Maybe Congress can only fight over one aircraft at a time.
And these days, it’s not the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet.
Lawmakers have been quietly inserting millions of extra dollars into this year’s budget so the Navy can buy more Super Hornets — airplanes many say are needed to close the looming “fighter gap.”
A retired naval aviator who watches closely the mechanics of Washington tells Scoopdeck that the very public battle over the Air Force’s pricey plane is providing some political cover for the Super Hornets’ advocates.
“With all the controversy over the F-22, the F/A-18 is kind of in the shadows and it might benefit from that,” the former aviator said.
“It looks like the increased procurement for the F/A-18 will stay in the budget while they fight over the F-22.”