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F-15 replacement debate intensifies

Gordon England, U.S. deputy defense secretary, clashed with Democrats on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Wednesday over which fifth-generation fighter the Air Force should purchase to replace aging F-15 strike fighters.

The pointed exchange between the panel’s vice chairman, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and England was the latest development this week in a string of comments that spotlights a growing schism between the Bush administration’s Pentagon team and key lawmakers about whether the Air Force should buy more F-22 Raptors or F-35 Lightning IIs to replace worn-out F-15s.

On one side are top Pentagon officials, led by England, who remain soundly opposed to buying more than about 190 F-22s. This group would favor replacing grounded F-15s with F-35s, also known as Joint Strike Fighters, which are expected to have a lower per-plane price tag.

On the other side are lawmakers like Dicks and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee chairman, who are leaning toward buying more Raptors, mainly because its production line already is humming. U.S. defense behemoth Lockheed Martin makes both warplanes.

The exchange began during a hearing on the White House’s 2009 defense budget plan, when Dicks questioned the administration’s decision to essentially take no definitive action on the F-22 program other than not paying to shutter the production line.

As the 2009 defense spending request was being polished inside the Pentagon, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) opted to hand the decision on whether to buy more F-22s — or close the production line — to the next administration. With more than 100 of the service’s older F-15s grounded because of structural problems, OSD allowed the Air Force to divert about $400 million initially budgeted for Raptor line-closure costs toward operations and maintenance accounts “to address the F-15 situation,” said England, sitting in at the session for injured Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Dicks, however, did not appear satisfied with that explanation. “Shouldn’t you have done one or other,” he asked England, referring to either buying more Raptors or closing the production line.

“To be blunt, the Air Force has spent $65 billion [on the Raptor program] and you have 183 planes,” England shot back. “Look, at some point, we have to buy” the cheaper fighter, the F-35, he said.

But after the hearing, Murtha told reporters England’s figure for how much the air service has spent to purchase its 183 Raptors is a bit misleading. That’s because, Murtha said, when major defense platforms are bought in larger quantities, their per-unit costs typically come down significantly. He said the Air Force has told him that if it is allowed to purchase the 381 Raptors it wants, the per-jet price could shrink by as much as “10 or 12 percent.”

Murtha made it clear, however, that he would only support buying more Raptors if the Air Force “is convincing” in describing to the subcommittee the kinds of threats the additional F-22s would be used to combat.

“The department believes [the service] has enough” F-22s, Murtha told reporters after the hearing. “The Air Force is trying to prove to the committee — and we’ll have hearings later on — to tell us, ‘These are the threats.’”

The back-and-forth between Dicks and England marked the second consecutive day England and a member of the subcommittee had traded opinions on the simmering F-35 vs. F-22 debate.

England told the Senate budget committee Tuesday that he does not consider the F-22 a suitable replacement for the F-15.

“So I would expect instead we would try to accelerate the Joint Strike Fighter, which is more the class of the F-15,” he said, according to Reuters. “So the Air Force would move into Joint Strike Fighter and not into the much more expensive F-22 airplane.”

Hours later, Murtha, during a lunchtime presentation at an Aviation Week-sponsored conference across town, made it clear his subcommittee would favor buying more F-22s. He told an industry audience his panel already has begun deliberations with Air Force officials about adding billions of dollars to buy more Raptors because he believes the service is wasting too much money to keep older fighters in the air.

After Murtha’s conference comments on Tuesday, an aide said these jets would be beyond the four included in the 2009 budget request.

“Four doesn’t get you anywhere” — meaning four planes would not keep the production line open beyond the current contract, the Murtha aide said.

Asked how many more would be needed to keep the line open, the aide said, “Twenty a year is where we’ve been for a while.”