The F-35 Joint Program Office continues to explore cost-cutting opportunities for the fifth-generation fighter and to compare the capabilities of the F-35C with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as part of a review ordered last month by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis. The twin focuses of the review resulted from conversations between then President-elect Donald Trump, Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan and Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, Bogdan said on February 16.
In multiple tweets he posted in December before becoming president on January 20, Trump criticized the cost of both Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and the Boeing 747-8 that will serve as Air Force One under the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program. In the case of the F-35, Trump said that he had asked for a price estimate on a “comparable” version of the Boeing-built Super Hornet.

On January 26, Mattis ordered an F-35 program review “to determine opportunities to significantly reduce the cost” of the program. In parallel, he called for a review “that compares F-35C and F/A-18E/F operational capabilities and assesses the extent that F/A-18E/F improvements (an advanced Super Hornet) can be made in order to provide a competitive, cost effective, fighter aircraft alternative.”

Testifying before a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, Bogdan, who serves as the F-35 program executive officer, said conversations he had with then President-elect Trump provided the impetus for Mattis’s order. Bogdan first met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in mid-December along with other military officials to discuss the F-35 and the Presidential aircraft replacement programs. He later spoke with Trump by telephone on January 9, and again on January 17 with Muilenburg participating.

“The discussions that we had were all pre-decisional; there were no decisions made during those conversations,” Bogdan told the subcommittee. “It was my belief that President-elect Trump at the time was attempting to gain more information about the F-35 and its affordability, trying to gain more information about the F-35’s capabilities relative to the Super Hornet, and to gain more information about the Presidential aircraft replacement program. In fact, the questions that he asked, and the answers that I gave, were the foundation of the tasks that came out from Secretary Mattis two weeks ago, which are ongoing right now.”

The first task calls on the program to explain how it will keep the F-35 affordable now and in the future, Bogdan said. The second “is a Navy task about the complementary mix of advanced Super Hornets and F-35Cs on the deck of an aircraft carrier, wher [Mattis] was asking for a comparison of the capabilities. We have yet to report the answers to the secretary of Defense,” Bogdan added. “I’m sure as soon as we report those tasks to him, he will then relay them to the appropriate folks in the administration.”