Reuters
The Raptor, the most expensive fighter jet in history at $258 million per plane, may be scaled back as the Pentagon tries to offset Iraq war costs.
Posted on 12/29/2004, 4:26:36 AM by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - The Pentagon has told the White House and Congress that it plans sharp cuts in the Air Force's program for the F/A-22, the most expensive fighter jet in history, in an effort that budget analysts said was intended to offset mounting deficits and the growing costs of the war in Iraq.
The Pentagon's decision, which four administration and Congressional officials described on Tuesday and which Congress must still approve, comes as the Bush administration is pressing all agencies to scale back spending requests for the fiscal year 2006 budget, which will be submitted to lawmakers early next year.
The White House is under pressure after the November elections to show progress in trimming federal deficits while ensuring that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have adequate armored protective equipment. The cost of operations in Iraq alone are hovering around $4.4 billion a month.
At the moment, the fighter, known as the Raptor, costs about $258 million a plane. That is based on an overall cost of $71.8 billion, and the Air Force's plans to buy 277 Raptors.
Senior Pentagon and Air Force officials were still discussing details of the cutbacks. One leading industry analyst, Loren Thompson, said the program could be ended after producing about 160 aircraft, possibly saving more than $15 billion over time but significantly raising the cost per plane. The Pentagon has already spent nearly $40 billion to develop the aircraft, which is just now coming into full production, Air Force officials said.
"The proposed cut reflects the convergence of severe budgetary pressures imposed by the Iraq war with some longstanding preferences among senior policymakers for less emphasis on conventional weapons programs," said Mr. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates limited government.
A Defense Department spokesman, Eric Ruff, declined to discuss any specific decisions on the Raptor program but said that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, had spoken with lawmakers in recent days "to discuss long-term modifications to the tactical fighter programs."
Dennis Boxx, a spokesman for the plane's manufacturer and the nation's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin, said the company had not been notified of any changes in the program's status.
Mr. Ruff said the Pentagon's proposals ensured that the F/A-22 and another aviation priority, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, "would remain healthy." He also noted that the Pentagon was about to embark on its quadrennial review of programs to ensure that the military had the right mix of weapons and equipment.
Analysts including Mr. Thompson noted, however, that the F/A-22 had never fit into Mr. Rumsfeld's plan to transform the military into a leaner, more agile, yet deadly force that put a greater premium things like improved space-based sensors and communications.
Designed at the height of the cold war to penetrate Soviet radars without detection and shoot down Soviet jets, the Raptor has taken nearly a quarter-century to move from the drawing board to the assembly line to its first operation squadron. The Air Force made structural changes to make the plane more relevant in the post-Sept. 11 world, enhancing its ability to hit targets on the ground, but some top aides to Mr. Rumsfeld remained unconvinced, Mr. Thompson said.
In February this year, the Pentagon announced the cancellation of the $38 billion Comanche helicopter program, another weapons system from the cold-war era.
The Pentagon's proposed cuts to the Raptor program require Congressional approval, and by the divided reaction from friends and foes of the aircraft on Tuesday, the brewing fight appeared to foreshadow many contentious debates on Capitol Hill over domestic spending cuts. More than 1,000 subcontractors in 43 states helped build the F/A-22 and the political constituency to defend it.
"Every year, we've gone through this fight over the F-22, but we can't cut below where we are now," Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said in a telephone interview. "We'll fight to keep it where it is."
But a senior Republican aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity because his boss was not available during the holiday recess, responded: "While the program does have its supporters, many in the Senate feel that given the current threat situation and the tight budget environment, this is a responsible program in which to cut back. We expect a lively debate on these cuts."
Sometimes the Pentagon floats proposed cuts like this as a trial balloon to gauge the strength of the opposition. But two Republican officials, one in the administration and another on Capitol Hill, said the proposal was no bluff.
"The Defense Department is moving forward to dramatically curtail production of the F/A-22," said an administration official who was familiar with the Pentagon's decision but spoke on condition of anonymity because many of the details are still being worked out. "This is farther along than just a notional idea."
