However, budgets for big weapons are getting tighter as costs like personnel expenses eat up more Pentagon resources. Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposes spending more money on tools like unmanned drones to fight insurgencies instead of big and pricey equipment like US$140 million (S$203 million) apiece for F-22 fighter jets meant for more conventional wars.
In the 2008 fiscal year, the military spent $164 billion to buy weapons. For the 2010 fiscal year, the Pentagon proposes spending only $131 billion, though that number will probably grow when Congress adds weapons spending as it reviews the budget.
Big defense companies would take a hit. Lockheed will have to shut down its assembly line at its big Marietta, Georgia, plant, putting thousands of jobs at risk. Boeing, which gets 80 percent of its defense unit sales from the Pentagon, could stop selling the US$276 million C-17.
'There is a softness in the home market right now,' said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group.
That could grant some new life to programs that would be cut under the Pentagon's new budget.
The F-22 programme is slated to end at 187 planes for the US Air Force, far fewer than originally envisioned. Japan and Australia are considered potential sources of new sales, but federal law barring export of the technologically sensitive plane would have to be overturned. The prospects of that remain unclear.
Congress put eight more C-17s back into the budget. Boeing wants to make 16 per year and hopes to cover the shortfall overseas. It recently cut a deal to make four for the United Arab Emirates. The contractor is also trying to persuade foreign governments to buy the F-18 instead of the F-35, made by a team led by Lockheed.
Defense companies will display their jets, engines, missiles, pilotless drones and other hardware for several days this week at an airfield outside Paris. The show is one of the biggest that brings together contractors and militaries from around the globe to broker weapons deals. -- AP