Senior blue-suited officials have argued the air service could transition funds in its fiscal year 2009 budget plan tagged to shut down the F-22A line into additional Raptor buys. The Air Force has $116 million set aside in the FY-09 blueprint to shutter the fighter's production line.
*However, DOD acquisition czar John Young said today that the Air Force would be better served by nixing plans to stretch the fighter's production past the department's 183-plane cap, and funnel those dollars into upgrading the F-22As the service is already slated to get. *
“There has been a fair amount of study work here that says 183 F-22As are an adequate number of airplanes,” Young said during today's briefing at the Pentagon. “Beyond that, the Air Force, I think, has some challenges that need to be addressed.”
*The first 100-plane tranche of “Increment 1” Raptors will be baseline models of the fifth-generation fighter, while the remaining 83 jets will be advanced “Increment 3” versions of the Raptor, Young said. *
“So 100 planes right now are planning to be less-capable planes, and the Air Force does not intend to upgrade those planes [and] there is at least $2.3 billion in the budget right now to create these Increment 3 [planes],” Young said.
“If we had additional dollars in the defense budget, I think they should be spent to improve the capabilities of those first 100 F-22As so all F-22As are the most capable,” he added.
Air Force leaders hellbent on talking the Pentagon and Congress into more F-22s heard some unwelcome words last week when the Defense Department's top weapons buyer said the service should spend any extra money not on new planes, but on upgrades to existing Raptors. InsideDefense.com is the bearer of the bad news:
