Senators May Order Air Force to Buy F-20s

Senate Republicans, upset about the latest round of defense contracting scandals, warned today that Congress will likely force the Air Force to buy a new fighter the service has refused to purchase.

The plane is the F-20, which Northrop Corp. built for overseas sales but has been unable to sell, chiefly because many other nations want only planes flown by the U.S. Air Force.

Northrop has been trying to convince the service to buy some F-20s instead of the F-16, a similar but more expensive fighter built by General Dynamics Corp.

“I’m telling you, you’re going to get some F-20s whether you like it or not,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told top Air Force officials. “We like the idea of competing planes.”

Overhead Charges Cited

Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) generally agreed and noted the current round of investigations of General Dynamics, which have forced the giant defense contractor to withdraw millions of dollars in overhead costs charged to the Pentagon.

General Dynamics is “in mild disrepute in some sectors of the Defense Department,” Rudman said. “We ought not to reward them when you have viable alternatives. I don’t think you reward misconduct.”

Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.) said, “I’m in favor of competition and the F-20 looks like it.”

The warnings were issued to Thomas Cooper, assistant Air Force secretary for research and development, and Lt. Gen. Robert Russ, deputy chief of staff for research, at a hearing of Stevens’ Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

Purchases Planned

Currently, the top Air Force fighters are the F-15 and the F-16. The service plans to buy more than 2,700 of the F-16s, Rudman noted.

In the late 1970s, Northrop used its own money to develop the F-20 for overseas sales, but it has not signed any contracts.