Here's a news flash from my esteemed competitors at AviationWeek.com: the US Air Force intends to buy 380 Lockheed Martin F-22s, no matter what it costs them.
The article, which quotes Air Force Materiel Command chief General Bruce Carlson, says:
"We're committed to funding 380," Carlson said Feb. 13 after speaking at Aviation Week's Defense Technology and Requirements conference in Washington. "We're building a program right now to do that. It's going to be incredibly difficult on the Air Force, but we've done this before."
The USAF's unflinching commitment to the F-22 -- whether right or wrong -- is going to be costly. Assuming a 20-aircraft annual buy at $150 million per copy, the USAF must spend another $29.55 billion on the F-22. That also means the USAF will have to commit nearly $3 billion per year over the next decade.
How is the USAF going to pay that bill? Will DOD just give them the extra cash? Must any single large program (F-35, Next-Generation Bomber, KC-X) be sacrificed? Or will the USAF bleed bits of cash from its entire portfolio to pay the annual F-22 bill?
Then again, maybe Congress will be the answer. The US Department of Defense failed to request procurement funds to buy the Lockheed Martin C-130J -- the F-22's sister production line in Marrietta, Georgia -- for most of the first decade of its lifetime. But each year Lockheed's legislative allies found a way to keep the checks rolling.
From my perspective, this will be a fun story to watch. Whatever happens, the F-22's $3 billion-a-year existence is set to become an annual drama, with every other investment account in the Pentagon a potential victim.
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