Gates, on his way back from vacation on Monday, will speak to reporters at the Lockheed plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and then pay a visit to an L-3 Communications Holdings Inc (LLL.N) plant that turns out so-called Project Liberty reconnaissance aircraft in Greenville, Texas."These are two very important aviation programs to the Department of Defense," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
The visit comes amid mounting speculation the Pentagon might have to scale back the F-35 as part of stepped-up budget belt-tightening.
For instance, the private Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments -- several of whose one-time experts are now serving in senior Obama administration jobs -- cited the F-35 as just one example of programs ripe for review by the Department of Defense during a once every four years top-to- bottom reassessment now under way.
"Rather than buying both new long-range bombers and thousands of short-range F-35 fighters, DoD might consider whether the new bombers ... could represent a cost-effective substitute for some number of these new fighters," the center's Todd Harrison wrote in a report released this month.
Lockheed is developing three radar-evading F-35 models to replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially. At a projected cost of about $300 billion over two decades, the United States currently plans to buy 2,443 F-35s for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Eight countries are F-35 co-development partners: Britain, Canada, Italy, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and Australia.
Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) and BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L) are Lockheed's chief F-35 sub-contractors. Two separate, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development. One is built by United Technologies Corp's (UTX.N) Pratt & Whitney unit. The other by a team of General Electric Co (GE.N) and Rolls-Royce Group Plc (RR.L). (Reporting by Jim Wolf; editing by Andre Grenon)
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