Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s offer to include more F-22s in the next war funding supplemental is an empty gesture at best. Congress has shown great reluctance to buy major items like combat aircraft in war supplementals—F-35s had to be withdrawn from a request last year—and has linked such buys to replacing specific aircraft lost in battle. The Air Force has not lost any F-15Cs in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, although it has put heavy wear and tear on the fleet, much of which is now grounded with stress fatigue cracks. It will be a hard sell getting the non-fighter-savvy members of Congress to go along with an extension of the F-22 production line if it is to be justified as replacing war losses.
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.