In a renewed effort to end the F-35 strike fighter alternate engine program (see Nonstealthy Maneuver, above), Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered a somewhat different argument against the F136 engine. He told House lawmakers Wednesday that spending extra billions to maintain two engines for the F-35 just doesn’t make sense since only one of the planned F-35 operators—the Air Force—might potentially reap some gain. He told the House Armed Services Committee that he doesn’t think any other F-35 customer at home or abroad really wants to have two engine types for its F-35s since that entails a larger logistics footprint for all, but especially for ship-based F-35s. And so the issue really comes down to whether it is worth it to spend the extra billions just so the Air Force can choose from the two engines. For Gates, the answer is no.
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.