Battle lines are forming in the US Congress over whether to add funds to next year's budget to keep alive production lines for the Boeing C-17 and the Lockheed Martin F-22.
Both landmark US defence programmes have faced the axe since a February US Department of Defense budget request omitted funds for either programme, effectively leaving their fate to the next administration.
Restoring funding would keep alive the only full-rate production lines for a so-called fifth-generation fighter and strategic airlifter in the US inventory.
Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme remains in development and low-rate production phase through 2013.
A vote in late April by the Senate armed services committee recommends adding $497 million for the F-22, but stopped short of reversing the DoD's decision and would merely grant the next administration the right to use the funds to either shut the production line or order long-lead materials for 20 new aircraft. The Senate panel added no funds to build new C-17s.
A panel of lawmakers in the House of Representatives is taking the opposite approach. A vote on 7 May by the House armed services subcommittee on air and land forces recommends adding $3.9 billion to buy 15 C-17s and $523 million to pay for buying long-lead materials to build 20 more F-22s.
Both the House and Senate authorising panels can only make "recommendations", as separate appropriations committees wield final funding authority over spending bills. The recommendations must be reviewed by the full committees and the full House and Senate. Differences between the bills must be reconciled before it can be reviewed by President George Bush.
The House armed services committee is scheduled to debate the supplemental spending bill on 13 May.
Boeing's C-17 line has been kept alive since 2005 through Congressional intervention. The US Air Force has named the programme its sixth-highest "unfunded priority" next year. Boeing also is seeking additional orders by foreign militaries to keep production alive until the US government approves new funding.
Lockheed's F-22 production line in October enters the final 12 months of a three-year, 60-aircraft order. The USAF has ordered 187 aircraft, although two have already been lost in crashes.
Source: Flight International
