By Marina Malenic
The Air Force would prefer a more rapid production rate for the F-35 LIGHTNING II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to boost its tactical aircraft fleet before fourth-generation fighter jets begin retiring in large numbers, the service’s top officer said yesterday.
Asked by lawmakers on Capitol Hill what he would adjust in the President’s fiscal year 2010 budget request if he were given the opportunity, Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said he would have prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] begin building planes “as rapidly as the program can sustain.”
The F-35 is expected to be fielded to the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as to over a dozen international allies. To do so in a timely manner, according to Schwartz, a production rate increase would be desirable.
“That, for us, would be not less than 80 aircraft per year,” he told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “Ideally, we would push production rates above that, perhaps as high as 110.”
To begin making such an increase possible, Schwartz said, the Air Force decided to accelerate the retirement of 250 tactical aircraft–A-10s, F-15s and F-16s–in the coming year and reinvest some portion of the savings into the F-35 program.
“It was our judgment that we needed to get after this process–and take some risk, admittedly–in order to position ourselves to get on that manageable ramp for F-35 so that they can enter the fleet before the F-16s begin to attrit in large numbers,” he explained. “We felt that the imperative was to get to F-35 as soon as we could.”
Speaking with reporters after the hearing, Schwartz said building 80 aircraft per year may not be sufficient.
“Eighty is what people are working at right now” as a target rate, he said. “My sense is, we need to go a little higher than that.”
Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, who also testified at the hearing, expressed confidence in the F-35 testing program but acknowledged that the effort still has challenges to overcome.
“We need to stay on cost and schedule,” Donley said. “It’s going to be very difficult. This is not an easy program. It is very complex.”
He noted that the effort is entering a “danger spot” in the transition from development to early production, where many Pentagon weapon programs see cost overruns and schedule slips.
Schwartz was also asked again whether the Air Force supports the administration’s decision to request an end to F-22 Raptor production at 187 aircraft.
He responded that, while 243 is the “right number,” 187 is the “affordable number.”