TCS Commends F-22 Cuts
Washington, DC – The House
of Representatives voted today to deny the Air Force money
to purchase six costly and unproven F-22 fighters. The redirection
of F-22 funds to build new F-15 and F-16 aircraft would strengthen
our national defense and save taxpayers money, according to
Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a national budget hawk organization.
"The House Appropriations
defense subcommittee and specifically Rep. Lewis and Rep.
Murtha should be commended for their initiatives to save the
taxpayers billions," said Brian Hughes, director of the
National Security Reform Project for TCS. Yet, congressional
leaders in the Senate have vowed to nullify this cutback in
the near future.
"It is unusual for Congress
to kill such a major new defense program after billions of
dollars have been spent," concluded Hughes. "Congress
sent a message to the Pentagon that they don’t want to
waste money on a fighter that cost too much with questionable
results."
According to the House Committee
Report, the F-22 is riddled with technical problems including:
"manufacturing problems with titanium castings; anomalies
in brakes, inertial reference system and environmental control
system; nagging fuel leaks; problems with engine low pressure
turbine blades, high pressure turbine blades, and engine combustors;
and problems with excessive engine vibration."
Critics including the General
Accounting Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) have recently questioned the need for the F-22 program
because two other tactical fighter programs, the F/A-18 and
the Joint Strike Fighter, already are slated for production.
Since the F-22’s conception,
the cost of the program has skyrocketed, according to Hughes.
"The price for an F-22 fighter has increased from $68
million to more than $200 million and it is still rising,"
Hughes said.
The F-22 is expected to cost
$63 billion for 339 fighter planes. But recent studies by
the CBO have stated that cost estimates for the F-22 fighter
program are still unrealistically low. A recent independent
audit found that Lockheed Martin could go $9 billion over
budget.
The termination of the F-22 program
would produce a five-year savings of at least $14.6 billion,
according to the CBO.
While the F-22’s redundancy
continues to be questioned by government watchdog agencies,
critics say the program is plagued with problems from a lack
of experimental testing.
Originally the Air Force planned
1,400 hours of flight testing before awarding a contract to
start initial production. But that was reduced to only 183
hours due to delays in the delivery of the test aircraft.
The GAO has criticized the Air Force’s decision to reduce
flight testing to this level, which is well short of the amount
the Defense Science Board suggested.
In April 1992, the only flying
prototype of the F-22 crashed. The Air Force blamed the tragedy
on operation error, but the CBO stated that this accident
might indicate costly production problems. |
