By Jen DiMascio
A Defense Department plan could keep the F-22 production line open with a request for the fighter jets in a fiscal year 2009 supplemental budget request, according to the deputy defense secretary.
In a Jan. 14 letter to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), Gordon England said that the request would replace aircraft lost in the war.
“If these funds are appropriated, then the F-22 line could be extended beyond the current multiyear,” England wrote.
The deputy secretary, however, signaled that he would not expand the current plan for F-22s. Last year, Congress signed off on a multiyear plan to buy 20 aircraft in FY ’07, FY ’08 and FY ’09.
Citing an evaluation of the Defense Department’s mix of tactical aviation forces, England said investing in “the more modern F-35” Joint Strike Fighter for all three services “provides more effective capability to the joint force commander than concentrating investments in a single service by buying more F-22s.”
Lockheed Martin [LMT] builds both planes.
“The current multiyear program procures sufficient numbers of F-22s to deal with projected needs,” England’s letter said.
Congress has supported the idea of keeping the F-22 line alive. The FY ’08 Defense Appropriations Bill includes language asking the Air Force to apply $526 million in FY ’09 funding intended to shut down the jet’s production line to the purchase of specialty metals for an additional 20 planes (Defense Daily, Nov. 8).
England’s letter responds to one that Gingrey and a bipartisan list of lawmakers sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Dec. 12.
The lawmakers pressed DoD to include enough money in the FY ’09 base budget to buy long-lead items for a set of planes beyond the current multiyear contract, touching on the issue of troubled F-15 aircraft.
“The USAF urgently needs to replace approximately 500 1970-80’s vintage F-15 A-D Eagles,” the letter said, adding that independent studies commissioned by the department have recommended buying 220 F-22s rather than the current plan to buy 183.