Senior Trump Air Force official suggested dramatically slashing F-35 jet numbers
CNN
The official in charge of purchasing military hardware for the US Air Force suggested slashing the total number of Lockheed Martin F-35 jets for the service by more than half late last year, according to two former defense officials involved in the discussions who spoke with CNN. The news comes as Congressional criticism of the most expensive weapons program in US history grows.
Will Roper, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics for the last three years of the Trump administration, recommended that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord, and others reduce the number of jets purchased from 1,763 jets to about 800, the officials said. Roper questioned the cost of the jet, even after former President Donald Trump touted it as "invisible" and the greatest fighter jet in the world. Instead, Roper threw his support behind the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, a secretive, sixth-generation aircraft designed with digital engineering, the officials said. He revealed last October at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference that a full-scale prototype had flown and "broken a lot of records in the doing."
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