Aircraft

Uncertainty In the Skies

August 15, 2001

Author of "In the Company of Heroes"

hese are precarious times for military aviation programs. President Bush has pledged to transform the U.S. military, in the process perhaps skipping a generation of weapons in order to fund leap-ahead technologies. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is reviewing the recommendations of 20 separate panels on how to fundamentally overhaul the Pentagon.

In addition, the Senate's shift from Republican to Democratic control reshuffled congressional support for many weapons programs. At the same time, many experts believe the Defense Department will have no choice but to cut some of these programs in order to close what the Congressional Budget Office has estimated is an annual $50 billion mismatch between Defense resources and needed readiness improvements and weapons modernization. With a combined price tag of roughly $340 billion over the next 20 years, the Pentagon's tactical aircraft programs remain, perhaps, the most inviting targets in the Defense budget.

The Pentagon's current modernization plan involves buying a wide range of new weapons, including the F-22, F/A-18E/F fighters and the Joint Strike Fighter, over the next several decades. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates these plans would boost the Defense procurement budget to $80 billion a year over the next 15 years, in comparison with the $60 billion the department now spends each year.

In response to uncertainty about Rumsfeld's plans and the resource crunch, aircraft proponents have launched all-out campaigns to protect their favored programs. The Air Force recently released a global strike force concept that touts the capabilities of the B-2 stealth bomber and developmental F-22 stealth fighter. Privately, the Air Force is lobbying to boost the planned buy of 339 F-22 Raptors by more than 400 aircraft. Northrop Grumman has proposed restarting production of B-2 bombers devoted to conventional operations with a cut-rate price tag of only $500 million each (versus $2 billion for the present, nuclear-capable models).

For its part, the Navy is playing up the likely first foreign sales of its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to Malaysia. Boeing also is aggressively marketing an F/A-18G variant of the Super Hornet as a replacement for the Navy's aging fleet of EA-6B aircraft. As the most mature of the Pentagon's three tactical aircraft programs, the Super Hornet is probably the least likely to be canceled.

Because it is the least mature and most expensive of the tactical aircraft programs, the Joint Strike Fighter is considered by some observers as one of the most vulnerable to cuts, rescheduling or outright cancellation. The nation's two top defense contractors-Lockheed Martin and Boeing-are locked in a furious, winner-take-all competition to win the contract for some 3,000 Joint Strike Fighters for the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and British Royal Navy and Air Force. The JSF program is worth an estimated $200 billion over the next 20 years, making it the most expensive aviation program in history. The Marine Corps' V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey is in perhaps the most vulnerable position of all aircraft programs. The hybrid craft can travel at the relatively high speeds and long distances of a propeller-driven airplane, yet take off and land like a helicopter. When he was Defense Secretary, Vice President Dick Cheney tried to kill the program. Last year, two test Ospreys crashed, killing 23 Marines.

A Marine Corps and Pentagon investigation revealed serious deficiencies in the program and the Pentagon has taken authority for the V-22 acquisition out of the Navy's hands. But Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Research and Development Subcommittee, already has launched an aggressive campaign to keep the Osprey program alive.