Pentagon struggle underway on testing of F-22 fighter

An internal Pentagon struggle is underway over how thoroughly the Air Force F-22 fighter must be tested to pass congressional muster-with one side warning that a once-over-lightly plan now under consideration would be attacked by legislators as "malicious compliance."

The malicious compliance scenario calls for electronics to be installed into the air superiority fighter next December for only one short flight rather than a series of realistic tests of its combat readiness, Pentagon insiders told National Journal News Service. The idea is to minimize the chance that any flaws in the so-called Block 3.0 software would show up and delay initial production of the plane.

"The Air Force is going all out to avoid anything that would delay production," said one U.S. official familiar with the Pentagon's behind-the- scenes struggle over how best to clear the performance hurdles that Congress set up this fall.

One internal memo circulating through government offices identifies Darleen Druyun, principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and management, as the leader of the single-flight test plan. Opponents are said to include Jacques Gansler, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, and Philip Coyle, director of operational test and evaluation. The Gansler-Coyle contingent is pressing for flights that would test the electronics more strenuously than the Druyun bloc has in mind.

Under the Druyun plan, the memo states, "The Air Force would put the Block 3 software in the aircraft, take off, pull up the landing gear, circle back and land. The real Block 3 testing would still have to wait until the spring [of 2001] timeframe ... Darleen argued [at a meeting of Pentagon acquisition executives] that Gansler and others should stay out of it because they only have a year left in the administration and they should not be making decisions for their successors."

The fiscal 2000 Defense appropriations bill that President Clinton signed into law in October is vague on how strenuously the F-22 electronics must be tested before production can begin. The law states that "the Secretary of the Air Force may not award a full funding contract for low-rate initial production for the F-22 aircraft program until the first flight of an F-22 aircraft incorporating Block 3.0 software has been conducted."

Staffs of congressional committees that oversee the defense budget have been alerted to both the internal Pentagon debate over how to meet the law's requirements and a dispute over how much fatigue testing the F-22 should undergo before production begins. Both assure a replay in the second session of the 106th Congress of this past year's battle over the future of the aircraft.