Defense Secretary James Mattis has ordered a review of the two expensive Pentagon acquisition programs that have come under scrutiny from President Trump.
The Pentagon announced Friday that Mattis has ordered separate reviews of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program, which is designed to provide a replacement for Air Force One.
“The purpose of these reviews is to inform programmatic and budgetary decisions, recognizing the critical importance of each of these acquisition programs,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman in a statement.
“This is a prudent step to incorporate additional information into the budget preparation process and to inform the secretary’s recommendations to the president regarding critical military capabilities,” Davis said.
Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35, announced this week that cost of the multi-role fighter jet is expected to come down to about $100 million a copy, and that the price per plane will eventually be about $80 million.
Of particular note, Mattis wrote that the review will not only look at reducing cost for the tri-service program, but will separately assess whether an advanced version of the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet can provide “a competitive, cost effective, fighter aircraft alternative” to the F-35C, which is the Navy version.
“This review will begin immediately with the results and recommendations made available to inform upcoming budget decisions,” the memo says.
The Super Hornet is a fourth generation fighter, flown only by the Navy, that has been in the fleet since the early 2000s. The F-35 is a fifth generation fighter that brings stealthy features and advanced sensors. The program features variants for the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and is just entering service for the latter two branches.
Boeing, which also makes the modified 747 that will be the replacement for the current fleet of two presidential aircraft, has also pledged to bring the cost down of program estimated to total $4 billion.
The memo says that review will look at requirements “with the specific objective of identifying means to substantially reduce the program’s cost while delivering needed capabilities.”
That includes “autonomous operations, aircraft power generation, environmental conditioning (cooling), survivability, and military/civilian communications capabilities,” it says.
