Senior U.S. lawmakers seek to end production of F-22

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior U.S. lawmakers on Monday vowed to overturn a Senate Armed Services Committee plan to build more F-22 fighter jets, calling the spending unworkable amid the Pentagon's belt-tightening effort.

Carl Levin and John McCain, the top Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the committee, said they will offer an amendment to overturn the committee's decision to spend $1.75 billion (1.08 billion pounds) for seven more planes made by Lockheed Martin Corp.

The additional F-22 jets were included in the committee's legislation setting overall defence spending priorities, which is expected to be debated by the Senate most of this week.

Levin and McCain opened debate on the defence authorization bill with a broadside against plans to keep building the F-22 Raptor model beyond the 187 aircraft already in the budget pipeline.

The new planes are opposed by the Obama administration, which has threatened to veto funding.

"I hope that my colleagues understand that a veto is likely if the Congress does not act to end the F-22," McCain said.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates wants to cut back many of the military's weapons programs and transition from the F-22 to three models of Lockheed's Joint Strike Fighter F-35, co-developed with eight countries and built for export.

House and Senate lawmakers in committee have also voted to put extra money towards an alternate engine for the F-35 to be built by a team from General Electric and Rolls-Royce Group. Obama opposes the second engine.

(Reporting by John Crawley; editing by Gunna Dickson)