Pentagon Shuffles F-35, Air Force One Leadership -- Update
March 28 2017 - 3:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Doug Cameron
The Pentagon is appointing new leaders for two big military
programs that President Donald Trump criticized as too
expensive.
The F-35 combat jet program headed by Lockheed Martin Corp. and
the Boeing Co-led effort to replace the planes that serve as Air
Force One will both have fresh oversight by the summer.
Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan will retire from the U.S. Air Force in the
spring after leading the $380 billion F-35 program since December
2012. He is credited by Pentagon leaders and the industry with
helping to steer the delayed and over-budget program back to
stability after often-intense criticism of Lockheed Martin and
engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies
Corp.
Gen. Bogdan will be replaced by his deputy, Navy Rear Adm. Mat
Winter, just as the Pentagon prepares to release a review prompted
by the president that could see some Boeing F/A-18 jets substitute
F-35s destined for the Navy.
Mr. Trump directly intervened in contract talks involving the
F-35 and the Boeing 747-8 jets that will serve as Air Force One,
meeting in December with the chief executives of Boeing and
Lockheed, as well as Gen. Bogdan.
While Gen. Bogdan's departure had been widely expected after the
F-35 entered service with the Air Force and the Marine Corps, the
Pentagon has also taken the unusual step of naming a more senior
leader to oversee the Air Force One program.
The appointment of Maj. Gen. Duke Richardson to lead the effort
to replace the aging Boeing 747 jets that fly the president with
two new aircraft reflects pressure to avoid mistakes on the
project, said Pentagon officials.
Defense officials said it was unusual for a soon-to-be two-star
general to be appointed at such an early stage in a military
program. Boeing has so far only received a $170 million development
contract to design modifications to aircraft not set to enter
service until 2024.
"The position...was newly created, given the recent high-level
interest in the program and desire to place the program under
strong and effective senior general officer leadership," the Air
Force said Tuesday.
Gen. Richardson in June will drop oversight of the far-larger
Boeing-led program to replace aerial-refueling tankers with 179
jets at an estimated cost of $44 billion, about 14% below the
Pentagon's initial projection in 2011.
While the first of the new KC-46A tankers are being delivered
some 14 months behind schedule and over budget, Boeing will have to
pay for the cost overruns because it agreed to a fixed-price
contract.
The Air Force One program is much smaller, with $2.9 billion
budgeted through 2021 and a projected total cost of $3.2 billion,
according to the Government Accountability Office. Mr. Trump in
December claimed it would cost $4 billion, but later said he would
cut $1 billion from the bill following talks with Boeing CEO Dennis
Muilenburg.
Write to Doug Cameron at doug.cameron@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 28, 2017 15:22 ET (19:22 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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