In Opposition to Navy Plan, Pentagon Seeks Funds for 6 New P-3 Planes

In a major victory for Lockheed, Deputy Defense Secretary William H. Taft IV has told congressional leaders that the Pentagon wants to reverse the Navy’s decision to end production of the company’s P-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare aircraft.

Taft has asked the chairmen of the key defense committees in a series of recent meetings to provide funds for six P-3s in fiscal 1988, according to congressional sources. The six aircraft, not including their sophisticated electronic equipment, would cost a total of $193.8 million.

The original Reagan Administration budget submitted to Congress earlier this year contained no funding for P-3s, an aircraft that has been in production for 25 years and continues to receive loyal support from politically powerful groups.

“Secretary Taft came to me and said they had determined they made a mistake in not putting P-3s in this budget request and asked me if we would work with him to try to fund these six,” Rep. Bill Chappell Jr. (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said Friday. “We are trying to accommodate him on that request.”

Chappell, a long-time supporter of the P-3, said in an interview that he and Taft had discussed funding nine P-3s, but a shortage of money in the defense budget allows funds for only six of the planes.

“We would like to have nine aircraft,” Chappell said. “The Navy very much needs these airplanes. We supported it for that reason in the past.”

Chappell is a retired naval aviator and a key member of his staff is a former P-3 pilot.

Taft’s initiative represents an embarrassing setback for Navy officials, who have said unequivocally in recent weeks that they want to kill the P-3 program and find a replacement aircraft because they consider the P-3 to be outdated.

Indeed, senior Navy officials were not even aware Friday that Taft had discussed the P-3 deal with congressional leaders in the past two weeks, according to well informed Navy sources.

One reason that Navy officials are unlikely to be happy about the additional P-3s is that the service will have to give up something in return. The $193.8 million probably will not be a supplement to the Navy budget.

A congressional source said one possibility under consideration is a reduction in F-18 jet fighter procurement, which is certain to touch off opposition from F-18 contractors Northrop and McDonnell Douglas.

A one-year extension of P-3 production could also provide additional maneuvering room for P-3 supporters to kill plans to replace the P-3 with a more technologically capable aircraft. Some P-3 supporters believe that a more capable, and therefore more expensive, replacement plane will be more difficult to fund than the P-3 has been in recent years.

A Defense Department spokesman issued a one-page statement to explain Taft’s initiative to keep the P-3 program alive, which was described as “one option being considered.” The statement said the P-3 was originally cut out of President Reagan’s budget request because a replacement aircraft was expected to be available by 1990. However, the replacement will not be ready until 1991, and the Pentagon wants to reconsider the plan in order to “preserve the government’s options at least cost to the taxpayer,” according to the statement.

But some congressional sources credited old-fashioned lobbying for the Defense Department’s turnaround.

Congressional sources have said that Lockheed has mounted a determined lobbying campaign since early this year to obtain funding for the aircraft. One senior committee staff member strongly opposed to buying more P-3s said Lockheed was looking for a “bailout.”

“What would be embarrassing to me if I were a Navy guy is that even though I am the customer, I am having my requirements laid on me by a contractor,” the staffer said. “The Navy has been impotent on this program for a long time.”

But Chappell said there is a serious need for additional P-3s because the existing planes are so old that many will have to be retired in coming years. Those old aircraft are operated largely by reservists, who are critical to the Navy’s anti-submarine efforts.

Lockheed has obtained heavy support from Navy reservists, who operate 35% of the 333 P-3 aircraft. The P-3, which is based on Lockheed’s 1950s-era Electra passenger liner, is an anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

It stays aloft for several hours hunting for Soviet submarines with sonar devices that it drops into the ocean and electronic gear that detects magnetic disturbances created by the hulls of submarines. Once it finds the subs, it can drop torpedoes, mines and bombs on them.