F 22 Airplane

Behind closed doors at the U.S. Capitol, negotiators for the House and Senate neared a decision Wednesday night that may determine the fate of the Air Force's most coveted new weapons program, the profitability of the nation's biggest defense contractor and potential future jobs for tens of thousands of workers. As they attempt to resolve the impasse, key players in the negotiation also are pondering a puzzling question: Why has Rep. Jerry Lewis done this?

The Air Force is discussing scaling back purchases of Lockheed F-22 jet fighters to 442 aircraft from the planned 648, a Lockheed official said Monday. At about $95 billion, the F-22 procurement program is the Pentagon's biggest and Lockheed's most important project for the next 20 years. The Defense Department is conducting a comprehensive review of major weapons programs and considering a wide range of options, among them canceling one or more of the current aircraft programs.

Lockheed Martin Corp. has received three contracts valued at about $1.5 billion for production of the F-22 stealth fighter jet, the Air Force said Thursday. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed received a $1.23-billion contract to build six more F-22 fighters for testing and a $275-million down payment for another 10. A third contract, valued at $115 million, was awarded for overall continuing manufacturing of the test stealth aircraft.

Faced with an unexpected $690-million cost overrun in its troubled F/A-22 fighter program, the Pentagon may slash the number of planes it purchases from Lockheed Martin Corp., a senior official said Wednesday. The development is an embarrassment for the Air Force and for Lockheed Martin, which designed the plane at its Skunk Works facility in Burbank. The program has seen rising costs and recent management shake-ups.

An Air Force general said he expected the F/A-22 Raptor to join combat operations by the end of next year, despite this week's crash of one of the next-generation stealth fighter jets. "We're going to keep right on going," said Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Goldfein, the Air Warfare Center commander at Nellis Air Force Base, where the approximately $133-million plane crashed and burned on a runway shortly after takeoff Monday.

The Air Force selected a team led by Lockheed to produce its top-of-the-line fighter jet Tuesday, rejecting Northrop's competing proposal for the $72-billion program, potentially the most lucrative in aerospace history. The decision is a painful blow to Northrop, which will have to lay off hundreds of workers in Los Angeles and cancel plans to hire thousands of others. Lockheed Corp. will do most of its work in Georgia.

Aviation aficionados will get a glimpse of the 21st century Saturday as the F-22 Raptor, the military's fighter jet of the future, makes its public debut at the annual Edwards Air Force Base open house and air show. Holding its array of weapons inside its fuselage to make radar detection more difficult, the Raptor is capable of flying at twice the speed of sound and can lock on a flying target at far greater distances than any other aircraft, Air Force officials said.

Aviation aficionados will get a glimpse of the 21st century Saturday as the F-22 Raptor, the military's fighter jet of the future, makes its public debut at the annual Edwards Air Force Base open house and air show. Holding its array of weapons inside its fuselage to make radar detection more difficult, the Raptor is capable of flying at twice the speed of sound and can lock on a flying target at far greater distances than any other aircraft, Air Force officials said.

The advanced tactical fighter contract, awarded Tuesday by the Air Force, is a watershed in the aerospace-defense business. It's a big job to begin with: $95 billion for 650 planes that will serve as the chief Air Force fighter until at least 2025. But the significance is greater because the ATF may be the last big military aircraft order in this century. The ATF award may signal a new phase of consolidation in the aerospace industry, a reduction in the number of aircraft contractors.