“Thank you Mr. Chairman.  And thank you for chairing this important joint hearing of our subcommittees.  

 “I echo Chairman Abercrombie’s concern with the progress of the Joint Strike Fighter or JSF.  This program, even after all the funding that has been provided in Research and Development accounts over the last few years, still has significant cost, schedule and performance risks.  These issues must be resolved because this aircraft is critical to addressing a significant strike fighter shortfall in the Navy and Marine Corps which will occur between 2016 and 2022.  Further delay in the JSF program or the inability to extend the life of the current Navy and Marine Corps F/A 18 fleet will only make the shortfall worse.

 “I would expect our witnesses will comment on this issue and offer solutions that the Congress can address in this current budget cycle.

 “I would like our witness to also address two additional issues today; the VH-71 Presidential Helicopter program and the grounding of slightly over half of the Maritime Patrol Aircraft or P-3 fleet due to structural concerns in wing struts.

 “For the VH-71 the Department is requesting $1.05 billion dollars for continued development of a program that is in a cost and schedule breach without a restructuring plan ready for submission to the Congress.  In fact, the subcommittee understands that the original 6 billion dollar program will grow by 4 billion dollars to address technical challenges discovered after the original contract was awarded. 

 “This means that this program is now a science project, when the original concept briefed to the Congress was that these airframes were essentially common off the shelf equipment and could be easily converted to use as the Presidential helicopter. 

 “Although good people may have thought it was true at the time, it was obviously not the case.  I would like to hear some common sense options for this troubled program today and I assure you, increasing the program cost by two thirds with a multi-year delay is not what I would call a common sense solution.  We need to get out of the business of throwing more money at programs which fail to perform up to expectations.

 “And finally, while I commend the Navy for the rigor and scrutiny in their P-3 monitoring program which identified the structural deficiencies in the wings and am thankful that these issues were discovered before the loss of an air crew, I am very concerned that our commanders in theater have lost significant reconnaissance capabilities.  I note that the Chief of Naval Operations is requesting $100 million in his Unfunded Requirements List to expedite fielding the replacement for the P-3, the so called Multi-Mission Aircraft or MMA.  My concern, which I hope our witnesses will address, is whether that program is in a position to accelerate without significant cost and schedule risk.

 “Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back and look forward to the testimony.”