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No extra F-22s, C-17s for USAF in 2009

The fiscal 2009 budget will not include any funds for the U.S. Air Force to buy F-22 Raptors or C-17 cargo lifters, according to a source with knowledge of internal Pentagon budget discussions.

Top service officials have long said the Air Force needs more than the 183 fifth-generation fighters that made up the “program of record” for the Lockheed Martin-built F-22. Generals have long pushed for a 381 target, using Pentagon-commissioned studies that say the service needs at least 260 as backup. But the Office of the Secretary of Defense appears to be standing firm at 183.

The current multiyear procurement agreement will remain in place, but if the contractor does not get funds in the 2009 budget to purchase long-lead items, the line will close.

Lockheed Martin officials said the company could not comment on specific budgetary items and referred all inquiries back to the government.

Air Force representatives said they could not comment on the next budget, as it is still not a done deal and “discussions are ongoing on all programs until the budget is complete,” one spokeswoman said via e-mail.

On Capitol Hill Oct. 24, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said repeatedly that 183 was not enough and that he has asked for more planes to keep a fifth-generation fighter production line open at least until the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also a Lockheed plane, is in full production.

“Right now what I have asked to do is at least bridge over till we actually have a working fifth-generation F-35 line and at least allow me to get 20 additional F-22s,” Wynne told the House Armed Services Committee. “This is far below the 381, but it does allow me to begin to fill out some of my squadrons that are in fact in theaters that I worry about.”

Sources say, however, that OSD believes 183 planes is enough, regardless of Wynne’s requests or the conclusions of a long list of studies.

“Every secret study that has ever been done has indicated a need for a number well in excess of 200,” said Loren Thompson, analyst with the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va. “But as of today, the deputy secretary of defense says there won’t be any more F-22s, and that they’re stopping the program at 183.”

It is “a near certainty” that OSD will refuse to put the money in the next budget request, Thompson said, setting the stage for a fight between members of Congress and senior defense officials.

The fact that C-17s would be absent from the fiscal 2009 budget should not come as a surprise. Twice the planes have been left out of the budget and twice Boeing has had to tell C-17 parts suppliers that orders were coming to an end. But both times Congress came to the program’s rescue with billions of unrequested funds.

“For the Air Force, the lack of F-22s is much more troubling than no C-17s,” Thompson said.

At a time when Air Force officials say they are about $100 billion short for their procurement needs over the next five years, hard choices are to be expected. At the annual Air Force Association conference in Washington in September, both the F-22 and more C-17s were on the wish list of Lt. Gen. Raymond Johns, director of the service’s Strategic Plans and Programs directorate. But so was the ability to build tankers faster than current finances will allow, he said, and it could become a matter of a trade-off.

Not the case here, Thompson said. No more Raptors does not mean more of something else in 2009.

“This is not some sort of trade-off,” Thompson said. “They’re just not getting them.”