F 22

WASHINGTON -- The cost of a $71 million F-22 fighter plane is already going up because the Pentagon decided to buy fewer copies, and further cuts by Congress would "have a significant impact" on the price, the Air Force's top acquisitions officer said DTC yesterday.Lt. Gen. George K. Muellner said teams from the Air Force and from the companies building the plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp., are working to determine how this year's decision to buy 339 F-22s instead of the original 438 will affect costs.

MARIETTA, Ga. -- Lockheed Martin Corp. has delayed the first flight of its F-22 fighter plane after finding a potential problem related to the fuel system.The flight had been scheduled for this weekend.The concern involves "the electrical connections to the fuel tank probes," the company said in a statement. "It is necessary to inspect all fuel probe connections as a safety precaution."Those inspections mean final ground tests that must be completed before the F-22 can fly won't be done until next week at the earliest.

MARIETTA, Ga. -- Lockheed Martin Corp. is within days of the first test flight of the F-22 fighter, the U.S. Air Force's most important weapon under development, company spokesman Jeff Rhodes said yesterday.The Air Force plans to spend about $43 billion for production of 339 F-22s during the next 20 years.If the newest supersonic, radar-evading fighter flies this weekend as scheduled, it will mark the end of a series of glitches that delayed the first test flight from May.Those problems included locking brakes, flight-software problems, an engine problem and a fuel leak.

A $500 million cut proposed by the Senate could delay Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 fighter plane program for two years and actually increase its overall cost, the Pentagon has warned.The Department of Defense made the predictions this week in what one congressional staffer called its traditional "sky-is-falling" letter, which weighs in on issues that House and Senate conferees will have to settle later this year when they reconcile competing versions of the defense budget.The House has approved the full $2.1 billion that the Pentagon wants for the F-22 for next year, but the Senate authorized only about $1.6 billion.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Armed Services Committee cut funding for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 fighter plane yesterday in work on the fiscal 1998 defense budget, Sen. Carl Levin said.Levin, a Michigan Democrat and the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told reporters the committee also approved funding the Clinton administration requested for McDonnell Douglas Corp.'s F/A-18E/F fighter, and moved to prohibit funding for additional Northrop Grumman Corp. B-2 bombers.Finally, the committee approved a cooperative production arrangement for the U.S. Navy's newest submarines that General Dynamics Corp.

Imagine flying a machine that its builder says is "the only thing more complex than the human body" -- an aircraft that the Air Force has so far spent about $17 billion to develop.The Air Force began at least thinking about the F-22 in 1981. It was debating what should replace the F-15 as the country's leading fighter plane. Ten years later, a team led by what is now Lockheed Martin Corp. was awarded the contract to build it.This was the goal: Build a fighter jet so sophisticated that other countries won't even bother fighting back.

WASHINGTON -- The Navy could wind up buying a little more than half the number of Super Hornet fighter planes it has been asking for under one scenario in the sweeping military review that began making the rounds of Congress yesterday.The McDonnell Douglas FA-18 E/F Super Hornet could be the biggest loser among the three expensive jet fighter programs at the heart of the hardware portion of the Quadrennial Defense Review. The Navy has talked about buying 1,000 of the planes, but sources said the QDR will recommend a range of purchases that could dip to as low as 550.If it buys that few, though, the Navy would buy more Joint Strike Fighter warplanes, the sources said.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Department officials are proposing to trim the production schedule of two new fighter aircraft -- the FA-18 E/F Super Hornet and the F-22 Raptor -- to save money for other weapons, Pentagon sources said yesterday.The production rate for the Navy's FA-18 E/F, which accounts for about 400 high-paying engineering and scientific jobs in Maryland, could slow by more than a dozen planes per year over the coming years, the sources said.The Maryland jobs are not at risk, one Navy official said, because they are tied to a testing program at Patuxent River Naval Air Station that will continue for two more years regardless of the number of airplanes built.

MARIETTA, Ga. -- Laser lights swept the room, white-hatted factory workers marched and clapped in rhythm, and Lee Greenwood himself sang "Proud to be an American" yesterday, as Lockheed Martin Corp. unveiled and defended the very first F-22 fighter plane.The 90-minute spectacle of patriotism and industrial force at the Bethesda-based company's Aeronautical Systems plant outside Atlanta was a full-throated pre-emptive strike for a defense program taking fire from budget cutters in Congress.

The Pentagon has approved initial production of the Navy Super Hornet fighter plane, giving the McDonnell Douglas craft the edge over Lockheed Martin's F-22 in a contest for budgetary survival.Undersecretary of Defense Paul G. Kaminski released a memorandum yesterday that authorizes the purchase of 62 of the F/A-18 E/F, the official name of the Super Hornet.The Navy says it wants to buy as many as 1,000 of the controversial planes, which are modifications of the current Hornet fighter craft.