The Pentagon on Friday announced a $258 million contract to buy two additional F-35 aircraft using money found during an end-of-fiscal-year-budget review, a sum nearly equal to the Defense Department's $263 million reprogramming request last summer denied by Congress that aimed to siphon funds from other Navy and Air Force accounts to finance F-35 cost growth. The purchase of the two additional aircraft, one Air Force conventional-takeoff-and-landing variant and one Navy aircraft-carrier variant, partially reinstates four jets cut in October...
