Number of F-22s insufficient, ex-Air Force chief says

WASHINGTON — A former chief of the U.S. Air Force’s combat operations told members of Congress Thursday that the Air Force needs more than double the number of Marietta-made F-22 Raptor fighter jets than the Defense Department has said it will buy.

Retired Gen. Richard Hawley, who was commander of the Air Force Air Combat Command in 1999 before becoming a defense industry consultant, said he found “the logic suspect” behind the Defense Department’s recent decision to end the F-22 program in about two years after buying 187 of the super-fast, super-stealthy fighter jets.

He said analyses he was involved in at the Air Force indicated the need for at least 381 of the planes to properly defend the country against a major opponent. A smaller number, he told a Senate panel Thursday, “appears to be imprudent.” Hawley is now an industry consultant, but said he has done very little work for F-22 maker Lockheed Martin Corp.

Led by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and by Marietta Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey, congressional backers of the F-22 are fighting to continue production — even though Lockheed has said it won’t protest the Pentagon’s plans to end the program.

“We’re not … [going to] give up,” Gingrey said this week.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on April 6 that he wanted to end the F-22 program after buying just four more of the $140 million-plus planes, which are assembled by 2,000 workers at Lockheed’s plant in Marietta.

Chambliss said Thursday that because of maintenance, training and other uses, the country would only have 100 combat-ready planes at any given time in the near future, not 187. He and Gingrey have said they want at least 20 more built.

Their best bet is by inserting funding for the program into a Defense Department supplemental budget request that is expected to go through Congress in the next several weeks.

“I would say [that] is the last opportunity, the last train out of the station,” Gingrey said.