Moves by Congress Suggest More Innings for F-22

Posted by: Keith Epstein on June 17

In Washington as in baseball, it’s not ever quite over until it’s over. Just when all looked dead for the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and dire for workers at Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Marietta, Ga., plant, Congress in the wee hours of this morning inserted a paragraph into a defense supplemental spending bill - and a congressional committee today voted to add production line millions - that appears to give the seemingly venerable F-22 new prospects for life.

Where? At home, more F-22s for the U.S. Air Force, and abroad, as a carefully de-engineeered export. The idea for now, according to a spokesman for Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah congressman who joined a 31-30 majority on the House Armed Services Committee favoring buying 12 more F-22s: “Keep the production line warm.”

In Paris, where the aerospace elite is assembled for one of the year’s big air shows where aircraft dealing and pitching takes place, the F-22 purposely has been nowhere to be seen - and where many observers have, like Lockheed, focused on the F-35 instead. To reporters in France, CEO Bob Stevens has repeated his refrain that his company wasn’t going to push something against Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ wishes.

The paragraph in the supplemental allots $45 million to the F-22, but specifically prohibits using the money to close down the line - while specifically allowing it to be used to create a version for export, presumabled denuded of sensitive stealth and other gear.

Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee agreed at 2:30 a.m. to add $369 million to the defense spending bill for 2010 - a direct shot at Defense Secretary Gates, who said he wanted nothing for the F-22, and more for the F-35.

Ah, but will it happen? You know the saying: It ain’t over yet.

Here’s what the key paragraph in the supplemental spending bill says:

F-22 AIRCRAFT

The Air Force has informed the Congress that funding in the amount of $45,000,000 is required for the F-22 Raptor program to avoid a work stoppage in material processing and fabrication activities during fiscal year 2009. The conferees direct the Secretary of the Air Force to use $45,000,000 from within the funds provided to ensure that work proceeds on schedule. None of the funds provided in this Act shall be used to finance activities to shut-down the F-22A production line. Funds may be used to explore options to develop an export variant of the F-22A.”