The US Air Force has yet to decide which programmes to cut to offset a $100 million penalty levied for its withdrawal from a joint munitions programme with the US Navy. The US Department of Defense fined the service for cancelling its interest in Raytheon's AGM-154A Joint Stand-off Weapon (JSOW-A) (Flight International, 20-26 January). Air force officials say the area-attack munition is less capable than Lockheed Martin's CBU-105 Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD).
At first, the USAF was directed to fund the penalty using offsets from two Raytheon air-to-air missile programmes - the AIM-9X Sidewinder and the AIM-120 AMRAAM. However, the service has since won approval for an alternative plan.
The penalty outlays will be stretched over five years, beginning with $12 million in fiscal year 2005, $13 million in 2006 and then $25 million a year until 2010.
A senior air force official says the JSOW-A purchase was cancelled because operators found the WCMD cluster munition provides a "better probability of kill than JSOW". The US Navy still plans to buy around 13,000 of the weapons.
Source: Flight International