GLOBAL HAWK, F-35 FACE CUTS NO IMMEDIATE IMPACT ON A.V. AEROSPACE WORKERS EXPECTED.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Funding for two military aircraft programs that employ Antelope Valley workers was cut by the House Armed Services Committee, part of an effort to provide ``tough medicine'' to curb rising defense costs.

In its version of the 2006 defense authorization bill, the committee sliced $152 million off the Bush administration's request for the F-35 joint strike fighter and nearly $30 million off the request for the Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft.

The bill was approved by a 61-1 vote of the committee Wednesday and now heads for a floor vote in the House of Representatives.

``The House Armed Services Committee has long championed the need to recover from the 'procurement holiday' of the 1990s by steadily increasing modernization budgets,'' Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, the committee's chairman said. ``However, it does little good to pump more money into these accounts if the costs of weapon systems are growing exponentially faster than what the federal treasury can possibly and reasonably provide for modernization.''

Hunter called the bill ``tough medicine for some programs'' that need to get their costs under control.

The vote is expected to have no immediate effect on Antelope Valley jobs.

The $152 million cut on the F-35 program was aimed at the request for funding for the advance purchases of the fighters, parts of which are built in Palmdale. The committee left intact, however, the $2.4 billion for continued research and development of the fighter.

In cutting the F-35 budget, the committee noted that changes had to be made to the fighter's design in order to shed weight. The changes pushed the first flight of the jet back to 2008. The first jet is under assembly by Lockheed Martin workers in Texas.

Funding initial low-rate production is premature, the committee said.

Center fuselage sections of the F-35 are being assembled by Northrop Grumman in Palmdale, and flight testing is planned for Edwards Air Force Base. The planes will be put together in Texas.

In trimming the Global Hawk funding, the committee noted that the program has been restructured twice and that costs have risen. The planned purchase of 63 airplanes was cut to 53 in a major restructuring of the program in 2002 and the cost of the program climbed from $5.3 billion to $6.2 billion.

The unmanned Global Hawk aircraft has earned praise for its work in the war on terror, leading Pentagon officials to seek an even larger, more capable aircraft.

The Pentagon had advocated a ``build a little, fly a little'' approach to the program, allowing aircraft to be fielded while development work continues. However, critics said investments in the aircraft should be slowed down and a more conventional developmental approach adopted.

The Global Hawk aircraft are being built by a small cadre of Northrop Grumman workers in Palmdale.

There was good news in the committee's bill for the Antelope Valley, including supporting requests to build a new $103 million runway at Edwards Air Force Base. Plans call for building the runway parallel to the aging 04/22 runway so that test work can continue during construction.

Edwards is also slated to receive $59.6 million to continue a program aimed at replacing the base's aging housing stock. Much of the base's housing was built in the 1950s, lacks central heating and cooling, and is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain.

The bill also provides a $20 million increase to the funding request to continue improvements to the B-2 stealth bomber fleet, bringing the total to $364 million. Upgrades to the bomber fleet are performed by Northrop Grumman in Palmdale.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com