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F-35 Trumps F/A-22 In Latest Defense Department Budget Battle
Posted on: Jan. 5th, 2005 || www.aviationnow.com

The Defense Department has rebuffed an Air Force proposal to cut the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, opting instead to slash the Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor, which DOD leaders see as less transformational than JSF, according to sources and documents.

Program Budget Decision (PBD) No. 753, a budget document signed Dec. 23 by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, rejects an Air Force plan to shrink the service's future F-35 procurement from 1,763 jets to about 1,200. The PBD, obtained by The DAILY Jan. 3, also calls on the Air Force to stop buying the F/A-22 at the end of fiscal 2008, halting ongoing Raptor procurement at 181 jets instead of the 277 the Air Force had planned.

Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, had indicated that the Air Force was planning to cut its JSF buy because the F-35 was proving to be much more capable than the aircraft it is designed to replace (DAILY, Dec. 15). But the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) opted to cut the F/A-22 instead because the less expensive, multiservice F-35 fits better with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's transformation vision, said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer at the Lexington Institute.

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