AF ready for F-22 export version - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

AF ready for F-22 export version

The Air Force is prepared to create a version of the F-22 Raptor that the U.S. could sell to foreign countries if it gets the go-ahead from Congress and the State Department, according to one of the service’s top acquisition officers.

Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford told the Senate Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee that the Air Force would follow established practices to ensure the export model did not jeopardize U.S. military secrets.

“We would go into the process dealing with the State Department policy crowd and using normal foreign military sales processes,” Shackelford, military deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said June 9 in response to remarks by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

It was the second time in less than a week the question of foreign sales came up at a Senate hearing. Five days earlier, at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, asked the Air Force’s top two leaders — Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Secretary Michael Donley — what it would take to sell the stealth fighter abroad. After the hearing, Inouye said Japanese officials had asked him about the possibility of creating an F-22 export version. Australia also has expressed interest in buying the F-22.

Currently, a federal law enacted to keep sensitive military technology from hostile governments prevents both countries from acquiring the Raptor.

Japan has said it would pay the estimated $1 billion it would cost to develop an F-22 export model. The $140 million F-22 is one of six potential contenders to replace Japan’s aging fleet of F-4s. The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is another possibility.

In May, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended Japan go with the F-35 instead of the F-22. A month earlier, in his 2010 budget recommendation, Gates made clear his vision for the fifth-generation fighter fleet: the F-35 with a helping hand from the F-22. His plan calls for capping Raptor production at 187 aircraft — the goal once had been 381 — and bringing on 513 F-35s over the next five years. The last F-22 will roll off the production line in 2011.

Shackelford told Thune a foreign nation interested in acquiring the fighter would have to foot the bill to convert it.

“The F-22 that the United States flies would not be the same F-22 country ‘X’ flies,” Shackelford said.

“Keeping the F-22 line hot” with a foreign sales market could mitigate problems with bringing the F-35 online, Thune said.

The South Dakota senator and other observers say they worry that Gates is committing to the F-35 too early in its test program and that the U.S. will be left with a fighter gap if the Joint Strike Fighter fails to live up to expectations. The F-35s are replacing more than 800 of the Air Force’s oldest F-15s and F-16s, slated for decommissioning by 2024.

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