One of the three missions the small surface ships are set to take on is mine countermeasures, replacing the Navy’s aging fleet of Avenger-class mine countermeasures [MCM] ships. But they’ll do the job using a new range of technologies, many of which are unmanned. This, officials said, will allow the Navy to “take the sailor out of the minefield” and complete longer missions with fewer resources.

The Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis (COBRA) system, a minehunting payload designed to operate aboard the MQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle, is set to achieve initial operational capability by the end of September, said Marine Maj. Gen. Christopher Owens, director of the Navy’s Expeditionary Warfare Division.

Two more airborne systems, the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System, and the Airborne Mine Neutralization System, achieved IOC at the end of November, Owens said. Both will operate aboard the Navy’s MH-60S chopper to locate and take out sea mines from the air by means of powerful armor-piercing warheads.

All these systems are headed for shipboard testing later this year, along with the AQS-20A minehunting sonar, a system designed to be pulled by the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle, a new surface drone boat now in water testing.

“These tests are going to allow us to finalize our initial package composition that will go aboard LCS for near-term deployments,” Owens said. “Testing’s also going to allow the sailors who work with these systems from end to end in realistic environments so they can help refine our [concept of operations] and our tactical integration.”

Despite some setbacks in development, officials expect the full new mine-hunting package to be complete by the close of fiscal 2019.

Using unmanned systems, Owens said, will lead to a significantly more effective minehunting operation.

“It’s a force protection aspect, certainly,” he said. “But probably as important, or more so, from our mission standpoint, is that the unmanned systems don’t have crew decks. They don’t get fatigued after eight hours in the direct sun working a minehunting problem. We can do this reliably 24 hours a day, not affected by darkness, not affected by the heat … it gives us the ability to over time really expand our clearance rates.”

But maintenance backlogs and deferments that sideline operations ships and keep sailors from deploying are creating a crisis of their own, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Bill Moran said.

Speaking at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium near Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Moran said Navy leaders have already told President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team that they want any additional funding that comes available within this fiscal year to go to maintenance first.

“The transition team came around to all of us in the building and asked us what we could do with more money right now,” Moran said. “The answer was not, ‘Buy more ships.’ The answer was, ‘Make sure that the 274 that we had were maintained and modernized to provide 274 ships’ worth of combat time.’ Then, we’ll start buying more ships.”

Moran said he supported the Navy’s new force structure assessment calling for a fleet of 355 ships to meet current operational demands, and added that three separate internal reviews had all arrived at similar numbers. But he also said maintenance backlogs and deferred availabilities are costing the Navy tens of millions of dollars and leaving risky gaps at sea.

In two recent examples, he said, the dock landing ship Carter Hall had seen its maintenance availability nearly double from a planned 344 days to 678, with a cost increase of more than $50 million, and the destroyer Russell had its maintenance cycle bloat from 92 days to 459 and counting, with costs multiplying from a planned $8 million to $89 million.

“Both Carter Hall and Russell lost a full year of operational availability,” Moran said. “So it’s really hard to see the light at the end of this tunnel. Fewer steaming hours and training, deployment hours, deferred maintenance …  it all takes time from the young sailors to learn a new system, increase their proficiency at sea and qualify. As I said, you can’t buy that back. At some point, you just have to dig in and dig out of this problem.“

In addition to asking for funding to replenish maintenance accounts and clear backlogs, Moran said it was crucial that the Navy reduce its operational tempo and limit the length of deployments, which have been frequently extended at sea in recent years, in order to keep to planned maintenance and reset schedules. To that end, Moran said, the service has been setting limits on deployments, even when it means accepting operational risk.

The departure of the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower from the Middle East at the end of the year left a rare gap in the region, as the carrier George H. W. Bush continued its pre-deployment training workup following an extended maintenance cycle.

“The gaps we’ve seen, that we’ve accepted in taking risk and the operational risk that we’ve taken are related to the fact that if we keep on extending deployments and turning people around faster than their schedule, that we’ll never dig out of that maintenance backlog,” Moran said. “So we’re purposefully taking risk to find the time to make sure that we don’t get deployments extended beyond seven months, we get those ships back, we get them in maintenance and we commit to the funding.”

The Bush is expected to deploy early this year.

“The LPD-17, or the San Antonio class, was designed with space and weight for the Mark 41 vertical launching system,” Sheridan said. “So you think of taking a Mark 41 vertical launching system, along with some of the capabilities that are inherent in the [Aegis] common-source library and transitioning that to that class, that’s where you can really exploit [distributed lethality].”

The MK 41 VLS is an eight-cell module designed to accommodate a wide variety of missiles. It’s currently in use by the Navy’s fleet of cruisers and destroyers, which are equipped with the Aegis system.

San Antonio-class amphibs are primarily used as platforms to transport Marines, sailors and equipment. This year, Marine leaders have begun to speak publicly about their interest in using the available space aboard the ships to house a vertical launch system.

At a U.S. Naval Institute conference in December, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said he’d like to see the ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles.

“There’s a VLS cell on every LPD; we just don’t put any missiles on there,” he said. “Those forces are not just out there doing amphib stuff, but they’re a part of doing maritime domain operations, shaping the environment, fighting the naval campaign, along with the carriers, service action groups, submarines, maritime aircraft.”

With the 12th of the San Antonio-class ships, the Fort Lauderdale, to be under construction soon, and contract competition coming up this year on the non-Aegis ship self defense system currently in use on amphibious ships, Sheridan said the idea was ripe for exploration.

“One great tagline I saw in the back of the document here is if it floats, it fights,” Sheridan said, referring to Navy Surface Force Commander Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden’s new Surface Force Strategy document, published this week. “That’s an opportunity we can do.”

“I believe it will. We have every reason to believe it will continue,” said Schmidt, a software engineer who is the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google.

Schmidt expressed confidence that the unsalaried work of the board would continue while acknowledging that he has received no assurances as yet from the Trump transition team or from retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s choice for defense secretary.

