The US Air Force is to reduce the next two production batches of Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22 Raptors by as many as eight aircraft as it tries to absorb a $700 million increase in development costs. The USAF now plans to buy 20 F/A-22s in low-rate initial production (LRIP) in Lot 3, down from the 23 hoped for, and 22 aircraft, with an option for two more, in Lot 4, which was planned to cover 27 Raptors.
The USAF will not seek funding from outside the F/A-22 programme to fund the development cost overrun, which could be as much as $1 billion. Instead, money will be transferred from the production budget, reducing the number of aircraft procured (Flight International, 17-30 December, 2002).
The cuts in LRIP Lots 3 and 4 are only partially due to the development overrun, however. Under the USAF's "buy to budget" plan, there are "threshold" and higher "objective" numbers for each lot predicated on Lockheed Martin meeting production cost-reduction targets. The company has not reduced the production cost sufficiently to deliver the objective number of aircraft in Lots 3 and 4.
A target number for Lot 5, previously 32 aircraft, has not been released.
Contracts will not be awarded until after a Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting in May, which will review progress in solving the avionics stability problems blamed for the development schedule extension and cost overrun. Time between avionics software restarts is expected to have improved to 6h by February, when training of operational test pilots is planned to begin, and to 10h by May, when the DAB is scheduled. The goal is to reach 20h between restarts by August, when initial operational testing is to begin.
Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin has been awarded $246 million in bridge funding to continue work on Lot 3 aircraft until 31 March and $454 million to continue work on Lot 4 aircraft to 31 October, plus $222 million to provide F/A-22 programme support to the end of this year.
Pratt & Whitney has received contracts totalling almost $632 million to produce 40 F119 engines for Lot 3 aircraft and begin work on 44 engines for Lot 4. 
Source: Flight International
