WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- A row between General Electric and the Pentagon over the new joint fighter plane will hit Congress next week.
International partners working on the Joint Strike Fighter, a next-generation aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps as well as U.S. allies, will weigh in next week on Pentagon plans to freeze domestic giant General Electric Co. and the British firm Rolls-Royce out of lucrative work on the program, Congress Daily reported.
Representatives from eight countries will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 14 on the Pentagon's decision to terminate the fighter's alternate engine program, potentially steering billions of dollars of work away from Britain.
Tension already is high between the Defense Department and its international program partners. Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney will now develop the sole engine for the plane, which is being assembled by Lockheed Martin Corp. in Fort Worth, Texas.
Several partners already have "complained about the amount and quality of work their companies have received," said Christopher Bolkcom, an Air Force analyst at the Congressional Research Service. Essentially, it could send a message to other countries that they are "not really partners, but in fact junior partners," he added.
Many countries have threatened to abandon the program altogether and instead buy the Eurofighter Typhoon now used by the German, Spanish, Italian and British air forces, defense sources said. So far, no country has bailed out from the program.
Congress has required the Air Force to seek an alternate engine on the Joint Strike Fighter more than a decade ago as a backup in the event of technical problems on the initial engine. Doing so, lawmakers hoped, also would foster competition and decrease program costs.