The forecast for the continuation of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx, another creation of outgoing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, is less certain. DIUx was set up last year with the goal of speeding the process of getting new technology from “non-traditional sources” into the hands of warfighters

The National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama limited funding for DIUx, and Pentagon officials said its future would be in question in the new administration.

However, DIUx has a defender in retired Adm. William McRaven, the former head of U.S Special Operations Command and a member of the Defense Innovation Board. At the board’s meeting Monday, McRaven, who organized the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, said that keeping DIUx “seems like a no-brainer.” He called the creation of DIUx “one of the great decisions of Secretary Carter.”

While stating that the Defense Innovation Board would likely continue into the next administration, Schmidt was less sure that all of the current board members would agree to stay.

“I have indicated I would be very happy to serve under [the Trump administration], and I believe all, or everyone but maybe one, will continue” on the board, said Schmidt, who was a major contributor to Obama’s election campaigns.

“I’m just assuming one or two might choose [to leave], but I don’t know. My current expectation is everyone would stay on. No one has told me they are leaving, but it’s also the case no one has been asked by the new administration to stay because the new administration doesn’t exist yet,” Schmidt said.

Board members Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman have been critical of Trump.

Both Hoffman and Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who was criticized by Trump during the campaign, were not at the board meeting Monday. Tyson was present and indicated that he would stay.

“All the carefully selected quotes that you find in these halls [of the Pentagon], they pledge allegiance to the Constitution,” Tyson said. “And I have yet to see a quote that talks about the president. So I think there is a higher mission statement that we all live by here.”

Carter set up the Defense Innovation Board last April, and the board met for the first time to consider recommendations in October. Carter then approved three recommendations to create the post of chief innovation officer at DoD, boost the number of “cyber recruits” in the military and set up a DoD center on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

At the meeting Monday, the board considered and approved several other recommendations. Among them were:

• Create a career track for computer scientists in the military.
• Direct U.S. Cyber Command to work with the National Security Agency in identifying software vulnerabilities in nuclear weapons systems and other advanced weapons.
• Speed the process to grant waivers to the current cumbersome acquisition process for new weapons and systems.
• Create a new data system to serve as the principal storage platform for most DoD data.
• Embed software development teams with individual commanders periodically to serve as a “human cloud” for solving problems on site.

“We’re setting up a nerd cyber swat team — the NCST,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced during an Air Force Association breakfast Friday.

The team will also be known as the Air Force digital services team, a group of engineers “helping [to] build software excellence and troubleshoot existing programs that run into difficulties associated with softwares,” she said.

“The Air Force digital service is going to be a component of the [Defense Department] digital service,” James said, “which is a group of extremely talented engineers with skills honed in the private sector who today have come into government for a brief period of time … and [are] now serving their country solving some big problems.”

James said she recently saw the team’s skillset firsthand as they worked on the GPS next-generation operational control system, or the OCX program.

The secretary said the OCX, made by Raytheon, “ran into some problems in part because we … underestimated what level of software complexity and cyber security that the project would require.”

The OCX is the new ground control station for the GPS-III satellites built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Brought in from Silicon Valley, the “experts helped us understand some very advanced new software … techniques and practices, and gave us some advice in part that helped us collectively bring the program back on track,” James said.

The team members will be known as “HQE” or highly qualified experts, she said, “working six to 12 months, and then would return to the private sector.”

While James did not say how much the nerd squad will cost, the idea is to avoid unforeseen hiccups that could end up delaying programs, or costing the Air Force more money in the long run — all part of the service’s commitment to get the most “bang for its buck,” she said.

Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, a former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot who directs the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program’s integration office, said even upgraded versions of the fourth-generation fighters simply can’t compete against the newer aircraft’s stealth superiority.

“You cannot take an airplane like an F-16 and really make it stealthy,” Pleus said in an interview with Military.com on Wednesday at the Pentagon. “The airplane is the shape of the airplane, the size is the size of the airplane,” he said.

“The radar cross-section of an F-18 is the radar cross-section of an F-18 — you can’t change that,” he added. “Low observable technology, the ability to evade radar if you will, is something that has to be designed into the airplane from the very beginning.”

Pleus’ comments came just weeks after President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to criticize the F-35 program — the Pentagon’s biggest acquisition program estimated at nearly $400 billion for almost 2,500 aircraft.

“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” he tweeted.

As previously noted on this blog, the Boeing-made F/A-18E/F Super Hornet doesn’t offer the same level of stealth or sensor technology as the F-35 Lightning II, though the Chicago-based aerospace giant has argued that the capabilities of the twin-engine electronic attack variant EA-18G Growler eclipse the Joint Strike Fighter’s stealth advantage. And, of course, the Super Hornet is significantly cheaper.

For military pilots, the statements by Pleus, the brigadier general, won’t come as a revelation. But Trump’s comments have spurred a debate on whether defense contractors can upgrade fourth-gen fighters to somehow operate like a fifth-gen fighter.

RELATED: Mattis Backs F-35 Stealth Fighter Criticized by Trump

Pleus, who has 153 flight hours in the F-35 and more than 2,000 in the F-16 — explained the closest they could get to making a fourth-gen fighter into a “4.5-gen” fighter is by adding some newer technologies, limited by the original mechanics of the aircraft, cooling and generator systems, among other issues.

“What you can do is take a fourth-generation aircraft and put a very good radar in it — so it’s a piece of technology that the F-35 has, and so you’ve upgraded it.”

Enhancing it, “more in the sensor itself,” can get a fighter like the F-16 — flying since the early 1980s — or F/A-18 a step closer to fifth-gen, “but you cannot add on stealth technology to an airplane.”

Pleus detailed the advantages the F-35 brings to the table: rapid computer technology, radar-evading stealth and what he called survivability.

