Pentagon Shuffles F-35, Air Force One Leadership -- Update

By Doug Cameron 

The Pentagon is appointing new leaders for two big military programs that President Donald Trump criticized as too expensive.

The F-35 combat jet program headed by Lockheed Martin Corp. and the Boeing Co-led effort to replace the planes that serve as Air Force One will both have fresh oversight by the summer.

Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan will retire from the U.S. Air Force in the spring after leading the $380 billion F-35 program since December 2012. He is credited by Pentagon leaders and the industry with helping to steer the delayed and over-budget program back to stability after often-intense criticism of Lockheed Martin and engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

Gen. Bogdan will be replaced by his deputy, Navy Rear Adm. Mat Winter, just as the Pentagon prepares to release a review prompted by the president that could see some Boeing F/A-18 jets substitute F-35s destined for the Navy.

Mr. Trump directly intervened in contract talks involving the F-35 and the Boeing 747-8 jets that will serve as Air Force One, meeting in December with the chief executives of Boeing and Lockheed, as well as Gen. Bogdan.

While Gen. Bogdan's departure had been widely expected after the F-35 entered service with the Air Force and the Marine Corps, the Pentagon has also taken the unusual step of naming a more senior leader to oversee the Air Force One program.

The appointment of Maj. Gen. Duke Richardson to lead the effort to replace the aging Boeing 747 jets that fly the president with two new aircraft reflects pressure to avoid mistakes on the project, said Pentagon officials.

Defense officials said it was unusual for a soon-to-be two-star general to be appointed at such an early stage in a military program. Boeing has so far only received a $170 million development contract to design modifications to aircraft not set to enter service until 2024.

"The position...was newly created, given the recent high-level interest in the program and desire to place the program under strong and effective senior general officer leadership," the Air Force said Tuesday.

Gen. Richardson in June will drop oversight of the far-larger Boeing-led program to replace aerial-refueling tankers with 179 jets at an estimated cost of $44 billion, about 14% below the Pentagon's initial projection in 2011.

While the first of the new KC-46A tankers are being delivered some 14 months behind schedule and over budget, Boeing will have to pay for the cost overruns because it agreed to a fixed-price contract.

The Air Force One program is much smaller, with $2.9 billion budgeted through 2021 and a projected total cost of $3.2 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office. Mr. Trump in December claimed it would cost $4 billion, but later said he would cut $1 billion from the bill following talks with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

Write to Doug Cameron at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 28, 2017 15:22 ET (19:22 GMT)

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