Army says spy plane needed despite troubles

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - October 20, 2005 - U.S. military officials on Thursday underscored the importance of a new Army spy plane, and said they were anxiously awaiting suggestions from Lockheed Martin Corp. on how to rescue the $8 billion program.

Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Army acquisitions chief Claude Bolton said the military urgently needed the intelligence-gathering and surveillance missions of the plane, and terminating it would leave a gap that would need to be filled some other way.

He said all options were under consideration, including termination, losing some sensors to be able to stick with the Embraer SA's ERJ-145 regional jet, or moving to a larger aircraft.

"All options are open," Bolton told reporters after a joint subcommittee hearing of the House intelligence and armed services committees, where lawmaker after lawmaker expressed frustration that the Army had not anticipated the increased weight of the plane that has stalled the program.

Bolton said closer coordination earlier in the process could have averted some of the issues. He declined to estimate the size of the termination fee if the program was scrapped.

The Army slapped a stop-work order on Lockheed in September after concluding that the Brazilian-made Embraer 145, was too small to carry all the sensors planned for the plane.

Bolton said the program saw a huge 6,400-pound growth in the weight of the sensors that needed to be put aboard the plane, about 3,000 pounds more than the ERJ-145 could handle.

Regardless of what changes were made, he said it was clear the program would be delayed by several years, and the Army would have to upgrade and modernize its current planes.

"We'll work it out," said John Landon, deputy to the assistant defense secretary for networks and information integration. "The requirements are critical."

Navy officials told lawmakers that they still planned to participate in the program with the Army, but were drafting contingency plans that included evaluating if a separate Navy spy plane program, the Boeing Co.-led Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft, could do the work.

Rep. Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the tactical air subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, said the Army spy plane issues were symptomatic of bigger problems with other Pentagon procurement programs.

The hearing was meant to put the Pentagon on notice that Congress was monitoring this program and others.

"I think we got their attention. We just can't continue to allow this to happen," Weldon told Reuters after the hearing.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey, speaking at a separate event on Thursday, reiterated his interest in working with the Air Force on the spy plane, but said the Army would not give up its responsibility for airborne signals intelligence.

Harvey told reporters after a speech at the Heritage Foundation that expanding the Army-Navy program to include the Air Force could help save costs, increase the ability of the services to work together, and boost combat effectiveness.

One option would be to reduce the scope of the Army program and shift the image collection function to a separate Air Force program led by Northrop Grumman Corp., the E-10A, said Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.