“The idea is, the F-35 was developed to go into a highly contested area, both air-to-air threats and surface-to-air threats, drop its bombs, hit the targets it’s supposed to, and then come home — and that is the entire fifth-generation package,” he said.

Flying a fourth-gen or fifth-gen, from a pilot’s perspective, is “not a big change,” he said. The cockpit of the F-35, however, has bumped up situational awareness capabilities of how pilots can see or detect friend or foe in the airspace or down below.

In an F-16 for example, “If my radar doesn’t see it, then I don’t see it,” Pleus said.

“In the F-35, if my radar sees it, or if my electronic warning system sees it … or my wingman’s radar sees it, or their wingman’s radar sees it, I see all of it.”

Over three decades, the analysis finds, the Navy will spend $60 billion more than its own estimates indicate, and the plan overall would cost nearly a third more than the service spent on shipbuilding across the last three years.

The four-page summary concludes that planners and lawmakers have a choice: Maintain current shipbuilding spending levels and purchase 29 ships instead of 38 over the 2017-2021 construction period, a reduction of nearly 25 percent — or find savings elsewhere in the Navy and Defense Department budget and increasing shipbuilding funds.

The summary assesses the Navy’s plan to build the fleet to a total of 308 ships by 2021, a goal originally set in 2014. Its current fleet has 274 ships. The assessment does not, however, account for a new force structure assessment released in December that called for a fleet of 355 ships to meet the Navy’s operational needs going forward.

A Navy spokesman, Lt. j.g. Seth Clarke, told Military.com in a statement that the recent assessment was focused on the Navy’s operational needs, rather than its fiscal constraints.

“While the Force Structure Assessment (FSA) process is fiscally informed, in that it considers the cost benefit of options, when they exist, to deliver the required capability, it is not fiscally constrained,” he said.

“There are certainly affordability challenges in procuring a larger force, especially while recapitalizing the nation’s critical sea-based strategic deterrent,” he added. “However, the FSA’s primary purpose is to determine the battle force needed to meet strategic guidance with acceptable risk.”

Yet the current 30-year shipbuilding plan is roughly in line with what has been proposed in previous years. The primary difference is a reduced request for small surface combatants: littoral combat ships and future frigates. The plan reduced the build demand for these ships from 67 to 58 last year as the Defense Department called for fewer of the ships.

Though the plans may be similar, Congressional Budget Office officials said the Navy will end up paying much more than expected due to two miscalculations. First, the report’s authors said, the Navy’s shipbuilding estimates aren’t high enough, to the tune of $1.9 billion a year, or $57 billion over three decades.

“CBO’s estimates are higher because its estimating methods and assumptions regarding future ships’ design and capabilities differ from those that the Navy uses and because its treatment of growth in the costs of labor and materials for building ships is different from the Navy’s,” the authors write.

Second, they said, the Navy’s plan excludes other costs that should be included in the budget, including refueling aircraft carriers or outfitting ships after delivery, which would account for $1.8 billion of the additional cost, according to the authors’ calculations.

The authors also warned that the Navy may face more severe ship shortfalls than planned for, due to overly conservative estimates regarding the ships’ service lives. In its current plan, they said, the Navy estimates large surface combatants will serve between 35 and 40 years, while historically, few of those ships have been able to remain in service more than 30 years.

The simplest solution, they concluded, may be an increase in funding to account for the alleged higher costs.

“Facing similar constraints, in setting the appropriations for each year from 2013 through 2016, the Congress added $1 billion to $2 billion to the Administration’s request for shipbuilding,” they wrote.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Hartford Courant newspaper that Mattis gave a “clear commitment” to the continuation of the F-35 program despite Trump’s repeated criticism of its huge costs and questionable performance thus far.

In an earlier statement, Blumenthal said of his meeting with Mattis, “I was encouraged by his clear commitment to American air superiority and the important role of the F-35 program in sustaining and enhancing it.”

United Technologies Corp., which has headquarters in Hartford, supplies the engines for the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made F-35 and thousands of jobs in Connecticut are dependent on continuation of the program.

Trump last month said the costs of the F-35 program, projected at more than $400 billion for development and procurement of nearly 2,500 aircraft, were “out of control” and suggested that he may consider replacing it with a version of the F-18E/F Super Hornet made by competitor Boeing Co.

Lockheed Chief Executive Officer Marillyn Hewson met with Trump before Christmas and pledged to revamp the program.

“I’ve heard his message loud and clear about reducing the cost of the F-35,” she said in a statement. “I gave him my personal commitment to drive the cost down aggressively.”

Mattis has a reputation for independence and his backing of the F-35 would not be the first time that his judgment has been at odds with Trump’s.

In lavishing praise on Mattis during the announcement of his choice of defense secretary, Trump said it was a revelation to him when Mattis rejected the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists.

Trump said Mattis told him that he could get more out a prisoner with “a few beers and a pack of cigarettes” than he could with torture.

Mattis met with Blumenthal in the course of making the rounds on Capitol Hill to ease his path to getting the waiver that would allow him to serve as defense secretary in the new Trump administration.

Mattis, often referred to as “Mad Dog” by Trump, also met with Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and others ahead of the panel’s hearing next week on the required waiver and his qualifications to succeed outgoing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

Before he can be confirmed by the Senate, Mattis will need special legislation from Congress exempting him from the federal law barring members of the military from serving as defense secretary until seven years after retirement. Mattis retired from the Marine Corps and his last post as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013.

Enacted after World War II, the law was aimed at preserving civilian control of the military. The only waiver previously granted was to Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff during the last world war.

Mattis, a legend in the Marine Corps for his leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan, has widespread support for the nomination but some senators have expressed reservations about granting the waiver.

In a statement last month after Trump announced that Mattis was his choice, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat and member of the defense committee, said, “While I deeply respect Gen. Mattis’ service, I will oppose a waiver. Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule.”

