Billion. The actual cost of the plan itself was ejected originally in the 60 billion, now it is about 161 billion give or take. Host are there problems with the plane . Guest by the way, 161 million per plane. While they have had to level off some problem, based on software problems. Millions of dollars that they need to do, and whole bunch of flight testing they need to be doing. They are still making changes to tooling, some of the things were going to buy something 289 planes before this Flight Test Program is done, so over the next 10 years, we could be spending upwards of 2 billion just a reoutfitting be plain that are sitting on the flight line right now. Host Frank Oliveri joins us until 9 15 to talk about the f 35 fighter. We have questions about it not only from your viewpoint and interest in it but also maybe you are in active or retired military and want to give your thoughts on as well. Here is the line, how we have divided them this morning if you want to participate. For republicans, 202 5853881, for democrats, 202 5853880, for independents, 202 585 3882. If you are active or retired military and you want to get your thoughts on it, [no audio] 202 5853883. You can also send us tweets cspanwj. There is a term fly before you buy. Or fly as you buy, is what im thinking of, but tell us about how this plane is being produced and how it meets with Everything Else we have been talking about. Guest there is a term called concurrency, and acquisition term that basically means that we have been developing a plane, and at the same time, we are learning and developing a plan and the subsequent technologies that make the plan work and Work Together all the systems, we are also producing the planet is integrity that overlap of production and development theyre trying to stretch this out more so they have stretched the program out because there were so Many Development approach developmental problems, and the integration together one platform. This plane was on paper 12 years ago. Never existed before. If you break those lines up, if you overlap, but we have known this for many years, it is amazing in washington and dod and congress, we learn lessons and seem to forget them and then we relearn the same kind of lessons. The definition of insanity, you know. Right now they are trying to break up those lines a little bit. They are forced to get planes going. It also drives down cost to get the production line, but it also comes with enormous risk because why are you are producing planes, if you had to change the retooling, everything has to stop in it to restart all these things and then the people doing the work need to relearn how to do certain things. So there is an enormous risk in doing it in any kind of Acquisition Program where there is high concurrency. Host what if the company producing the plane . Guest Lockheed Martin. The largest defense contractor in the states. It built the f22 fighter. Severely truncated. Host what was the argument they used to get this contract . Guest they are the preeminent stealth developer. You will hear the term fifth generation fighter. These fighters have changed warfare for us. They have made our fighters we have always been a preeminent predominant force and air power since world war ii. But these stealth characteristics did change warfare from 1991 straight through to today, our opponents are having to adjust to these types of technologies. They have been very effective. Host we will continue on our conversation about this plane and its role in u. S. Military and other uses. First, your calls. Debbie is joining us from indiana, democrats line. Youre on with Frank Oliveri of cq roll call, good morning. Caller good morning. How much do you think it would hurt to fund something in profits if journalists like yours wrote about the 705 feet in freefall on 9 11 and the evidence that preplanned explosives destroyed it. Guest well, there are all kinds of conspiracy theories about that. I dont actually subscribe to any of them. I think with the government has said about what has happened and what Law Enforcement and military officials have said about what happened are accurate. I dont think that there was some kind of conspiracy. Host monty asks do we need the f35 . It seems old jets were doing well in the bombing the worlds poorest of the poor. Guest aside from motive, the actual fighter itself, there is a pretty significant debate as to whether or not the f35 is the end all be all of the sole answer to our fighter problem because we are in a look, this is a problem that innocence was created by the services. They put all their eggs in this basket. They were warned in the 1990s that they probably could not afford to buy the f22 and the f35 at the same time because the costs were so severe. But the issue today is that the United StatesTactical Fighter forces aging and has aged much faster than anticipated because we mandate nofly zone over iraq for 10 years, and then we went into a war in afghanistan, and shortly thereafter a war in iraq. These planes have been used very heavily. That is the first call that comes out is where is the air force if there is a problem . Any kind of military complex, they always talk about the use of military power. These are very heavilyused planes. Some are very old. The a10s are upwards of 30 years old. The jump jets at these plans would replace are rather old. Some of the f16s in the air force inventory are getting old. F15s also cleared a lot of planes that this would replace are definitely growing old. Whether you need 2443 of these very highend stealth fighters versus some of those planes and a mix of these lower income a very lowerend claims, yes, defenses in the world are very cheap alternative, and they are becoming more and more sophisticated to the degree that you cant penetrate some of these air defenses with f16s and f18s and expect that many of those planes will to write. It is a very challenging environment. The stealth is the environment a