March deadline looms for F-22s built in Marietta

At one end of the cavernous Marietta factory that churns out F-22 Raptor jet planes hangs a mural of the American flag with these words underneath: “Through these doors pass the most awesome fighters in the world.”

As a weapon, the F-22 is unsurpassed. Yet it’s most strategic duty, particularly during a severe economic recession, might well be the plane’s attack on unemployment.

Enlarge this image

Bob Andres/bandres@ajc.com

An F-22 Raptor gets ready for testing at Lockheed Martin in Marietta.

• Photos



BUSINESS
Latest Headlines:
[an error occurred while processing this directive] • More business news
• Business photo galleries

President Barack Obama is expected to decide by March 1 if the U.S. Air Force will continue to buy F-22s. Lockheed Martin Corp., which builds the planes, says 25,000 jobs – including 2,000 in Cobb County – depend directly upon the supersonic fighter.

“My son sees the plane flying over his school and he says, ‘My dad built that plane,’ ” said Reginal Allen, a Mariettan who has built the F-22 for eight years. “I was hoping to send him to college with this job. But if it shuts down, I’m afraid I’ll be out of a job.”

Hints of a job-saving compromise emerged last week when the Air Force chief of staff said an additional 60 planes would adequately protect U.S. military interests. Another 60 planes would also keep production humming for another three years.

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), whose district includes Lockheed Martin, said he is “encouraged” by Gen. Norton Schwartz’s comments. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who has met twice with Obama to discuss the F-22, said he is “hopeful, but concerned.”

“Do you cut this program at a time when you’re spending billions of dollars to create jobs when in fact these are jobs already in place?” Scott said. “This is the wrong place to cut at this time.”

The Pentagon is on the hook for 183 of the jet fighters known for their speed, stealth, air superiority and high-tech wizardry. No. 142, bound for Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, sat all but ready to roll out the door Thursday.

Each plane costs $142 million, or considerably more when research and development costs are included. The Pentagon originally wanted 750 F-22s.

Cost, and post-Cold War military realities, have shrunk the plane’s cachet. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently told Congress that “the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either” Iraq or Afghanistan. The plane came on-line in 2005.

“I can’t conceive of a situation in which you’d need more F-22s, given the threats of the world today,” said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think-tank. “And there are better ways to stimulate the economy than defense spending.”

Maybe so, said U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), but Obama would be wrong to cut jobs with 7.2 percent unemployment nationwide.

“Here we are at a time when you’ve got a president saying we need to create jobs, maintain jobs,” Chambliss said. “If he decides to shut down the F-22 line, you’re talking about 100,000 people around the country being laid off.”

While 25,000 people supply parts for the plane, or assemble it in Georgia, California or Texas, another 70,000 jobs are indirectly tied to the F-22, according to Lockheed Martin.

Chambliss and 43 other senators sent a letter to Obama last month urging the continuation of the F-22 program. Two-hundred House members signed a similar missive to the president.

“Those jobs are consistent with (Obama’s) investment policy,” said Larry Lawson, Lockheed Martin’s general manager for the F-22. “Those are good jobs, head-of-household jobs, manufacturing jobs and, frankly, manufacturing has suffered in this country.”

Obama, who won congressional approval for a $787 billion economic stimulus package earlier this month, is expected to decide by next Sunday whether to spend $523 million on 20 additional F-22s. If he cancels future orders, the last F-22 will roll off the Marietta assembly line in late 2011.

Yet it’s unclear how many jobs would be lost. The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin are already gearing up production for the Air Force’s next supersonic jet, the less costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

A banner hanging high at the Marietta plant reads “future home of F-35 center wing assembly.” Production is set to begin in late 2010. Another plane, the C-130 cargo plane, is also built in Cobb County.

“I don’t want anybody to lose their jobs, but there are other planes coming,” said Korb, the defense analyst, adding that Washington rarely kills big-dollar military programs. “What the folks in Marietta need to understand is that the F-22 has to end sometime.”

Hopefully, not any time soon, said Jerry Chadwick who has built planes in Cobb County for 32 years.

“We’ve got a lot of kids in their 20s working here and they got a long way to go,” said Chadwick, 63, of Adairsville. “They’re going to need the work.”