In his own statement last month, Reed said, “It is clear that Gen. Mattis is a respected Marine and strategic thinker who served with honor and distinction. What is less clear is how Congress would go about changing the law to allow him or any recently retired senior officer to serve as the head of the Pentagon. That would require ‎a debate about our Constitutional principle of civilian control of the military and passing a new bill.”

The service on Friday announced it has begun accepting bids for the contract, which is expected to be awarded in 2017.

The Air Force wants to buy 350 aircraft to replace its current Northrop Grumman Corp.-made T-38 Talon trainers at a time when the service needs to replenish its fighter pilot ranks.

“In terms of both providing realistic, holistic training and reducing flying hours on our fifth-generation platforms, T-X is a program we’ve got to get right,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in the statement.

Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson, commander of Air Education and Training Command, added, “Pilot training gaps widen and continue to do so every year as the service brings on more fifth-generation aircraft.”

RELATED: What’s Ahead for the Air Force in 2017

With the Air Force seeking more fighter pilots and ramping up fifth-generation fighter training, the goal of the program is to acquire two-seat trainer jets that mimic the combat aircraft pilots will fly.

For example, more than 50 pilots have already been trained to operate the F-35A Lightning II at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, since the first Joint Strike Fighter touched down at the base in 2014.

“Our ability to get the most out of our fifth-generation aircraft depends on success in the Advanced Pilot Training program” also known as the T-X program, Goldfein said.

The contract designates the first aircraft to reach initial operational capability in fiscal year 2024 or earlier.

The so-called request for proposals covers delivery of the first five aircraft,including engineering and manufacturing development, low-rate initial production, full-rate production and sustainment transition support, the release said.

RELATED: Air Force Launches $6.9 Billion JSTARS Competition

Additional provisions are included for ground support systems, “such as training systems, mission planning and processing systems, support equipment and spares,” the release said.

Boeing Co., collaborating with Saab, is one of two teams competing for the program with a new design. But unlike Northrop, Boeing is the only team so far to offer a twin canted vertical tail design, mimicking fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets such as the F-22 Raptor, F-35 and F/A-18 Hornet.

Other vendor teams, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Korea Aerospace Industries, and Raytheon Co., Leonardo-Finmeccanica and CAE Inc., are offering modification designs to current aircraft, but are not competing in clean-sheet designs.

RELATED: WATCH: Boeing’s T-X Trainer Takes First Flight

Sierra Nevada Corp. and Turkish Aerospace Industries are also reportedly partnering on their own design for a T-X trainer, one that could be more fuel-efficient, according to Aviation Week.

The T-38 aircraft, first produced by Northrop in 1959, is used to prep pilots for “front-line fighter and bomber aircraft such as the F-15E Strike Eagle, F-15C Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, B-1B Lancer, A-10 Thunderbolt and F-22 Raptor,” according to the service.

Chris Cavas of Defense News, who wrote about the absence of a carrier in the region, reports that the Eisenhower is set to be relieved by the George H. W. Bush, another Norfolk-based ship. But while carriers often overlap with each other for brief periods of time in theater during a handoff, the Bush has yet to depart for the 5th Fleet area of operations and may not do so for weeks to come.

The carrier is “unlikely do so before the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, according to a Navy source,” Cavas writes. “The gap could last as long as two months, sources said, between the time the Eisenhower left the combat theater and the Bush arrives.”

To blame are delays in scheduled shipyard maintenance for the Bush, which ended up spending a year in repairs as opposed to the planned eight months, emerging from the shipyard in July and hard-pressed to complete months of required pre-deployment training before the end of the year.

This is not the first time maintenance delays have led to a carrier gap in the Middle East in recent years. In October 2015, the departure of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt from the Persian Gulf left the region without a carrier to conduct air strikes on ISIS, a problem caused in part by a maintenance delay for the Dwight D. Eisenhower that forced the Navy to cancel its deployment and rearrange its carrier deployment plan.

Ultimately, the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group would deploy to the Middle East in November 2015, ending a one-month carrier gap in the region.

The current carrier gap comes just five months after Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson marked a “milestone” for the service: six carriers underway simultaneously, including the Truman and Eisenhower in the Middle East and two deployed forward in the Pacific. This robust footprint did not last for long, however; the Truman returned home from its eight-month extended deployment later that month.

However, the $40 billion was only a fraction of the more than $200 billion in arms estimated to have been sold separately by U.S. defense firms in 2015 under commercial licenses, an independent think tank reported.

The non-partisan CRS, an arm of the Library of Congress, said in a report last week that U.S. Foreign Military Sales through the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency for arms, defense services and military training rose by $4 billion last year to about $40 billion, or about half of the total global arms trade of $80 billion.

France ranked second as a weapons dealer with $15 billion in sales, followed by Russia with $11.1 billion and China with $6 billion, the CRS said in the report titled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations 2008-2001.”

Countries listed as developing nations bought from all selling nations a total of $65 billion in weaponry in 2015, down from $79 billion in 2014, the CRS said. Some of the major buyers among “developing” nations were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and South Korea.

In the report summary, the CRS stated, “For decades, during the height of the Cold War, providing conventional weapons to friendly states was an instrument of foreign policy utilized by the United States and its allies,” and was meant to offset arms transfers by the Soviet Union and its allies.

“Following the Cold War’s end, U.S. arms transfer policy has been based on maintaining or augmenting friendly and allied nations’ ability to deal with regional security threats and concerns,” the CRS said.

The report also said that U.S. Foreign Military Sales through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency covered only a fraction of the arms flow from the U.S. to foreign countries since it did not include arms sold separately by defense firms under commercial licenses approved by the State Department.

“The United States is the only major arms supplier that has two distinct systems for the export of weapons: the government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, and the licensed commercial export system,” the CRS said.

The CRS did not estimate the amount of sales by U.S. firms under commercial licenses, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent global security outlet, said that U.S. commercial arms transfers were more than five times the $40 billion amount under the Foreign Military Sales program

In a report earlier this month, SIPRI said, “Companies based in the United States continue to dominate the Top 100 [arms firms] with total arms sales amounting to $209.7 billion for 2015.”

