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Pentagon wants more F-35s for testing

Aircraft programs are bumping up and down as the Pentagon reviews the Air Force’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget before its expected release in February, according to a defense analyst.

Air Force spokesman Vincent King would not discuss the 2011 budget until it is presented to Congress.

More F-35 Lightning II jets could be set aside for testing and fewer for training and operational squadrons.

One proposal for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would cut 10 jets in 2011 and cut another 110 planes through 2015. The $2.8 billion not spent on operational jets would go to testing.

The proposal puts the JSF program more in line with what the Defense Department’s weapons evaluators and the Government Accountability Office have asked for — more upfront testing and fewer aircraft and until the test results are in, according to Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank.

Second life for C-130?

The C-130 Aircraft Modernization Program, an upgrade to the transport’s cockpit and avionics, may have a second life after being all but declared dead in September by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz.

The E-8C J-STARS program could see new engines on all 17 reconnaissance aircraft.

Outfitting about 220 C-130Hs with the new avionics would cost about $4.5 billion. The program has been in trouble since 2007, when the Defense Department announced the project’s price tag had increased 22 percent that year.

Test flights of an E-8C equipped with new engines began in December 2008. The new Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 engines allow the E-8C to take off from shorter runways, use 17 percent less fuel, require less maintenance and generate more power to run electronics than the old Pratt & Whitney TF33-102-C engines.