advantage. Host first the air force, then the navy, then the marines buying the planes as well. Other countries involved. Guest some nine nations. Lockheed martin and the United States hoped that other nations walls lay by f35s just as they got f16s for years and years. They are very capable planes. The air force hopes that air force, navy, and marine corps hope that over the life of the program, the more nations that buy it, the more you buy the unit cost of the plane go down. Host heres is a look at some of the countries involved. Mark from new jersey up next, retired military. Caller maybe your guest can a slightly how the a35 could take the place of the a10 warthog in combat. When you look back at the b52s that have been around for 50 something years and its specific role and content julie and continuously upgraded, you have got the a10 what that vulcan cannon in a, which is low and slow over the battlefield in protecting the troops, how can he f35 come that lowend phone loan provide a much cover power . Guest i did a story recently because of the Senate Armed Service committee was associated with its Defense Authorization bill, had lingered on the issue of Close Air Support. There was concern, senator bill nelson of florida who have actual interest in the f35, was raising the concern as to whether or not there will be a Close Air Support cap created by retiring the a10s and replacing them with the f35, the jump jet variant or of some other variant courtesy f35 does have a 22 million variant. The f35 does of a 22 millimeter cannon. Anybody you talk about will say if the a10 is a perfect, Close Air Support type weapon, lets be clear this cannon the plane was built around the cannon. The plane has quad redundancy. The eyelid system, the titanium bathtub, it can take a norm is amount of damage. It is a relatively inexpensive plane. The f35 is not going to be a cheap plane. They fastmoving plan, a stealth plane. A wellplaced rocket those speeds and negative environment can take a plan like that down. So yes, there are moments that you have to be very careful in how you use it. The air force believes that it can provide adequate if not good Close Air Support to the battlefield, to the grunts on the ground, with an f35. They have done it previously with f16s, which are also fast movers. They do not loiter the way that a10s. If you are in the acquisition world, they say dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good. In some cases, you may find that in the short term, the air force may settle on the f35 that is not perfect but is good. Host we have steve obrien, Vice President of Lockheed Martin, who talked about the cost overrun, the delays, we will get what he said, get your response. [video clip] we understand to make the flight test, but the program is on track, just as the secretary of defense and said in front of congress recently. We are driving the price down. From the first year of production to the 70 or of production, we have reduced the cost of the airplane by over 55 . We are not satisfied there. We will continue to drop this price. In 2018, the average cost will be 85 million, about 75 million in todays dollars. That is in line with older generation airplanes. We will be at the quantum leap and capability. We are focused on reducing the cost, we have been on track for the last three years, and we are continuing to focus as we go forward to reduce it to about the same price as a fourth generation or prior generation played out there today with a quantum leap capability. Host analyze what he said. Guest first of all, and washington, you always have to be careful because people make comparisons that are apples and oranges and often times they will do that, it wont be necessarily incorrect, but it wont necessarily reflect a true big picture. What he is saying is they have made improvements after the Program Goals have been severely adjusted. If you take the baseline of when it first started to today, it is not doing very well. But if you take the new baselines after reorganization of the program, it has definitely shown some leveling. The Government Accountability office used the term leveling, the manufacturing processes, the certain ways they go about doing business, they are starting to get control. The argument sort of like you have a 10 story building, and all 10 floors were on fire before, now you have got it down to only three floors are on fire, and you say that is a great improvement. But three floors are still on fire. There is still a significant risk. Were going to buy 289 of these planes at a cost of almost 60 billion, and the Flight Test Program would have the what have you been completed. That is anonymous an enormous commitment. One of the things senator durbin, who is chairman of the Senate Defense appropriations subcommittee, he is basically the top defense appropriator in the senate on these issues raised the concern about this program and said one of the problems with this program has always been optimism has been an enemy of the program. Optimism on the front and begins to look like you are optimistic with intent. If you could say every thing is great, at some point you are committed. For instance, it was the top acquisition at the pentagon is that if you are to cancel this program and launch a new one, you have to spend 20 billion to 30 billion to develop a new plan. You would be starting from ground zero. The cost would be enormous. It is always cheaper to go with what you have got. Than what you dont have your to the bird in the hand. Dont have. The bird in the hand. It is a really deeply flawed program and beyond anything you have ever seen before. Given the fact that three services are tied in, this is the largest Acquisition Program in history, the most costly in history. He is going to try to say positive things. He has reason to feel good. The program is beginning to level, but he is not going to talk to you about the challenges that they face, software, web and integration, systems integration, all the things they are wrestling with. This is a 13yearold program and they still have design changes that they are having on this plane. It is a good thing that they have been able to the joint Program Office head is a military issue and says we have been able to identify 50 of the most likely parts on his jet that will fail, and we are now working those quality issues. We also have found the 50 systems on your that are on here that are most difficult to prepare. Over time, things will improve, but he that come at an inn or ms. Cost. An enormous cost. Host coming in at 837 billion. Guest right. That is something they have said will begin to happen. It is a welcome thing because 1. 