“Lockheed Martin remains the largest arms producer in the world,” said Aude Fleurant, director of SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Program. “However, U.S. companies’ arms sales are constrained by caps on U.S. military spending, delays in deliveries major weapon systems  and the strength of the U.S. dollar, which has negatively affected export sales.”

In another report earlier this month, the Army said that its U.S. Army Security Assistance Command closed fiscal 2016 with $14.8 billion in new business under the overall Foreign Military Sales program to mark “yet another successful year in foreign military sales.“

“The command, which develops and manages the Army’s security assistance programs and Foreign Military Sales, is currently managing more than 5,722 FMS cases valued at $175.9 billion in 147 countries,” the Army said in a release.

U.S. Central Command alone is handling $7.4 billion in new business and more than 2,000 active cases totaling $126 billion, the Army said.

Among the major sales in CentCom’s area in fiscal 2016 were $1.65 billion for Patriot III anti-missile systems for Saudi Arabia and $477 million for refurbishing Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles for the United Arab Emirates, the Army said.

1. Navy F-35C Landed So Precisely, It Tore Up a Runway

Before seven of the Navy’s carrier-variant F-35 Joint Strike Fighters embarked aboard the carrier USS George Washington for a third and final round of developmental testing, they completed a required ashore training period, practicing landings at Choctaw Naval Outlying Field near Pensacola, Florida.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

2. IED Destroys Afghan Army Helicopter

This video purportedly shows an improvised explosive device, or IED, planted by Taliban fighters beneath a landing zone in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan in an attack that destroyed what looks like an Afghan National Army Mi-17 transport helicopter. Viewer discretion is advised.

By Brendan McGarry | Read more

3. Marines’ F-35B Executes Perfect Vertical Landing on Ship

It’s the new Joint Strike Fighter like you’ve never seen it before. The Marine Corps’ F-35B just began its third and final round of shipboard testing ahead of the first operational squadron’s forward deployment to Japan early next year.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

4. S-97 Raider Flies with Wheels Up

The S-97 Raider coaxial helicopter made by Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Sikorsky unit recently flew with its wheels up for the first time. The company released video showing the prototype making its ninth and latest test flight.

By Brendan McGarry | Read more

5. Army Test-Fires 30mm Cannons from New Recon Vehicles

U.S. Army officials at Fort Benning, Georgia, recently conducted a live-fire demonstration of 30mm cannons mounted on the Light Armored Vehicle (Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle) and Flyer Advanced Light Strike Vehicle, both of which are made by General Dynamics Corp. and being tested by the service.

By Brendan McGarry | Read more

6. Commander Receiving F-35As: ‘It’s Going to Be an Absolute Monster’

The celebration of the Air Force variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter reaching initial operational capability continued Friday with a ceremony replete with dignitaries at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, where 15 F-35s were declared combat-ready this week.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

7. Abrams Tank Upgrades Will Give Marines‘’Killer Edge’

The Marine Corps is modernizing one of its most reliable battle platforms: the M1A1 Abrams tank. A trio of upgrades to the tank commander’s weapon station will give tank commanders and gunners a “hunter-killer edge” over the enemy, according to an announcement from Marine Corps Systems Command.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

8. Army Chief Goes Silent at ‘Mad Scientist’ Event

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley rattled a conference on future military challenges by abruptly ordering the live-stream cut off and putting his remarks off the record. Milley gave no explanation for his last-minute action at the event at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies.

By Richard Sisk | Read more

9. Army SOF to Trade in Its Androids for iPhones

U.S. Army Special Operations Command is dumping its Android tactical smartphone for an iPhone model. The iPhone 6S will become the end-user device for the iPhone Tactical Assault Kit — special-operations-forces version Army’s Nett Warrior battlefield situational awareness tool.

By Matthew Cox | Read more

10. Air Force Can’t Afford F-35 But Wants a ‘Super’ A-10?

U.S. Air Force leaders have recently signaled an interest in developing a new aircraft dedicated to the mission of close air support as a replacement to the venerable A-10 Thunderbolt II, commonly known as the Warthog.

By Brendan McGarry | Read more

“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” he tweeted on Thursday evening.

The market reaction was swift. Lockheed shares tumbled 1.7 percent while Boeing’s climbed 0.6 percent, according to a report by CNBC within an hour of Trump’s message.

The timing of Trump’s latest criticism of the F-35 program — the Pentagon’s largest acquisition effort at nearly $400 billion to buy almost 2,500 of the single-engine fighters for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — was again noteworthy.

It came a day after the president-elect met during separate meetings at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with Lockheed Chief Executive Officer Marillyn Hewson and Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who oversees the F-35 program, among other top Pentagon acquisition officials.

Trump the same day met with Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, who after facing similar criticism from the president-elect for the $4 billion estimated cost of the Air Force One program to develop two or possible three of specially modified 747s pledged to reduce the cost of the effort.

Lockheed had no comment.

Boeing tweeted, “Ready to work with @realDonaldTrump’s administration to affordably meet U.S. military requirements.” In an email, company spokesman Todd Blecher said, “We have committed to working with the president elect and his administration to provide the best capability, deliverability and affordability across all Boeing products and services to meet our national security needs.”

Of course, Trump doesn’t seem to be taking into account the technological differences between the fourth-generation and fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

The Boeing-made F/A-18E/F Super Hornet doesn’t offer the same level of stealth or sensor technology as the F-35, though the Chicago-based aerospace giant has previously argued that the capabilities of the twin-engine electronic attack variant EA-18G Growler eclipse the Joint Strike Fighter’s stealth advantage. And, of course, the Super Hornet is significantly cheaper.

Even so, Trump may be taking a page from the playbook of Canada, whose government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently opted to abandon the F-35 in favor of the F/A-18.

