WASHINGTON \u2014 If US President-elect Donald Trump moves forward with trying to supplant Lockheed Martin’s F-35 with Boeing’s F\/A-18E\/F Super Hornet, he can expect to find opposition from the Air Force, the service’s top civilian said.
Trump has already met with one such official, the Defense Department\u2019s F-35 program chief Gen. Christopher Bogdan, to discuss the program. While the president-elect has not softened on the F-35 since then, James pointed out that his meetings with Boeing head Dennis Muilenburg and Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson may have had an impact on Trump\u2019s tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It\u2019s impossible for me to say” what Trump\u2019s intentions are, she said. “But clearly on that particular day, he did have both the CEOs of Lockheed and Boeing come talk to him about these programs. He did talk about costs. \u2026 It certainly would be consistent, I believe, that he is trying to negotiate and trying to see whatever he can do to bring down costs further.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the joint strike fighter still is working through challenges, the program has shown progress, said James, who pointed to decreased costs and the service\u2019s declaration of initial operational capability last August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If US President-elect Donald Trump moves forward with trying to supplant Lockheed Martin\u2019s F-35 with Boeing\u2019s F\/A-18E\/F Super Hornet, he can expect to find opposition from the Air Force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58344,"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":["your-military","news"],"primary_category":"your-military"},"4":{"categories":["your-air-force","news"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"}}},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3384],"class_list":["post-56738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GUIIBZ5I6JFYNFFWG4ZGJY3QEM","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2017\/01\/06\/super-hornet-not-interchangable-with-f-35-says-us-air-force-secretary\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n