Defense Secretary Robert Gates will recommend giving the Marine Corps as much as two additional years to develop its version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 fighter to correct technical and manufacturing glitches that have delayed testing, according to two defense officials. Gates told Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, of the decision in a Friday meeting on the fiscal 2012 budget, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified because the session wasn’t public.
The Marines’ short-takeoff and vertical-landing aircraft, the most complex version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has had flight-test schedule delays, some caused by parts shortages or reliability.
Britain, in a budget-cutting move, decided in October against buying the more expensive short-takeoff variant of the jet. The co-chairmen of President Obama’s debt commission last month proposed terminating the Marine Corps version of the F-35, a move they said would save $17.6 billion between fiscal 2012 and 2015.
The extra two years would be in addition to an earlier 13-month extension, to November 2015, that Gates ordered in the F-35’s overall $30 billion development phase.
The Pentagon is developing three versions of the aircraft in the $382 billion F-35 program. Air Force and Navy variants are designed for conventional takeoffs and landings on fixed runways and aircraft carriers.
The Marine Corps has said its aircraft is needed to replace the 25-year-old AV-B Harrier for use from smaller amphibious warfare vessels and landings on improvised airstrips.
As of today, the Marine Corps model has completed 197 of 232 planned test flights, said John Kent, a spokesman for Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin.
The overall F-35 program is about four years behind its initial schedule. The estimate for the basic cost of an individual aircraft has increased about 84 percent, to $92 million in 2002 dollars from $50 million.
