Air Force Starts Designing A-10 Vs. F-35 Showdown
BY GILLIAN RICH, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
10/23/2015 04:38 PM ET
The Air Force is now designing tests to see how Lockheed Martin's (NYSE:LMT) F-35 stacks up in close-air-support missions vs. the rival A-10, as the political backlash against plans to retire the A-10 continues to simmer.
At a House committee hearing Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, director of the Air Force's F-35 Integration Office, said the service is determining how the tests, which will look at range, time to arrive on target and loiter time, would be structured in contested and uncontested scenarios, according to the Military Times.
Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., who piloted the A-10 when she served in the Air Force, raised concerns at the hearing about the F-35's ability to withstand a direct hit, its ammunition capacity and loiter time compared to those of the A-10.
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Lockheed shares closed up 1.3% to 219.32 in the stock market today. Shares of Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), whose Fairchild Republic unit built the A-10, edged up 0.2% to close at 179.83
In August, the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation said it will fly the F-35 and A-10 in close-air-support tests, which are slated for 2018, and will use the latest upgrade of the 3F software for the F-35.
Earlier, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said any tests between the two planes would be a "silly exercise." On Wednesday, F-35 program manager Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said the Air Force needs to test what it "intends the F-35 to do — not the mission that the Air Force intends the F-35 to do looking like the A-10."
The F-35 hasn't performed well against older jets in others tests.
According to a report earlier this year in the military blog War Is Boring, an older General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) F-16 outmaneuvered the expensive F-35 in an air-combat test in January.
But the F-35 Joint Program Office said the F-35 didn't have its updated software.
Follow Gillian Rich on Twitter @IBD_GRich.
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