“This fifth-generation fighter behind me is absolutely vital to maintaining our air superiority,’’ Panetta told about 100 people inside an aircraft hangar at the air station. Many in his audience work on the test program.
Before his address, Panetta visited an F-35 flight test simulator. He “flew’’ it briefly and also got briefings on progress made to resolve technical problems with the Marine Corps and Navy versions of the F-35 Lightning II.
The F-35 is the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, and it has been troubled by schedule delays and cost overruns. Ten years in, the total F-35 program cost has jumped from $233 billion to an estimated $385 billion. And, recent estimates say, the entire program could exceed $1 trillion over 50 years.
Panetta is expected to affirm as early as next week, in previewing the administration’s 2013 defense budget, that the F-35 program remains a top priority. Some analysts have speculated that Panetta may decide to slow down the planned rate of production of the plane to save billions of dollars in the short run, without reducing the total number of planes eventually to be purchased.
The developer, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., is building three versions of the F-35 — one each for the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. They are intended to replace Cold War-era aircraft such as the Air Force F-16 fighter, the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet and the Marines’ EA-6B Prowler and AV-8B Harrier. International partners, including Britain, also are in line to buy F-35s.
Last January, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates put the Marines’ version of the aircraft — which is capable of taking off from shorter runways and landing vertically — on two-year “probation’’ because it was experiencing “significant testing problems.’’ If those problems could not be fixed within two years, Gates said, he would advocate canceling the program. It was a threat that troubled the Marine Corps.
That threat lost its power when Gates left office last summer, but the project’s future remained in some doubt.
