Air Force yields in F-22 fighter dispute

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Monday endorsed the Pentagon in its plan to end production of Lockheed Martin Corp's top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets after having pushed to buy more for years.

"This is the time to make the transition from F-22 to F-35 production," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and General Norton Schwartz, the service's top uniformed officer, wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Like the F-22 Raptor, Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is designed to avoid detection by radar, although it would not fly as fast or as high. The multi-role F-35 is being co-developed with eight countries in three models with an eye to achieving economies of scale.

Donley and Schwartz reversed previous positions by the Air Force, saying the time had come to stop buying the F-22.

"That is why we do not recommend that F-22s be included in the fiscal 2010 defense budget," they wrote, endorsing plans announced April 6 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to cap the F-22 fleet at 187.

Lockheed Martin stopped short of saying whether it would give up its lobbying effort to keep the F-22 production line going. Key F-22 subcontractors include Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp and United Technologies Corp's Pratt & Whitney unit, which supplies the engines.

"Our focus is on continuing to build, sustain and modernize America's air dominance fighter for the world's greatest air force," said Rob Fuller, a Lockheed spokesman.

In recent years, the Air Force's push to buy up to 381 F-22s had been a major irritant inside the Pentagon. Last June, Gates forced the resignations of then-Secretary Michael Wynne, and General Michael Moseley, then the Air Force chief of staff, amid strains over their drive to buy more for potential conflicts.

Gates said last week the Pentagon would buy just four more, meaning the final aircraft would be delivered at the end of 2011 or early 2012.

In February, Schwartz, the Air Force's current chief of staff, said the service was trimming its request from 381 based on more recent studies. But he said he would not dispute a statement in December by Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that it still argued it needed 60 more.

Based on recent experience and judgments about future threats, the Defense Department is revisiting the scenarios on which the Air Force had based its assessment, Donley and Schwartz said in the Washington Post.

In addition, buying 60 to get to a total of 243 would create an unfunded $13 billion bill "just as defense budgets are becoming more constrained," they wrote.

At more than $143 million apiece, not including development costs, the F-22 has become a focus of a debate about hedging for large-scale wars versus fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The F-22 has not been used in combat.

Wynne, the ousted Air Force secretary, said Donley's and Schwartz's "risk tolerances" were "clearly higher than mine," when it came to meeting combat requirements with fewer F-22s.

Their expectations for quick production success of the F-35 were also higher, he added in a telephone interview with Reuters. The Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is in early production stages.

The Air Force leadership's reversal on F-22s is likely to fly into turbulence in Congress, which ultimately decides which programs to fund. With plants or suppliers in 44 states, the program counts many fans among lawmakers.

(Reporting by Jim Wolf; Editing by Bernard Orr)