Air Force now supports alternate engine program for F-35

Air Force leaders Tuesday gave a significant amount of support to development of a second engine for the international F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and acknowledged that their repeated attempts to cancel the engine were efforts to trim budgets in a constrained spending environment.

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told a House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that the second engine would give the military a hedge in the event of problems with the primary engine. "I think that you have to reach beyond the simple business case and into a reliability case," he said. Wynne explained the need for a second engine by referring to the Air Force's recent decision to ground the F-15 fleet. "I can't tell you how happy I was when we stood down the F-15 fleet that I happened to have a second airplane, namely the F-16s, to backfill," he said. Despite his support for the alternate engine, Wynne stressed throughout the hearing that he supports the fiscal 2009 budget request, which did not include funding for the engine program. Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley called the decision on the alternative engine "truly an affordability issue" and said he personally supports the program. But the general said he does not know where the money for the engine would come from or "how that's squared inside the program."

For several years, Congress has repeatedly thwarted the Pentagon's efforts to cancel the JSF alternative engine produced by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, the British engine maker. The Air Force has argued the cancellation would save $1.8 billion over five years, but several lawmakers have countered that competition between engine suppliers would save money and produce a better final product. Life-cycle costs of the primary engine, which is produced by United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney unit, could run as high as $100 billion, but Pentagon officials have argued that competition generated by the second engine would not yield any savings. Congress mandated development of the second engine in the fiscal 1996 defense authorization bill. The F-35, for which the administration requested $6.7 billion in its fiscal 2009 budget request, is in the middle of a 12-year development cycle and is expected to start flight tests later this year.

Tuesday's hearing provided another forum for Boeing supporters to question the Air Force's decision to select EADS, the European consortium behind Airbus, and Northrop Grumman for the lucrative contract to build a fleet of aerial refueling tankers. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., accused Air Force officials of misleading him and Boeing, the losing bidder, about the program's requirements for the contract that ultimately went to the Airbus design, the larger of the two planes offered to the Air Force.

"Big is just not the answer," said Dicks, whose district would have been home to the assembly site for Boeing's tanker. He called on the service to "go back and compete the two planes." On Monday, Boeing announced it intends to file a formal protest of the decision Tuesday, a move that automatically sends the issue to GAO for an extensive review. Wynne stressed that the competition had been open and fair and that the Air Force had "selected the better of two very qualified competitors."