The Senate Republican aide said: "This is not a trial balloon."
The Raptor has endured a rough ride through its history. Two decades ago, the Air Force planned to buy 760 Raptors, based in part on the original cost of $35 million a plane. Within the last decade, that shrank to 438 planes, then 339 at the end of the 1990's, then 277 today.
Designed as the most technologically advanced fighter ever built, the Raptor will have an advanced radar to make it easier for the plane to spot targets and drop precision-guided bombs on targets like hostile air defense batteries, while flying at 1,000 miles an hour.
The planes are currently in operational trials, and the program suffered its first crash during takeoff at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., on Dec. 20. The first combat-ready aircraft are scheduled to join a fighter wing at Langley Air Force Base, Va., in December 2005.
But the need for such an advanced aircraft has come under increasing scrutiny, as American troops battled insurgents in Iraq whose weapon of choice is a makeshift bomb detonated by a garage-door opener. "All agencies are being asked to identify programs that are duplicative or outdated," said Noam Nuesner, a spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
Reuters
The Raptor, the most expensive fighter jet in history at $258 million per plane, may be scaled back as the Pentagon tries to offset Iraq war costs.
ROFL, It looks like that fighter has duct tape on it. I think we're getting overcharged a bit. Maybe they should take a year to figure out how to lower the cost of this beast.
1 Billion dollars for 4 planes? Is this a joke?
How the hell did production costs go form $35 million to $258 million? You can't blame that one on inflation. How much more will they cost when we put lasers on them? We're researching a bunch of cool toys but they're costing too much.
creating a new 250 lb. gps guided munition small enough to fit in the weapons bay of an F-22 is a pretty half assed way to make a fighter into a FA-22 strike fighter.
Why has this platform continued to be slashed into a cost prohibitive production run? Because, it is ahead in development of the next platform whose cost is about to explode, the JSF.
This sucks for the Air Force. It will be really nice to have these around if we ever fight the Chinese.
creating a new 250 lb. gps guided munition small enough to fit in the weapons bay of an F-22 is a pretty half assed way to make a fighter into a FA-22 strike fighter.
Why has this platform continued to be slashed into a cost prohibitive production run? Because, it is ahead in development of the next platform whose cost is about to explode, the JSF.
This sucks for the Air Force. It will be really nice to have these around if we ever fight the Chinese.
That's what I thought. The price increased from the original by almost 7.4 times!
Some of those cost overruns are incurred by our own government. Also, despite the end of the Cold War, there are score of potential foes who were client states of the USSR and continue to use their air defense systems; this stuff did not disappear overnight with the fall of the USSR.
you still have to build the plant, the jigs, the test
equipment, write the analysis code, the test plan,
the flight software still needs to be developed and tested, the production processes still have to be proven,
the design reviews help, the caterers and hotels and
ailine tickets and rentacars paid for...only the cost
gets amortized aginst fewer units. these costs aren't less
just because uncle buys half the originally comitted
number of airplanes.
the JSF has vertical take-off capability, is that right? it probably will cost alot to debug that system alone.
I think the F22 wil likely be the last manned fighter the US ever produces. twenty years from now, the next generation will likely be unmanned.
How many armed Predators will $250 buy? And which system will be more useful?
$250M, oophs!
Which will be more valuable in todays environment?
How very American.
Reduce funding for the F-22 but increase the aid for Sri Lanki for the tsunami.
We scale back the defense of our nation because of "funding problems" but we can give millions to terrorist nations for tsunami relief, on top of the billions given already to terrorist nations and the trillions given domestically to social welfare.
China, we deserve to be blown to bits by your H-bombs. Put us out of our stupidty please! Nuke us to hell. We deserve it!
forget the tsumani $$$s, that's a drop in the bucket. how about the 15 billion for AIDS in Africa?
It is not 258 million per plane as the NY Times would have us believe. It is more around 100 million per plane. It was never supposed to cost 35 million. It was supposed to cost around 80 million.
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