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Lockheed Martin officials insisted Friday that they’re making good progress developing the F-35 joint strike fighter, downplaying a published report that says a Pentagon review is again predicting delays and cost increases.
Citing an unnamed source, InsideDefense.com said the special review team is preparing a report for senior Pentagon leaders that says F-35 development will take at least two additional years and billions of dollars to finish.The Joint Estimate Team is to report its findings to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn next month so Pentagon officials can use them in preparing their 2011 defense budget proposal.InsideDefense.com reported that a "source familiar with the JET’s efforts" said the findings on the F-35 program "are as bad as last year’s . . . things have not improved. And their cost estimate will be at least where they were last year."A year ago, the panel of technical experts and cost evaluators reported that F-35 development would need at least two more years and $15 billion more. Lockheed spokesman John Kent said in a prepared statement that the company disagrees with the review team’s conclusions, "which we believe are driven by legacy-based assumptions regarding the time required to deliver the remaining [test] aircraft, complete development, and conduct the flight test campaign."Lockheed officials have repeatedly said they are confident they can meet previously revised time schedules and budgets, despite continuing delays in production and testing of all the original 19 test aircraft.The estimate team’s review findings are significant because Pentagon leaders will have to decide whether to take them into account when preparing proposals for the 2011 defense budget and spending through 2015. The budget plans have to be sent to the Office of Management and Budget and the White House by year’s end.A year ago, the review’s findings were only partially taken into account when the 2010 budget was prepared.InsideDefense.com said that if the projected cost increases reach $17.2 million, the F-35 program would run up against a new federal law that requires the Pentagon to consider terminating or restructuring programs that exceed caps on cost increases.At the very least, Lynn and Defense Secretary Robert Gates could be faced with hard choices on how to pay additional costs, either by taking funds from other programs or slowing the rate of initial aircraft purchases.When Gates visited Lockheed’s Fort Worth plant in August for a first hand look at the F-35, he was asked about the impact if development costs increased."Well, every dollar additional . . . that we have to put into the F-35 is a dollar taken from something else that the troops may need," Gates told reporters. During the Fort Worth visit, Gates said he was convinced that the F-35 program was vital as a replacement for aging combat aircraft in use by the Air Force, Marines and Navy. "I think the F-35 is at the core of our combat tactical aircraft in the future," he said.
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