WASHINGTON \u2014 The defense-policy and -spending bills are at a standstill on Capitol Hill, but 70 House lawmakers are hoping that when Congress returns after the election, they can press appropriators to boost\u00a0the total F-35 purchase for fiscal year 2017.
The letter was initiated by the co-chairs of the House Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, Reps. Kay Granger, R-Texas, and John Larson, D-Conn. Both lawmakers represent regions that profit from the F-35, with the Lockheed Martin jet built in Fort Worth and the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine made in Connecticut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The signatories argued that the services require the F-35 at a quicker rate than current budgets allow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Events around the globe continue to demonstrate the urgent need for the F-35\u2019s capabilities,” they wrote. “The program is gaining momentum with the Marine Corps declaring initial operating capability last year and the Air Force declaring IOC this summer. We believe it is essential for Congress to provide the funding necessary to continue increasing F-35 production at a rate sufficient to meet future threats and to reach at least 120 US aircraft per year as quickly as possible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
As Congress debates how quickly to ramp up F-35 production, the government and Lockheed Martin remain gridlocked on the price of the ninth and tenth lots of aircraft. Lockheed on Monday received a $743 million award, which modifies a previous undefinitized contracting action for the ninth batch of low-rate initial production aircraft. Besides providing\u00a0additional advance funding to the company, the agreement also establishes not-to-exceed prices “for diminishing manufacturing and material shortages redesign and development, estimated post production concurrency changes, and country-unique requirements.” However, a larger agreement on the production of LRIP-9 and -10 is still in the works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seventy members want to fund 11 additional F-35s in fiscal year 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["news"],"primary_category":""},"4":{"categories":["your-air-force","news"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"},"5":{"categories":["your-army","news"],"primary_category":"your-army"},"6":{"categories":["news"],"primary_category":""},"7":{"categories":["news"],"primary_category":""}}},"categories":[7,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3384],"class_list":["post-21635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-pentagon"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"RHJYROJDTFAT7FZNY75ECFZK74","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2016\/10\/18\/house-lawmakers-push-for-more-f-35-funding-in-fy17-budget\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n