Forbes Champions More Super Hornets; F-18 Vs. F-35, Round Two

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http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/forbes-champions-buying-super-hornets-f-18-vs-f-35-round-two/

Forbes Champions More Super Hornets; F-18 Vs. F-35, Round Two
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on December 05, 2013 at 6:14 PM

WASHINGTON: The Boeing Super Hornet might have a new best friend in Congress. A year after the Saint Louis-built fighter jet’s biggest backer in Congress, then-Rep. Todd Akin, went down in electoral flames because of controversial remarks about “legitimate rape,” the influential chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Seapower, Rep. Randy Forbes, has stepped up with a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging him to fund continued production.

“A lot of it will come down to Navy vs. OSD (the Office of the Secretary of Defense),” said Richard Aboulafia, a leading aviation industry analyst with the Teal Group. “OSD groans at the very possibility of more of these airplanes, because it undercuts the case for F-35″ — Lockheed Martin’s much-delayed and over-budget Joint Strike Fighter — “and F-35 needs all the numbers it can get to ramp up to an economical rate (of production).”

The Navy plans to buy the last F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers, a radar-jamming variant, in the fiscal year 2014 budget now very much up in the air on Capitol Hill. “If nothing is done, the last order closes around 2016,” Aboulafia told me. The Saint Louis factory still has some guaranteed work through 2018, building F-15 Eagles for Saudi Arabia, though further F-15 sales are much in doubt. The Hornet/Growler production line shuts down in 2016, however, and the supplier base starts withering well before: Boeing told me they’ll have to make key decisions on long-lead items in early 2014. “When you lose a line,” said Aboulafia, “you almost never get it back.”

That’s why Forbes wants the Pentagon to consider keeping the line — and its options — open. Forbes doesn’t represent Missouri, where the Hornet is built, but his homestate of Virginia builds every Navy aircraft carrier and is homebase to half the fleet, so the he’s profoundly concerned about the aircraft those carriers launch. Once the Hornet/Growler line goes cold, he points out, “the Department will be left with a sole-source tactical aircraft program for the Navy.” In fact, when the F-15 line in Saint Louis shuts down in turn, Boeing will be out of the fighter business altogether, leaving a Lockheed Martin monopoly.