The Pentagon and industry are campaigning vigorously to defeat a congressional proposal to slash funding for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program, an industry representative said Oct. 19.

The Air Force, the Navy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the program's main contractors, the Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., "are working hard" to persuade the House-Senate conference committee for the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill to reject a Senate-passed proposal to slash $200 million from the Bush administration's $350 million request for J-UCAS, said Rick Ludwig, who handles J-UCAS business development for Northrop Grumman.

"I have never seen so many organizations get together to turn that around ... and I feel confident that it will be," Ludwig said at a Precision Strike Association conference.

In proposing the cut, the Senate Appropriations Committee cited concerns about "fluctuations" in the program, including changes in program ownership and concepts of operations. The "incompatibility of Navy and Air Force requirements" was also mentioned. The panel called for an independent study to determine whether the J-UCAS requirements could be met by other unmanned aerial vehicles "at an overall savings to the U.S. government."

The Defense Department quietly decided late last year to shift J-UCAS from DARPA to the Air Force. That transition is now taking place. The program is supposed to develop unmanned aircraft for such missions as precision strike, surveillance and suppression of enemy air defenses.