The head of Air Combat Command (ACC) believes the Air Force is ready to increase its F-35 buy rate to 60 aircraft per year after working out a concurrency issue earlier in the program.
Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle told a House panel Wednesday the near-term goal is 60 aircraft per year but, ideally, he’d like 80 aircraft per year, though he questioned how that would fit among the service’s budget priorities. Currently, 48 F-35s are produced each year, he said in his prepared remarks.
Carlisle also told the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee he opposed disbanding the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), a key provision in Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) defense acquisition reform package. Carlisle said he believes the JPO has done a tremendous and difficult job with three services, partner nationals and FMS customers.
Carlisle said the right answer would be an evolution of the JPO where some of its responsibilities and tasks were farmed out to either the Pentagon or individual services. Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio), for his part, agreed with Carlisle, saying JPO is a system that’s currently working and the risk would be too great to devolve it to the services. The issue will certainly be hotly debated as the House and Senate conference their versions of the authorization bills over the next few months.
Echoing former Air Force chief of staff retired Gen. Mark Welsh’s remarks, Carlisle said it wouldn’t be a crazy idea to discuss restarting the F-22 production line, but the big question would be how to afford it. He also said other questions would be the time it would take to get subcontractors back online, get the tooling ready and actually get airplanes delivered. Carlisle said he wouldn’t want a F-22 replicated, as it has 30-year-old technology, but that there is potential to take lessons learned from both the F-35 and the F-22 and apply them to a potential F-22 restart.
Carlisle also said he’d “love” to convert F-22 training aircraft in the 43rd Fighter Squadron at Tindall AFB, Fla., to combat-capable aircraft, if the price was right. He said the Air Force is looking hard at doing this. Both the F-22 and F-35 are developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT].
Congress is having a whirlwind of hearings this week as it approaches conference for the defense authorization and appropriation bills and a six-week summer vacation following the national party conventions over the next two weeks. The Air Force is also approaching a critical milestone in its F-35A development with its upcoming August-December window for declaring initial operational capability (IOC).