In an arresting turn of phrase this fall, Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne suggested that absent more investment, the service might be "going out of business." He noted that on average, aircraft in his fleet are 24 years old. Air Force planes flying in support of coalition ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are fast wearing out, and "at some time in the future, they will simply rust out, age out, fall out of the sky," he told a gathering at a Washington think tank on Sept. 19.
Wynne raised the specter that the days of U.S. air dominance might be coming to an end. In a conflict with Iran, he said, front-line fighters would not be allowed to operate freely for fear of losing them to the Russian-built air defenses Tehran now is deploying.
During an Oct. 30 conversation with Government Executive Editor Timothy B. Clark, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley reinforced the theme. He said air dominance could be preserved only through the new technologies now rolling off Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. assembly lines in the form of the F-22 and F-35 advanced fighter jets. The Air Force is in a bitter fight to gain the funding needed to assemble a fleet large enough to meet the strategic demands of its Air Combat Command.
This fall has seen a rare public display of dissatisfaction with the White House on the part of military leaders, as both Wynne and Moseley have been saying the Air Force is $100 billion short of the money it needs to recapitalize its fleet over the next five years. Echoing other service chiefs, Moseley said on Oct. 30 that the nation should seriously consider devoting more of its gross domestic product to its defense program.
But the extra $20 billion a year the Air Force seeks will not come easily from a Democratic Congress whose defense specialists aren't satisfied that the Air Force has articulated a convincing long-term view of its role in the strategic challenges the country faces.
Moseley and Wynne are disappointed that their plan to help fund their service's recapitalization by eliminating 40,000 uniformed billets has not materially helped the cause. Money freed up by cutting 30,000 positions so far has been eaten up by operating costs in the ongoing wars. Wynne has said the service remains "desperate to figure out how to save money."
Alarming Pronouncements
These have been alarming pronouncements by the leaders of a service that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael G. Mullen recently said is America's "strategic reserve," ready to handle possible military contingencies worldwide while the Army and Marines are occupied in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force is feeling downtrodden these days, a far cry from the 1950s and 1960s when, as the preeminent service, it often received funding equal to the Army and Navy combined. Today, the Army and Marines bear the brunt of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and both have prodded Congress to provide billions of dollars to buy new weapons systems by arguing they are vitally needed by troops under fire.
The Air Force built up its front-line fighter jet strength during the 1970s and 1980s with large buys of F-15, F-16 and A-10 fighter and attack jets, known as fourth-generation aircraft. Then production shifted to bombers and cargo planes. A massive modernization was planned for the 1990s, but those plans unraveled when the Soviet Union abruptly dissolved. The Strategic Air Command was disbanded in 1992, the same year production of the ultrastealthy B-2 bomber was terminated. Aircraft construction slowed as defense budgets and force structure were cut during the 1990s.
Now, as aircraft get older, operating costs go up and flying hours drop. Even some front-line aircraft operate under flight restrictions because of aging airframes. The Air Force grounded its F-15 fleet following the Nov. 2 midair disintegration of a 30-year-old F-15C during maneuvers over Missouri. Recapitalizing the fleet has become the Air Force's top priority.
Moseley voiced frustration that Congress has prevented him from retiring "ancient" aircraft-comprising 15 percent of the service's inventory-that suck up maintenance and personnel funds but are only partially, and sometimes never, deployable. "Let us manage and spend the money in the right place to be able to recapitalize and not have to spend the money and the time [on] airplanes that we don't fly."
The extra $20 billion would supplement the $38.9 billion now slotted for modernization and recapitalization in the Bush administration's fiscal 2008 de-fense budget. Making room for more modernization spending would require more personnel cuts, Moseley said, since operations and maintenance and infrastructure accounts are tapped out.
The Air Force calculates it would save $1.5 billion for every 10,000 airmen trimmed, and plans to trim 40,000 slots by 2009. That would cut the force to 316,000 airmen. Cuts can be absorbed by the Air Force, according to Moseley, because of lessons learned about optimal staffing to sustain combat operations and lower staffing levels needed for the new equipment the service is buying.
But having cut 30,000 airmen over the past two years, the service is reevaluating its personnel needs. Further cuts might not be possible in light of the ongoing expansion of ground forces that will need Air Force support, Moseley said. "In lieu of" assignments of airmen to prison security and other jobs not consistent with their occupational specialties will have to come to an end as such demands increase. Currently, 6,100 airmen are in these ILO positions, and another 15,000 are training for such assignments.
