F-22: February 2008 Archives

Bob Cox at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's SkyTalk blog alerts us:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, apparently tired of the Air Force's very open campaign to buy hundreds more F-22 fighters despite Pentagon policies, has reminded the service's top brass that civilians dictate military policy in the U.S. and not vice versa.

The story comes from pro Pentagon reporter Peter Spiegel at the Los Angeles Times. He reports:

One senior defense official called the remarks by Gen. Bruce Carlson, who heads the Air Force command responsible for testing and developing new weapons, "borderline insubordination," because they contradicted a decision by the president.

Oh dear.
I actually hate it when this kind of thing happens. You may agree or not with what Carlson said. But he unguardedly stated what every USAF officer above the rank of ROTC cadet quietly believes. In my book, Carlson, who I've known to answer questions honestly, deserves a medal for candor and applause for lack of discretion.
Gates may put up a fight over this. But, then again, his job comes with a rather early expiration date. The USAF, Lockheed Martin, and the F-22's legislative allies are surely aware of this. But now they'll just stop talking.

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.

It's getting personal with the F-22 and Gordon England.

I first noticed this a few weeks ago when Loren Thompson, a paid Lockheed mouthpiece and industry analyst, in so many words accused the deputy secretary of defense of using his current clout to settle old scores from his days as a defense industry executive.

England "lost a succession struggle" at Lockheed, Thompson wrote, and "now wants to kill his creation".

England's "creation" apparently means the F-22, which he is indeed trying to kill to secure the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

I know what you're asking: Both aircraft of course are built by Lockheed, so why would England's industry past alone presuppose him to favor one or the other? Could Thompson's mercurial hint about a past "succession struggle" at Lockheed have played a part in England's current Raptor antipathy?

Hey, I love a completely unsupported, gossipy and self-serving conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but this one I thought needed a bit of investigation.

After almost 20 minutes of exhaustive investigation -- well, exhaustive for a blog anyway -- I found an article in The Washington Post, dated May 8, 1995. The headline is "Volleying for big positions at Lockheed Martin," and buried in the story lies either the smoking gun of England's guilt, or a completely irrelevant anecdote. I'll let you decide!

To summarize, the article traced the fall-out of the Lockheed-Martin Marietta merger on the combined company's executive ranks. Keep in mind this merger came only a year after Lockheed purchased the General Dynamics Fort Worth Aircraft Company, where England was posted as President.

One of the jobs up for grabs in the spring of 1995 was president of the restructured Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth-based aeronautics division. The position was left vacant after the previous occupant, Kenneth Cannestra, decided to "retire" early in the wake of a bribery scandal in Egypt. The article says:

"There was a struggle for Cannestra's powerful Lockheed Martin position, and the winner was James A. 'Mickey' Blackwell Jr., formerly head of Lockheed's Georgia-based military aircraft division. Blackwell's elevation prompted England, one of the other competitors for the job, to leave, company officials said."

So there you have it.

The guy in charge of the Georgia-based F-22 program got the job. England got the ticket to that place where ousted defense industry executives briefly retire to until they can win a political appointee job in the next administartion, where they can indulge their revenge fantasies on their former colleagues.

On second thought, maybe England just thinks it makes more sense to allow the F-22 line to die in order to preserve what's left of the long-term viability of the F-35 production line.
Naaaahhhhh ... couldn't be.