Last month, Canada announced it is in negotiations to buy 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, a blow to the Joint Strike Fighter program, which was originally envisioned to replace Canada’s 30-plus-year-old CF-18 Hornet fleet.

RELATED: Canada to Buy Super Hornets as F-35 Hits Setbacks

Canada had been in discussions for years to purchase about 60 F-35s, but lawmakers had apparently grown weary of setbacks and delays in the program. In June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the aircraft one that “does not work and is far from working.”

Compare that to what Trump said during a speech last week in Pennsylvania: “How about the F-35 fighter? It’s a disaster, it’s totally out of control. So we’re going to get more equipment for our military and we’re going to get better equipment for our military at a smaller price.”

A smaller price tag may not be out of the question.

Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James earlier this week acknowledged the cost of the Joint Strike Fighter program remains an issue. The Pentagon estimates it will spend nearly $400 billion to procure 2,457 of the single-engine fighters — and some $1.5 trillion in lifetime sustainment costs.

“Can the costs be driven down more? Perhaps,” James said during a speech at an Atlantic Council event, adding that the president-elect may search for other ways to find a better deal for taxpayers.

The Pentagon in November handed down a Low Rate Initial Production contract to Lockheed Martin last month for 57 more F-35s under a $6.1 billion deal — a decision that Lockheed criticized as disappointing and unfair because it didn’t address manufacturing issues, such as risk assessment and delivery schedules.

It’s no secret the F-35 has had “a difficult past” plagued by breakdowns, cost overruns and other embarrassing mishaps, she said. “But if you look at the recent years, the F-35 the cost has been coming down,” she added, noting the per-plane price tag of the fifth-generation fighter will soon approach that of fourth-generation models.

A member of his transition team seems to think so.

“Boeing CEO tells President-elect @realDonaldTrump it will build new Air Force One for less than originally-quoted $4b,” Anthony Scaramucci, a member of Trump’s transition team’s executive committee tweeted on Wednesday. “Big win for taxpayers.”

The message came after Trump met with Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Indeed, that apparently was the gist of the conversation.

Here’s what Muilenburg told reporters as he was leaving the estate: “We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens,” he said,” referring to the Air Force One program, according to Bloomberg News. “I was able to give the president-elect my personal commitment on behalf of the Boeing Company.”

This obviously raises a number of questions.

First off, exactly how fungible are these estimated acquisition costs? Is there that much padding built in to the initial price tag that, at the snap of a finger — or a tweet — the expenses can just fall to levels considered more reasonable to an incoming president?

In a tweet earlier this month and seemingly out of the blue, Trump bashed the Air Force One program, saying, “Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”

Boeing rushed out a response, saying it has only received $170 million so far in development funding to study the technical requirements of the future Air Force One aircraft, specially designed versions of the 747 airliner designed to withstand missile attacks and electromagnetic pulses.

But Trump’s figure was more or less accurate.

Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project and defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., at the time said the proposed cost for the program includes $2.9 billion in funding for research, development, test and evaluation through fiscal 2021, as well as about $1 billion in funding for procurement.

Air Force leaders also have vowed support for the program, which calls for developing two or possibly three new Air Force One planes. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James on Tuesday said of the aircraft, “It’s a flying White House, with ultra-high levels of security and communications and defensive protection measures built-in,” she said.

Trump has since also targeted the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the Pentagon’s most expensive acquisition program estimated to cost nearly $400 billion to procure 2,457 of the single-engine fighters.

Also Monday, the president-elect met with a number of high-ranking Pentagon officials, according to Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who manages the F-35 program, on Monday directly responded to Trump’s criticism when he told reporters, “This program is not out of control.”

Trump also met with Lockheed Chief Executive Officer Marillyn Hewson and, according to Time magazine’s Zeke Miller, said of the planned get-together, “We’re just beginning, it’s a dance.”

In a statement, Hewson said, “I had a productive meeting with President-elect Trump this afternoon. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the importance of the F-35 program and the progress we’ve made in bringing the costs down. The F-35 is a critical program to our national security, and I conveyed our continued commitment to delivering an affordable aircraft to our U.S. military and our allies.”

One discovery made as the F-35C Navy carrier variant and F-35B Marine Corps “jump jet” variant wrapped up ship testing this year was that the symbology on the pricey helmet was still too bright and distracting for pilots landing on carriers or amphibious ships in the lowest light conditions, Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told reporters.

During the final developmental test phase for the F-35C aboard the carrier George Washington in August, officials told Military.com they were testing a new software load specifically designed to address the F-35 helmet’s “green glow” problem, which can make it difficult for pilots to detect outside light sources and the cues they need to land their aircraft safely.

While testers were hopeful at the time the problem was solved, Bogdan said officials are not yet satisfied.

“The symbology on the helmet, even when turned down as low as it can, is still a little too bright,” he said. “We want to turn down that symbology so that it’s not so bright that they can’t see through it to see the lights, but if you turn it down too much, then you start not being able to see the stuff you do want to see. We have an issue there, there’s no doubt.”

Bogdan said the military plans on pursuing a hardware fix for the helmet, which is designed to stream real-time information onto the visor and allow the pilots to “see through” the plane by projecting images from cameras mounted around the aircraft. But before that fix is finalized, he said, pilots of the F-35 B and C variants will make operational changes to mitigate the glare from the helmet. These may include adjusting the light scheme on the aircraft, altering how pilots communicate during night flights, and perhaps changing the way they use the helmet during these flights, he said.

“We’re thinking in the short term we need to make some operational changes, and in the long term we’ll look for some hardware changes,” Bogdan said.

The window for making such adjustments is rapidly closing. The first F-35B squadron is expected to move forward to its new permanent base in Japan in January ahead of a 2018 shipboard deployment in the Pacific. The F-35C is also expected to deploy aboard a carrier for the first time in 2018.

While acknowledging the high cost of the program, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James on Monday made a point to explain how the planes aren’t typical 747 airliners made by Boeing Co.

