Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) seems happy to have lost the argument – for now – over whether to fund the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s alternate engine program. Levin, who is in favor of the GE-RR F136 to compete with the incumbent P&W F135, told Aviation Week he was just doing his job as chairman when he defended the Senate’s decision in conference negotiations with House counterparts.
Those negotiations concluded overnight, and as soon as both chambers pass the agreement, Congress looks set to begin trying to thread the veto needle by authorizing and appropriating for the F136 as long as it doesn’t come out of the greater JSF program’s expense. Assuming appropriators go along with the outside-JSF-funding stipulation – and they would be asking for trouble if they don’t, at this point – we might just have seen the climax of JSF engine haggling until a formal competition mid-next decade decides who really has the better, cheaper engine.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the SASC, was not as sanguine over continuing the F136. In a formal news conference with Levin off the Senate floor, McCain explained that the F136 was a major House priority, and – my words here, not McCain’s – considering everything else they got in the bill, a compromise was reached. McCain stressed that it was now up to appropriators to follow the unofficial compromise so that President Barack Obama does not veto defense bills, as he has threatened he would if the F136 came at the expense of the fighter program.
Paging Bill Sweetman, hellooo??? Hellooo, ELP??? Hmm, strangely, conspicuously silent, those two and other "naysayers", as Solomon is so fond of calling them.
Let's call a spade a spade - and let it be said that I've not been an acolyte of the F-35, nor a detractor, merely an interested observer and agnostic skeptic: this is a HUGE victory for the F-35. Full funding for every penny the Pentagon requested, with an additional half billion thrown in to continue F136 development. That is, again, HUGE. If what killed the F-22 was a lack of political will to continue its production, the F-35, politically, is on rails. Now, it is up to LM and GE to deliver, which, considering the F-35 is still more mockup than airplane, is by no means a sure thing at this point.
The Obama administration was all but begging for this outcome. Veto threats and such are carefully worded, and when the administration said that it would veto any bill that "would seriously disrupt" the F-35 program, they told Congress, basically, "but not if you find funding from outside the program for the alternate engine." And that's exactly what Congress has done. As Bruno (not the gay Austrian TV personality) states, an alternate engine is all but fait acompli until a real winner, after a real competition, is decided sometime in the middle of the next decade. Congratulations, GE.
And, if I may engage in a bit of schadenfreude, eat your shorts (and broken fan blades), Pratt & Wimpy. They've behaved like a bunch of totalitarian, greedy, whiny bastiges throughout this whole affair. Now, I only hope the F136 winds up being so clearly superior to the F135 that P&W gets shut out of the program altogether. Maybe now P&W will no longer produce engines with a 50% trashing rate. Hmm, maybe competition does work after all. Whod'a thunk it?
Obamanite: How's that schadenfreude tasting now? (laughs) After that latest news I predict the F136s funding will last just long enough for Levin to collect his kickbacks.
You don't get it, do you, sferrin? It is clear that GE has enough support in Congress that a testing issue - which happens to be par for the course - isn't going to change a single mind. Now, considering you are quite the right-winger, are you telling me you object to funding the F136 and inserting an element of competition into the equation? Strange time to all of the sudden begin adopting a socialist attitude, isn't it, sferrin?
Bill, I agree full funding for the program may not have been surprising, but what is notable, at the very least, is that full funding was maintained, even as a cool half-billion, apparently, has been added. That is something that has not happened before, as you know, given that Congress has raided the F-35 account in past years to continue funding for the alternative engine. If you're an F-35 supporter, you are a very happy camper, indeed. Speaking of which, isn't this awarding of production contracts to the F-35 not a little bit like awarding the Nobel to Obama, when only 1% of testing is done. Hmmm...
Let's call a spade a spade - and let it be said that I've not been an acolyte of the F-35, nor a detractor, merely an interested observer and agnostic skeptic: this is a HUGE victory for the F-35. Full funding for every penny the Pentagon requested, with an additional half billion thrown in to continue F136 development. That is, again, HUGE. If what killed the F-22 was a lack of political will to continue its production, the F-35, politically, is on rails. Now, it is up to LM and GE to deliver, which, considering the F-35 is still more mockup than airplane, is by no means a sure thing at this point.
The Obama administration was all but begging for this outcome. Veto threats and such are carefully worded, and when the administration said that it would veto any bill that "would seriously disrupt" the F-35 program, they told Congress, basically, "but not if you find funding from outside the program for the alternate engine." And that's exactly what Congress has done. As Bruno (not the gay Austrian TV personality) states, an alternate engine is all but fait acompli until a real winner, after a real competition, is decided sometime in the middle of the next decade. Congratulations, GE.
And, if I may engage in a bit of schadenfreude, eat your shorts (and broken fan blades), Pratt & Wimpy. They've behaved like a bunch of totalitarian, greedy, whiny bastiges throughout this whole affair. Now, I only hope the F136 winds up being so clearly superior to the F135 that P&W gets shut out of the program altogether. Maybe now P&W will no longer produce engines with a 50% trashing rate. Hmm, maybe competition does work after all. Whod'a thunk it?
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/10/07/dings-and-nicks-shut-f136-down/
Oh my god, say it ain't so, that's just unpossible! Talk about priceless timing.