1 trillion dollars was just politically on acceptable to anybody. Whether it was dod or the congress. Furthermore, even if sequestration does not occur again in 2014, the numbers for defense are going to be really flat and really austere for the next 10 years. They cant afford anymore cost increases, and they most certainly need to create as much more room as they can in this program as far as cost go because there is not going to be the money. Host bob on our democrat line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a couple of issues with this. First of all, i understand that the parts are made in 50 different states. Which tells me that it was designed with an idea toward Congress Rather than an idea toward doing something efficient. The other thing that i wonder about, as i understand it, most fighter planes never even see the target that they are shooting at because theyre so far away, and they are shooting with controlled rockets and things like that. Why do we need to have a manned plane to do this . If you consider how much it costs to ensure the survivability of the pilot in terms of the oxygen supplies and Everything Else that has to be done and ejection seats and all of these things, it would be a lot cheaper to put together a drone with the same capabilities that without the pilot inside. Host caller, thank you. Guest you make some fascinating points and that you are absolutely right that there are some real questions as to whether or not an unmanned drone or unmanned, remotely piloted type aircraft could do some of these missions. Remember that we have not really developed a remotely piloted vehicle that can fly in these profiles yet. When we talk about predator and reaper drones that fire hellfire missiles, they are very slow moving, they loiter over these things for a long periods of time. They operate under a permissive environments. When youre talking about a highperformance fighter that can fly up to nine gs, for example, at speeds of up to mock too, and can surge even faster than that in some cases, the profiles are different. Plus sometimes having a man in the loop is an important aspect of combat missions that still is of enough concern that you would want to have them there. There are datalink issues that go on with these kind of things, the performance environment is severe. There are some people that argue that the f35 may be the last manned fighter of this kind that the United States will ever build because we will be able to jump over those hurdles that pre or venice from creating those Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that can do these missions. Certainly the technologys maturing. The targeting behind visual rant, we have been doing that for a very low long time. But having that person there to identify targets to change, to recognize, to have the versatility, intellectual versatility to recognize changes in the combat environment, sometimes having the person there is incredibly valuable. Host one thing i read over over was when it comes to the millions of lines of computer code, talk about having so much reliance on a computer background. Guest this is not a plane where first of all if a playlet if a pilot is thinking about flying a plane, some of it is insignificant but a lot of controls are automated. So just the flight controls themselves, there is an enormous amount of computer controls involved in making the plane fly. There are all these different integrated systems that must Work Together, sensors that tell you where things are, even to the degree of how fast you are flying, where are you in space and time, all of these things are so incredibly sophisticated. The weapons themselves and the employment of the weapons in the targeting of that are Situational Awareness into these fighters. There is so much going on that you need the computers in the background to manage the information flow for the pilot. That would be there whether he was an unmanned vehicle because the guy back or woman back at base is still flying in these environments. They may not have the physical demand of it, but the intellectual demands are all there. So many data points are coming in that you need systems to help you manage all of that. So it is a very sophisticated, very difficult environment to operate. You only have your very best people doing it. Host our line for those retired or active military. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have got a quick question who is footing the bill for all of this new technology . I understand he is talking about the agents of the program, developing this fighter. At the same time, Lockheed Martin is talking about we are working to bring the price down of this fighter. Why he is working to bring the price down, the u. S. Government is still paying money for them to develop this thing. Now here they are fixing to buy this plane that is not completely im not going to say war worthy, but not completely finished. It is going to be sitting on the fire line, and at the same time, they are going to be repairing this plane, upgrading this plane on the fire line. Where is all this money coming from geico they from . Before he was speaking about Social Security and disability, the taxpayers are footing this bill. Who is footing t