“It’s a flying White House, with ultra-high levels of security and communications and defensive protection measures built in,”  James said during a speech at an Atlantic Council event in Washington, D.C.

Trump over the past few weeks has criticized the high cost of both the $4 billion Air Force One program being developed by Boeing and the nearly $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp.

The president-elect on Dec. 6 tweeted “cancel order!” in reference to the Air Force One program. He brought up the issue again during a Dec. 16 speech in Pennsylvania.

“I don’t want a plane to fly around in that costs $4.2 billion, believe me … not going to happen … and I didn’t order it, please, remember this,” he said. “But we’re going to work with Boeing, we’re going to cut the price way down — way, way down.”

Boeing has so far received $170 million in development funding to study the technical requirements of the future Air Force One aircraft, the company has said.

And at least one defense analyst has pointed out the overall estimate includes the cost of two planes, both of which would operate as a flying command post in an emergency and feature advanced technology such as protection from electromagnetic pulse attacks.

RELATED: Defense Lobby’s Answer to Trump? Don’t Tweet Back

James noted that the technical requirements for the plane were drawn up by the White House, not the Air Force. “Maybe if you change some of the requirements you can get the costs down,” she said.

The secretary also defended the F-35, which she said “sells itself” to allies desperate to field fifth-generation fighter jet technology.

Even so, she acknowledged the cost of the Joint Strike Fighter program remains an issue. The Pentagon estimates it will spend nearly $400 billion to procure 2,457 of the single-engine fighters — and some $1.5 trillion in lifetime sustainment costs.

“Can the costs be driven down more? Perhaps,” James said, adding that the president-elect may search for other ways to find a better deal for taxpayers.

The Pentagon in November handed down a Low Rate Initial Production contract to Lockheed Martin last month for 57 more F-35s under a $6.1 billion deal — a decision that Lockheed criticized as disappointing and unfair because it didn’t address manufacturing issues, such as risk assessment and delivery schedules.

It’s no secret the F-35 has had “a difficult past” plagued by breakdowns, cost overruns and other embarrassing mishaps, she said. “But if you look at the recent years, the F-35 the cost has been coming down,” she added, noting the per-plane price tag of the fifth-generation fighter will soon approach that of fourth-generation models.

Above all, NATO allies and others are clamoring for the technology, James said.

“If you look at the various scenarios where we may have to go into combat around the world … it’s the high-end threats, the anti-access area denial environments, the threats that sell this capability,” she said, referring to such countries as Russia and China.

“I think that there have been some very real achievements in the military with President Obama,” Gates said Sunday on NBC-TV’s “Meet The Press” program.”

“I think that he has managed a difficult situation where the American people were tired of war — 14, 15 years of war — and how do we conduct ourselves so that we don’t send troops to deal with every single problem around the world,” Gates said.

Gates, a Republican who served as defense secretary for former President George W. Bush and continued into the Obama administration, noted his differences with Obama on Libya and setting a “red line” with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the use of chemical weapons.

“I certainly was opposed to the intervention in Libya,” Gates said. “I said, ‘Can’t I just finish the two wars I’m already in (Iraq and Afghanistan) before you go looking for a third one?'”

“And I frankly think that he’s made several big mistakes on Syria, beginning with the crossing of the red line — first of all, putting down a red line and then allowing, you know, allowing it to be crossed,” Gates said.

“But I think that in terms of not engaging — not sending U.S. forces to deal with every single problem around the world – (that) was a needed antidote to 15 years of war,” Gates said.

At the same time, Gates said that restraint had its downside in encouraging aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Syria, Crimea and Ukraine. “I think it sent a signal that the U.S. was in retreat,” he said.

“It was always going to be complicated to withdraw from those wars without victory without sending the signal we were withdrawing more broadly from a global leadership role,” Gates said. “I think some of the things that have been done have accentuated that impression around the world. And I think Putin felt that he could take advantage of that.”

During the campaign, Gates denounced President-elect Donald Trump as “unqualified” to be commander-in-chief, but he has since met with Trump and reportedly was influential in the choice of ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

In a September op-ed for the Wall St. Journal, Gates wrote that Trump was “stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.”

In his first post-election interview on Nov. 30 with “CBS This Morning,” Gates changed course and said he was “hoping” he was wrong about Trump. “It’s critical for us now that he is President-elect for him to be successful as president, especially in national security.”

On “Meet The Press” Sunday, Gates was at odds with Trump’s dismissal thus far of the CIA and FBI conclusions that Russia attempted to influence the election by hacking the Democratic National Committee. Gates also said that the Russian hacking appeared to be aimed at hurting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

Gates, the former CIA Director under President George H.W. Bush, said of the Russian hacking that “I would characterize it as a thinly disguised, covert operation intended to discredit the American election and to basically allow the Russians to communicate to the rest of the world that our elections are corrupt, incompetent, rigged, whatever, and therefore no more honest than anybody else’s in the world, including theirs.”

“Whether or not it was intended to help one another candidate, I don’t know. But I think it clearly was aimed at discrediting our elections and I think it was aimed certainly at weakening Mrs. Clinton,” Gates said.

“We are going to negotiate tougher deals … where we get more equipment for less money,” he said on Thursday.

“For instance, you saw the other day about an airplane. Now I have a nice airplane. But this plane is going to cost $4.2 billion, Air Force One. I don’t want a plane to fly around in that costs $4.2 billion, believe me … not going to happen … and I didn’t order it, please, remember this. But we’re going to work with Boeing, we’re going to cut the price way down — way, way down.”

He added, “And how about the F-35 fighter. It’s a disaster, it’s totally out of control. So we’re going to get more equipment for our military and we’re going to get better equipment for our military at a smaller price.”

Trump has previously blasted both acquisition programs.

