Kendall: Steady F-35 procurement key to containing costs

By Courtney Albon / May 25, 2021 at 1:26 PM

The Biden administration's nominee to serve as Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, told lawmakers today that one of the Defense Department's best options for reducing F-35 sustainment costs is to continue to buy the aircraft in sufficient quantities.

"The key to keeping the cost down in an air fleet is getting the numbers up," Kendall said during his nomination hearing today before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There's a very strong correlation between the size of the fleet and the cost to sustain that fleet. So, if there were one thing that I think will drive costs down overall, it's continue to buy."

Kendall's comments come as some prominent House lawmakers have challenged the notion that the Defense Department should buy more aircraft while the program continues to face development challenges and long-term sustainment costs loom large. Most notably, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) called the program "a rathole" and set the stage for a debate over whether Congress and the Pentagon should "cut our losses" on the program.

The department is also in the midst of a broader review of the tactical aircraft portfolio, and the Air Force has its own review that will consider, among a number of variables, how many F-35s it should ultimately buy. That work isn't expected to have a significant impact on the service's fiscal year 2022 budget request.

However, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief Stacy Cummings has indicated the department is prioritizing modernization over procurement, arguing at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that it may not be in DOD's best interest to buy older Block 3F jets that will eventually have to be modernized to the Block 4 configuration.

"Accelerating or increasing procurement quantities of Block 3F variants is counterproductive and wastes scarce resources as such planes will need to be pulled from the flight line and retrofitted when Block 4 capabilities deliver," she said.

Kendall noted today that while there has been a long-running discussion about the total F-35 requirement to buy 2,443 aircraft across the Army, Navy and Air Force, DOD is far from reaching that target and has more pressing issues to address.

"I know there's an issue with the total number that's been on the table for some years, what the requirement is," he said. "My own view is that at this point in time is that we're well short of that number, and . . . what we should really be working on most is getting the cost down and keeping the procurement at a rate that makes sense."

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