A purported plan by the Navy and Marine Corps to delay acquisition of their versions of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as a means to free money in the 2008 budget for other needs sounds like business as usual at the Pentagon. If true, it would undoubtedly raise production havoc and drive up costs. The Air Force’s game plan—a multiyear buy for the F-22 as a hedge against F-35 program delays—begins to look mighty shrewd.
Raytheon, a division of defense giant RTX, recently announced a multiyear deal with the Pentagon to increase annual production of the Air Force’s primary dogfighting missile by more than 50 percent from two years ago.
