

But they are at odds over an administration request to go ahead with a multiyear procurement strategy to buy the last 60 F-22s, or Raptors, of the 183-plane fleet. The House backs the strategy, while senators remain opposed.

The Air Force argues that it can save up to $500 million with the plan, but some lawmakers fear multiyear funding could make it difficult to scale back the program if problems arise.

"That's the golden egg on many weapons systems," said Keith Ashdown with the nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "If you have a multiyear, your program is safe from cuts."

The Air Force Vice Chief of Staff has been asked to work with the Pentagon's program evaluation staff to synthesize reports on the U.S. military's future needs for fighter jets and bombers.

The summary of those reports, including a recent independent study which said the U.S. military needed 225 F-22s, is due by mid-September, said one U.S. defense official who is knowledgeable about the matter but asked not to be named.

The official said increasing purchases of F-22s could make sense, given congressional efforts to slow down production of Lockheed's other new fighter jet program, the $276.5 billion Joint Strike Fighter (F-35).

It was vital to ensure that the F-22 remained in production until the F-35 began production, said the official, to maintain the highly skilled aerospace workforce need to build fighters.

"This smells of an effort to keep the program alive yet again," said Chris Hellman, defense analyst for the nonprofit Center for Arms Control. He said the F-22 program still faced problems despite more than two decades of development work.

The Air Force recently said it would cost about $100 million to fix structural weaknesses discovered in 73 F-22s. Last month, a fighter pilot had to be cut out of his F-22 with a chain saw when the canopy would not open.

END


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