WASHINGTON -- The Air Force may further cut its order for the Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F/A-22 Raptor fighter to pay for a projected $690 million cost overrun in the program, the Pentagon's top acquisition official said yesterday.
The projected overrun is about 3.3 percent of the program's $20 billion development phase and surprised senior Pentagon and Air Force officials, said Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
"It's $690 million of the taxpayers' funds that hit us at a point where we did not understand," Aldridge said. "One way to pay for it is to reduce the number of airplanes and that may be what we need to do."
The Pentagon has spent $26 billion of the $69 billion planned for a program that 10 years ago called for 750 planes. It now calls for 295 aircraft, and the Pentagon was weighing whether to cut that number to 180 before this latest overrun was projected.
"Once we get to the bottom of it, we'll take the appropriate action immediately," Aldridge told a Pentagon news briefing.
The Air Force and Lockheed Martin said this week that their management teams on the program are being replaced.
The F-22 Raptor was designed in the mid-1980s to counter advanced Soviet fighters and won't be ready for combat for more than three years. It's intended to replace the F-15C as the top U.S. air-to-air fighter and will combine the latest avionics and software in a frame that's designed to be nearly invisible to radar.
The F-22 was renamed in September the "F/A-22" -- the "A" stands for ground attack -- to stress its mission against ground targets as well as in aerial dogfights, which are less likely nowadays. The new name underscores that the plane can support Army, Navy and Marines ground forces, officials say.
In August 2001, when Aldridge added money to cover a previous overrun, he warned the Air Force that it had to keep costs under control.
The most recent program estimates "were pretty solid," Aldridge said. Then the overrun projection "popped up, and we don't know why yet," he said.
The F/A-22 is scheduled in August to enter a phase of realistic combat testing necessary for full production. The combat testing phase is five months behind schedule, and that may explain the cost overrun, Aldridge said. Initial deployment is expected in December 2005.
The production phase is estimated to cost $43 billion, with each aircraft costing about $204 million when calculated in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. are the top Raptor subcontractors, providing parts of the fuselage and wings, radar and electronics.