Lockheed-Martin F-35 Fighter Program Loses $2.16 Billion Under Budget Deal (excerpt)

April 12, 2011 Bloomberg - defense-aerospace.com

The budget compromise up for consideration by Congress cuts $2.16 billion from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and doesn’t include money for the jet’s alternative engine being developed by General Electric Co. (GE) and Rolls Royce Group Plc.

The White House and congressional leaders agreed to a $670.8 billion Defense Department appropriations bill for 2011 that is $18.1 billion below the Pentagon’s original request for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The base budget proposed for the Pentagon is $513 billion while funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain at $157.8 billion, the amount requested by the Obama administration, according to budget details released by the Senate.

The House and Senate are expected to vote on the bill by April 15, part of the plan to avert a government shutdown when the current stopgap funding measure is set to expire. The numbers released today don’t include military construction projects, which are approved by Congress in a separate bill.

The bill proposes a cut of $2.16 billion from the F-35 program because of production and aircraft testing delays, according to the document. The $382 billion program to build variations of the aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is under scrutiny because of rising costs and schedule slips, including technical hurdles in developing the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff and vertical-landing version.

The bill would cut 10 aircraft from the Marine Corps variant, down to three this fiscal year. The draft legislation wouldn’t change the request for seven of the Navy’s aircraft carrier version. Some of the funding from the Marine Corps variant would go to the Air Force, which would buy a total of 25 jets, three above the original request. (end of excerpt)

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