F-16.net

The U.S. House and Senate have ironed out a $448 billion Pentagon appropriations bill. It fully funds the White House's F-22 request, and approves multiyear procurement, effectively assuring the purchase of at least 183 of the fighters. The F-35 did not fare as well, but better than feared. Two of the planes are funded (from five requested) with lead procurement funds for 12. This is, of course, very significant: they are the first production F-35s ever ordered. Congrats to all who work on that program!

F-16.net Sponsor

This message from our sponsor will disappear if you log on as a member.

Enthusiast Joined: Jul 19, 2006 Posts: 74 Status: Offline

Good luck to the US miltary and LM. They will need it to get this program through Congress without crazy budget cuts. Sad

Hopefully they will streamline this testing phase without major delays and money loss.

Indeed! Here's to the Lightning getting through without delays and budget cuts (a la Raptor)!

idesof - do you have a link to a news article on this?

falconfixer860261 wrote:

idesof - do you have a link to a news article on this?

Try here:

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/c ... 209176.xml

And here:

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060927/ap/d8kctjdo0.html

Also noteworthy is $72 million for AESA installation in National Guard F-15Cs.

falconfixer860261 wrote:

idesof - do you have a link to a news article on this?

And more on F-15C AESA:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060927/new011.html?.v=75

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1034 Status: Offline

Six more F-35's were requested. And for the budget savy (not) Raptor critics if you pile in R&D costs (which everyone knows your not supposed to do) each F-35 airframe would cost roughly $1Billion. I'll post a link to the actual DoD request later when I have more time.

-Check

Thanks everyone - we're kinda interested in that here. Future continued employment and all of that.

But now they want a 40,000 person reduction in force over the next 3 years to pay for it.

vinnie wrote:

But now they want a 40,000 person reduction in force over the next 3 years to pay for it.

While I understand that jobs being lost is not the most preferable or painless course of action, any volunteer military's mission is neither to create nor maintain jobs but to protect and defend and in the case of the U.S. military assist in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. If what will make mission success possible is cutting the number of troops in exchange for greater combat capability, then it is an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff. I applaud the U.S. military's efforts to become more streamlined while modernizing its equipment and I hope it is successful in its efforts.

Some people will want out but the majority of these people will be forced out in the middle of their careers, basically fired . The town I live in is full of people that it happened to in the 90s.

Some people will want out but the majority of these people will be forced out in the middle of their careers, basically fired . The town I live in is full of people that it happened to in the 90s.

F-16.net

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 procurement news