Last week I (along with Ed Morrissey of Hot Air) had the opportunity to sit down for about 30 minutes with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon. The discussion ranged over many topics including veterans benefits, the new national strategy, defense cuts, sequestration and the defense industry. I mentioned the F-35B, which is the Marine Corps STVOL variant of the aircraft, because the aircraft had just been taken probation by Secretary Panetta and that decision was being challenged by Senator's Levin and McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). You can see the letters they sent here and here. Chairman McKeon recalled the first time Gen. Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, visited his office after being named Commandant. He told McKeon that the Secretary (then Gates) had given him a year and a half to get the program turned around and that he was focused on doing so. Obviously, the program is of great importance to the Marines and Amos, an aviator, was very cognizant of that. Chairman McKeon acknowledged the resistance of Sen. McCain, but supported the decision to remove the F-35B from probation: “I know Senator McCain has some problems with it. We had a big discussion on it when we were going through our conference on our bill. But I have a lot of confidence in Gen. Amos and I think that if they took it off probation, they deserved it, the plane deserved it, it’s functioning and it’s doing the job.” The F-35B is an integral part of the Marine Corps future as well as a tool which will allow DoD more flexibility deploying strike aircraft in certain scenarios (such as Libya) instead of more costly carrier strike groups. Certainly the aircraft has much more testing and development to go through, but it has indeed performed well this past year, surpassing the year’s test requirements quite handily. Taking the F-35B off probation sends an important message about this variant’s future as a critical component in Marine Corps aviation. Chairman McKeon’s endorsement of the decision to remove it from probation is also critical to it’s future and further development. It may set up a fight with the Senate Armed Services committee as budgeting now takes the limelight. I’ll be writing more in the near future about Chairman McKeon’s thoughts on the other topics we covered. ~McQ Twitter: @McQandO
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/uku57766s7s/hasc-chairman-mckeon-supports-dods-decision-to-take-the-f-35b-off-probation.html
Posted
Feb 12 2012, 11:34 PM
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