Need for New Planes
The Air Force has a sizable and costly plan to develop and buy new aircraft, satellites and upgrade existing airframes. Its top acquisition priority is an aerial refueling tanker to replace 503 aging KC-135 tankers, the youngest of which is 42 years old. New tankers have been a contentious issue with the Air Force. In 2003, the service tried to push through a $23.5 billion deal to lease Boeing KC-767 tankers, without considering other competitors.
The deal was sidetracked by a procurement scandal that resulted in the resignation of the Air Force secretary and the conviction of two Boeing executives.
The Air Force is being more circumspect with its new $40 billion contract to build 179 new tankers and is examining competing designs from Boeing and a team led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus. An award is expected in December.
Next on the wish list is a new long-range search-and-rescue helicopter to pluck downed pilots from behind enemy lines. In November 2006, the Air Force awarded Boeing a $15 billion contract to build a modified version of the Army's massive Chinook twin rotor helicopter to fill the role. Losing competitors Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin promptly filed protests, supported in part by the Government Accountability Office, which told the Air Force to reissue a proposal, clarifying life-cycle costs for the new aircraft. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on Oct. 24, Moseley said, "From my experience commanding the theater air effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinook is a big, heavy helicopter . . . it's not the one I would've picked." A decision on that contract is expected this fall.
The Air Force also operates a constellation of more than 140 military-civilian imaging, reconnaissance, weather, navigation and communications satellites, all of which need replacing, according to Wynne. "Our space assets are flat wearing out," he said at the Air Force Association, Air and Space Conference, Sept. 24. "Most of the satellites have now exceeded their programmed life spans. Frankly, they should have been replaced long ago." But new satellite programs have experienced significant cost overruns, approaching 100 percent in some cases, and schedule delays of up to six years, according to 2006 GAO testimony. It's estimated that the Space Radar program, a constellation of nine satellites to track moving targets, could end up costing $34 billion.
More controversial, because of the huge sums involved, is the Air Force's desire to modernize its fighter fleet with the newer F-22 and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F-22 program was started in the 1980s to produce a superior stealth fighter that could defeat Soviet MiGs. Production began in 1991 with the goal of building 750 planes. That figure dropped steadily over the years as the strategic environment changed. Now the goal is 183 F-22s, though Moseley said at the Oct. 30 Government Executive event that the Air force needs 381. But the cost seems insurmountable. According to the June 30 Pentagon Selected Acquisition Report, the Air Force will spend $65.3 billion for the F-22s, or $355 million per aircraft when research and development costs are included.
Even more expensive is the F-35 fighter program. It is an interservice buy, with versions for the Navy and Marines, but 72 percent of the aircraft, or 1,763 fighters, are on the Air Force's wish list. Total interservice costs of the program are estimated at $276 billion, according to GAO. The aircraft will replace Air Force F-16 and A-10 fighter and ground attack aircraft.
The huge price tag for development and production of aircraft means the Air Force is forced to buy fewer jets. According to GAO, even with the planned new buys (which would stretch out for more than 20 years), the Air Force's own projections show the fleet shrinking from 2,500 today to about 1,800 by 2025, a vast drop from the 1990 total of 4,000 tactical fighters.
Fighters, SAMs and Bombers
Absent an enemy with large numbers of advanced fighter aircraft, some question the need for even the reduced number of stealth aircraft. The ongoing counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown the utility of large numbers of unmanned aerial drones and the importance of loitering, lumbering bombers that can remain on station for hours on end to provide immediate on-call, close-air support to troops on the ground, says Philip Coyle, a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank.
In past air campaigns against fourth-generation air defenses built in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the United States faced in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003, the Air Force leaned heavily on its stealth aircraft, the F-117 fighter and the B-2 bomber, to clear the way for the nonstealth bombers. But even the stealth F-117 and B-2 are being challenged by fifth-generation air defenses-newer, mainly Russian-built surface-to-air missiles and radars networked into sophisticated defensive systems. These systems also threaten to render the older F-16s and F-15s obsolete, Moseley said.
Because of the high cost of modern fighter aircraft, countries such as Iran and North Korea have invested heavily in air defense systems. The Iranian air force is an "antique show," says David Ochmanek, a senior defense analyst with RAND Corp., a government-funded think tank in Santa Monica, Calif. But the latest generation, Russian-designed SAMs, he says, are "far more capable," with high-powered radars that are difficult to jam and more powerful, faster missiles. And while stealth provides advantages, "everything is visible at a certain range," Ochmanek says.
