U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was driven “nuts” by the revelation that taxpayers were funding 70 percent of the overhead at an unidentified plant involved in the increasingly expensive F-35 fighter jet – powered with Pratt & Whitney engines — even though the work used only 6 percent of the floor space, Reuters reports.
The lopsided overhead charge “just drove me nuts” when it was revealed at a briefing, Gates told the House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee on defense. “I think we can fix that,” Gates added.
Although Lockheed Martin Corp. is the primary F-35, contractor with overall responsibility for the program, Gates was not referring to a Lockheed plant, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.
Citing what he called proprietary concerns, Morrell declined to identify the company in question.
Lockheed’s chief subcontractors on the program include Northrop Grumman Corp and BAE Systems Plc .
Two separate, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development, one built by Pratt and another by a team made up of General Electric and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.
At an estimated $300 billion-plus, the F-35 is the Pentagon’s costliest arms purchase.
Gates also vowed anew to urge a presidential veto of any legislation that funds the GE-Rolls Royce alternate engine or more Boeing C-17 cargo aircraft.
Lawmakers have kept both programs going for years despite Pentagon efforts to end them in a belt-tightening move.
“I am fully aware of the political pressure to continue building C-17s and to proceed with an alternate engine for the F-35, so let me be very clear,” Gates told lawmakers. “I will strongly recommend that the president veto any legislation that sustains the unnecessary continuation of these two programs.”
Gates fired his F-35 program manager in February and withheld $615 million in Lockheed’s potential award fees as part of a restructuring.
He also added 13 months and $2.8 billion to the plane’s development phase and slowed its transition to full production to cap the cost of potential design tweaks.
The program is projected to cost more than $300 billion over the next two decades for 2,443 planes in three different models for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
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