Last week, Trump took to Twitter to attack the projected costs of a new Air Force One —  criticism that came the day the Aerospace Industries Association — the defense lobby — was holding its annual holiday luncheon outside Washington, D.C.

Boeing said it has only received $170 million in development funding to study the technical requirements of the future Air Force One aircraft.

Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project and defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., has said the proposed cost for the program includes $2.9 billion in funding for research, development, test and evaluation through fiscal 2021, as well as about $1 billion in funding for procurement.

“To be clear, it’s $4B for two planes that operate as a flying command post for POTUS in a national emergency, have EMP protection, etc.,” he tweeted at the time, referring to electromagnetic pulse.

On Monday, Trump launched another Tweetstorm, this one aimed the military’s largest acquisition program: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is expected to cost nearly $400 billion in development and procurement costs to field a fleet of 2,457 single-engine fighters — and some $1.5 trillion in lifetime sustainment costs, according to Pentagon figures.

During his speech last night, Trump also vowed to “drain the swamp” in part by closing the so-called revolving door of Pentagon employees who leave government to take jobs in the private sector.

“I will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists and a lifetime ban on officials becoming lobbyists for a foreign government,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what else I’m going to ban — when we have our purchasing agents giving out billions and billions and billions of dollars of contracts to the military and to all of these people where they’re buying these airplanes where you see these tremendous cost overruns — take a look at the F-35 program, take a look — and the people that gave out those contracts, give me a break, we’re going to impose a lifetime ban on people that give these massive contracts out or even small contracts.”

He added, “You want to work for the United States, you work for the United States. You’re not going to go to work for the people that built these planes.”

In perhaps the most obvious recent example of the revolving door, the U.S. Air Force‘s former chief of staff, retired Gen. Mark Welsh, recently joined the board of directors for Northrop Grumman Corp., the company announced last week.

The move came just five months after Welsh retired as the service’s top uniformed officer and a little more than a year after Northrop won the biggest Pentagon contract in decades — to begin developing the B-21 Raider as part of the potentially $80 billion Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRSB, program.

Boeing Co. next month will relocate its Defense, Space & Security division from St. Louis to its northern Virginia offices in Crystal City, spokesman Todd Blecher confirmed to Military.com. The news was first reported by DefenseOne.

“We are making the move to enhance our ability to engage with leaders of our customers in the Pentagon and NASA, as well as key decision makers on the Hill and in the presidential administration,” Blecher said in a statement.

The move is the biggest for the division after it merged with McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis in 1997.

The news comes weeks after Leanne Caret, the president and chief executive officer of the unit, was weighing future options to spend more time inside the beltway to meet with Pentagon officials and lawmakers, DefenseOne previously reported.

At first, “approximately a dozen people will move here from St. Louis, including [Caret],” Blecher said. “Over time that total could increase to more than 50 people.”

Boeing, whose defense contracting business is second only to Lockheed Martin Corp., will continue to have about 14,000 employees in the St. Louis area, Blecher said.

RELATED: Defense Lobby’s Answer to Trump? Don’t Tweet Back

Boeing has unwittingly been in the public eye recently after Trump blasted the company on Twitter over potential prices of the new Air Force One aircraft.

“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion,” he tweeted last week. “Cancel order!”

Many took issue with Trump’s use of the $4 billion figure to describe the overall cost of the program. While the figure wasn’t that far off from the total estimated value, it’s worth noting the company hasn’t received anywhere close to that amount yet — and the total figure includes funding for two airplanes designed to withstand electromagnetic attacks and other doomsday scenarios.

RELATED: In Bashing Air Force One Costs, Trump Targets Defense Spending

The remarks caught many industry observers by surprise considering he proposed a Reagan-like military buildup during his campaign.

Boeing attempted to settle the dust.

“We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the president of the United States,” Blecher said in an emailed statement at the time.

“We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer,” he added.

Michael Hertzog, a spokesman for the Air Force, said for research and development costs, the service has budgeted $2.7 billion (as opposed to $2.9 billion) in the latest spending plan. He said that figure could change “as the program matures with the completion of the risk reduction activities.”

Hertzog didn’t specify a figure for procurement costs.

This morning just before 9 a.m., the president-elect lashed out at the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on Twitter, promising to change the game after he enters office.

“The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” he tweeted. “Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.”

Though Trump did not clearly state what he planned to do after he becomes president, the tweet sent ripples across the defense community and had an immediate impact on the stock market value of Lockheed Martin Corp., the manufacturer of the F-35.

Within hours of the tweet, the company’s stock had dropped more than 4 percent, multiple outlets reported, for a loss in value of more than $4 billion so far.

While the F-35 program has long been held up as an example of acquisition malpractice, with years of delays and budget overruns, defense officials and Lockheed executives have struck an optimistic note this year as three U.S. F-35 variants hit final milestones ahead of their first deployments.

Trump’s comments come the same day the Israeli government, the first country to sign on to purchase the F-35 through the U.S. foreign military sales process, welcomes the arrival of the its first F-35 “Adir” fighters.

In remarks at a ceremony in Israel to mark the event, Jeff Babione, F-35 program manager for Lockheed Martin, emphasized the company’s efforts to reduce aircraft unit costs.

“Since the beginning, we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce the price of the airplane more than 70 percent. We project the price of the aircraft will be $85 million in the 2019 -2020 timeframe,” he said, according to remarks provided to Military.com. “When we get to that price, the F-35 will be less expensive than any fourth-generation fighter in the world. And it will be the premiere fifth-generation fighter. That’s an incredible value for anyone operating the airplane.”

Babione told reporters in March that F-35A unit cost may drop from roughly $100 million per plane today to $85 million by 2019, dependent in part on an international block buy that would drive costs down due to economies of scale.

Trump’s tweet on the F-35 comes six days after he targeted defense giant Boeing in a tweet about costs for Air Force One, the president’s private plane.

“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” he wrote.

Lockheed Martin officials have said they plan to respond to Trump’s tweet about the F-35 later today.