Senators say Panetta’s move to lift probation on F-35 was ‘premature’

Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the
leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta’s decision to release the F-35 fighter’s Marine variant from probation last
month was “premature.”

The senators wrote a letter to Panetta on Monday outlining
their concerns about the F-35B, which former Defense Secretary Robert Gates
placed on two-year probation in 2011. When Gates put the F-35B on probation in 2011, he said the program had two years to fix testing problems or it risked cancellation. 

{mosads}Panetta lifted the probation on the Lockheed Martin plane last month, a year ahead of schedule. 

McCain and Levin accused Panetta of not consulting with
Congress in the move, nor defining specific criteria for ending the probation.

“Your decision may have forgone valuable opportunity to
continue driving desired improvements through the still-nascent, enormously
challenging program to develop the F-35B,” the senators wrote.

The Armed Services senators also sent a letter to the
Government Accountability Office that asked for an assessment of how issues
raised by the GAO on the F-35B had been dealt with.

The senators’ letter is the latest roadblock for the
troubled F-35 fighter program, which, at an estimated $385 billion, is the
Pentagon’s largest weapons system in history.

In Panetta’s preview of the 2013 budget announced last
month, he said that F-35 production would be delayed.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for
acquisition, technology and logistics, said at a think-tank forum Monday that
starting production on the F-35 fighter before conducting test flights was “acquisition
malpractice,” a blunt assessment of the program.

The Marine’s F-35B, a short take-off, vertical-landing
version, has had the most problems of the three F-35 variants. Some have
suggested the F-35B should be scrapped as the Pentagon plans to cut $487
billion from its budget over the next 10 years.

When he lifted the probation, Panetta said that the Pentagon
was standing behind the Marine’s F-35, but that the
plane was “obviously not out of the woods yet.”

Levin and McCain’s letter to Panetta included 14 questions about
the Marines’ F-35B variant. They also complained that they learned about the
probation being lifted from the press, and not the Pentagon.