Barry Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a Vietnam fighter pilot, says if pilots could spot the smoke trails of the earlier generation of SAMs they could outmaneuver them. That doesn't work with the much faster, latest generation SAMs, he says: "If the missile is locked up on you, the only thing you can do is pull the ejection handles and get out of the airplane."
Both the F-22 and the F-35 are much stealthier than the F-117, says Rebecca Grant, an adjunct fellow at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank, and both planes have much greater maneuverability, are much faster and the onboard targeting systems are the latest available. Design and materials have improved significantly since the early 1980s when the stealth fighter was developed, she says. Moseley said both new fighters are stealthy enough to penetrate fifth-generation air defenses.
But he might not get either of the new jets in the numbers he wants. In his Oct. 24 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Wynne said the Air Force was told by the Office of the Secretary of Defense that 381 F-22 jets "will break the bank for the Air Force." Moseley said if the Air Force does not get all the F-22s, it will have to cut the number of jets per squadron from the traditional 24 down to 18. Not only would an F-22 squadron generate fewer sorties than a squadron equipped with 24 F-15E jets, but it could not drop as many bombs per sortie, says CDI's Coyle. To maintain stealth, the F-22 must carry bombs internally, which limits the jet to eight small-diameter bombs. The debate continues within Congress and the Pentagon as to how many short-range fighters are needed. Some had hoped that the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which is supposed to match America's military strategy to resources, would provide answers. It did not.
In an analysis of future fighter needs, CSBA's Watts says advances in targeting and sensor systems mean that fewer jets can attack more targets in a single sortie. Watts makes the point that precision munitions need specific intelligence about the intended target. Today's smart weapons require somebody to program in the target coordinates; they can't search them out themselves. If targets are widely dispersed, hidden or mobile, such as ballistic missile launchers, then the problem of locating them becomes infinitely greater. RAND's Iran war games for the Air Force, directed by Ochmanek, found that "the next Air Force" would do well to have fewer "shooters" and more "finders." The key to accurate air strikes, particularly against potentially mobile targets, is persistent presence of both bombers and aerial drones such as Predator and Global Hawk.
Ochmanek says RAND's Iran scenarios illuminate weaknesses in the Air Force's power projection concept that plans to "deploy a lot of small jets to bases close to their targets and fight from there." Against Iraq and in the air campaign in Kosovo, the concept worked, because neither country "could reach out and touch us," Ochmanek says, and Air Force bases were sanctuaries. But Iran is developing ballistic missiles that are much more capable than were Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles. Aimed at U.S. air fields, they could shut down American air operations. Patriot missile batteries have been dispatched to protect Air Force bases in the Gulf, but it's not a panacea, says Ochmanek: "You have to put them every place you want to protect, and a determined adversary can overwhelm them."
Because of that threat, some argue the Air Force should put greater priority on developing a long-range bomber. "In the near future, you won't have the luxury of parking next to who you're fighting with," says John Warden, a retired Air Force colonel who planned the 1991 Gulf War air campaign. He says any bomber must have a very long range and be capable of getting anywhere very quickly: "We've been pretty lucky for a long time in history where we have a lot of time to make a decision to go to war and get prepared." Future military crises with adversaries possessing weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles will reduce that preparation time to less than 24 hours.
Moseley said the fleet of 97 B-52 and 67 B-1 bombers have proved "wonderful trucks" to use over Iraq and Afghanistan to provide 24-hour air support to ground forces, but they are not survivable against modern air defenses. The Air Force only has 21 B-2 penetrating bombers, he says, and the 2006 QDR directed the service to field a follow-on to the B-2 by 2018. According to Moseley, the Air Force is committed to that time frame.
"We can make 2018 because we've asked industry to look at using existing engines, existing sensors, existing weapons and weapons bays, just like you built the F-117 . . . used internal structures off other airplanes," he said.
Asked if a new bomber was affordable in the 2018 time frame, Moseley replied, "So far."
Costly Replacements
The Air Force hopes to replace its fraying fleet with sophisticated new stealth fighters and tankers, but the high price tag is slowing modernization.
F-22 Fighter
- Air Force wants 381
- Defense Department says only 183 are needed and affordable
- Total program cost is $62.6 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office
- So far, 97 planes have been delivered
- The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments puts acquisition cost per plane at $338 million
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
- Total planned buy of 2,443, of which the Air Force wants 1,763 to replace all F-16s and A-10s by 2025
- According to GAO, program development and acquisition costs now stand at $276 billion, with $347 billion likely in total lifetime operating costs
- GAO estimates per unit aircraft cost at $112 million, a 38 percent increase since 2001
KC-x
- A new aerial refueling tanker is currently in competition
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