According to Inside Defense (subscription), the usual suspects over at the Senate Armed Services Committee (Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ)) have sent a formal letter to the new Secretary of Defense Panetta requesting an estimate of what it would take to cancel the F-35 program.
A quote from the letter obtained by Inside Defense states:
“The Committee is concerned about three quarters of a billion dollars in increases in these three contracts since last year," the letter reads. “That raises many questions that must be answered before a decision is made on this reprogramming, including . . . what would be our legal obligations and our costs if we were to terminate the F-35 program now.”
Then there is the issue of paying for cost blow-outs. McCain does not want the Hill to authorize any money for F-35 cost over-runs.
According a publication named The Hill:
“The $771 million overrun covers the first 28 F-35s the Pentagon is buying. The Pentagon informed lawmakers on Monday of a need to move monies within its budget for a $264 million down payment, as the aide called it, via a reprogramming request sent across the Potomac River in June.
‘I intend to strongly oppose future ‘reprogramming requests’ unless they can be fully justified to the American taxpayer,’ said McCain.”
Meanwhile, the followers of the Jim Jones theory of weapons procurement have stated everything is going great. Not mentioned is that nearly 10 years after the award to the prime contractor, not one weapon has been cleared; there have been no operational exercises; and initial operating capability is a long way away; pencil-whipped or otherwise. All this for a weapon's system that will be obsolete.
UPDATE from Flight Global - F-35 LRIP overrun value raised to $1.15B
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