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Air Force Of The Future
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Armed Forces Journal
September 2004
Pg. 24

Air Force Of The Future

Betting on expensive, high-tech promises

By Laura M. Colarusso

It’s no secret the F/A-22 Raptor maintains funding priority on the Air Force’s 2006 budget wish list. Over the past few years, in the face of growing criticism, service officials fought for the program like a bear for her cubs, saying the $200 million-per-copy jet is the centerpiece of Air Force transformation.

Proponents of the program boast that the next-generation fighter jet is transformational because it will have supercruise capability, integrated avionics and advanced stealth features that will allow it to attack fast-moving ground targets or an enemy cruise missile headed for American soil.

Critics say the F/A-22 is a Cold War relic and point out the program is over budget and behind schedule. The $71 billion allocated to development and production of the Raptor would be better spent on other programs, they argue. Yet, the Raptor has remained aloft despite attempts by both civilian Pentagon planners and congressional naysayers to kill production.

Plans call for the Air Force to purchase about 220 of the fighters to begin replacing its aging F-15 fleet. As a complement, the Air Force wants to acquire more than 1,700 stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs). But aging weapon systems, shrinking budgets and emerging geopolitical realities may force the service to divert some of its energies and funding away from modernizing fighter fleets.

Service officials are hastening efforts to acquire new long-range strike capabilities, which Air Force and industry sources say is a sign the service has come to terms with the reality that it needs to update more than just its fighters.

The evidence: an April 29 two-page Air Force request for information. The document asked defense contractors for ideas to “substantially” improve the Air Force’s near-term strike capability. These new capabilities, whether they come in the form of an upgrade to a bomber or a new airplane or system, should be ready for fielding by 2015, the request states. An official program could begin as early as 2006, and operational capability should occur by 2020, the document states.

This acquisition schedule is aggressive, particularly when compared with the F/A-22, which is still in testing 20 years after the formal program began.

‘NOT A PANIC’

An Air Force source familiar with bomber planning said the immediacy stems from fear that the service has an imperfect mix of combat aircraft.

“It’s not a panic,” the source said. “It’s the looming reality that we are running out of time.”

Air Force officials have long maintained that bomber fleets — composed of the B-1, B-2 and B-52 — will last another 30 years, so they allocated available investment dollars toward modernizing fighter fleets with the Raptor and JSF. But because forward basing may be unavailable, the Air Force has had to rethink fighter and bomber numbers.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. aircraft had access to nearby bases in Kuwait and Qatar.

“We are unlikely to encounter such a luxury in subsequent conflicts,” Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley stated in written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on March 3. “In the future, we will require deep-strike capabilities to penetrate and engage high-value targets during the first minutes of hostilities anywhere in the battle space.”

Moseley’s testimony underscores a fundamental Air Force problem. Its inventory is built around 2,400 “short-legged” tactical jets such as the F-15, F-16 and A-10, and the service spends billions to buy more. The B-1 and B-52 bombers are vulnerable to modern surface-to-air missiles, and the service has just 21 stealthy, long-range B-2s.

“If you’re looking at Turkey as the model of the future, the front-line states are not going to give you basing rights, and you can’t do short-range strike missions,” said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org. “If you can’t get any closer to the targets than Diego Garcia or Guam, what kind of airplane are you going to use? You’re not going to fly a bunch of Joint Strike Fighters halfway around the planet.”

NEW UAV PROGRAM

Long-range capability appears to be the critical element in Air Force thinking. Service officials also are developing a classified long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is stealthy and supersonic, for reconnaissance missions. This UAV would fill gaps in next-generation satellite information-gathering capabilities.

“The availability of survivable unmanned vehicles that can deliver weapons or collect intelligence at great distance in relatively quick periods of time will literally revolutionize the way missions are planned and wars are executed,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Group. “What we’re talking about is getting beyond traditional performance trade-offs like speed versus stealth or agility versus endurance.”

Details of the new program are sketchy, and it remains unclear how large the air vehicle would be, how many would be built or how much one would cost. However, defense analysts say the program’s price tag runs well into the billions of dollars.

Air Force Secretary James Roche declined to comment specifically on the classified effort, but said he wants a balance between space and air-breathing reconnaissance systems.

“Blackening the sky with satellites isn’t the answer. What we are talking about and doing is developing a range of capabilities, because you can’t do everything from space.”

UAVs fill important roles in current military operations, and the services’ reliance on unmanned platforms shows no signs of abating. In fact, UAV procurement accounts are expected to grow to $3 billion by 2010 (see sidebar).

The combination of speed, stealth and unmanned capabilities is something Air Force officials have been interested in to round out the attributes needed for the Global Strike Task Force. The task force is a mix of aircraft designed to “kick down the door” during the first days of a conflict, said Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. Stealth attributes are particularly important, Jumper said, because they allow jets to elude and then defeat enemy air defenses so less survivable assets, such as the F-15, can be brought to the fight.

HIGH PRICE TAG

Transformation won’t just be about what new technologies the Air Force will procure, but also how the service can afford them.

“Our nation is heading into a period of tremendous fiscal pressures,” Lt. Gen. Duncan McNabb, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said during a June 22 speech in Arlington, Va. “Between 2010 and 2030, we’re going to see close to 30 million baby boomers retiring and coming onto the books for Medicare and Social Security, but only 10 million new wage earners joining the work force.”

Most defense analysts, independent observers and even some generals agree that, for a number of reasons, the Air Force of the future will be smaller than today’s. The cost of fielding new systems will have to be offset, at least partially, by large-scale aircraft retirements. The service won’t be able to afford high maintenance costs required to keep aging fleets in the air. And, with the next round of base closures slated to begin in 2005, fewer bases will mean less ramp space to park jets.

But it’s also a matter of subtraction. The F/A-22 and the JSF likely won’t be bought in numbers sufficient to replace, on a one-for-one basis, the nearly 2,400 fighters in the Air Force inventory.

Several senior generals already have hinted that aircraft retirements are on the horizon and the size of the Air Force will be reduced.

“I predict that we will be significantly smaller in the next 20 years,” said Gen. Hal Hornburg, commander of Air Combat Command, during a June 23 round-table discussion with reporters in Washington. A day earlier, McNabb made similar comments during his speech.

“As we modernize to a fleet built around stealth, unmanned, global-strike and new space and mobility systems, we can retire substantial numbers of legacy ‘tails,’” McNabb said. “We save on long-term operations and maintenance costs, and, even though the fleet is physically smaller, we actually increase our net capabilities.”

The F-16 Fighting Falcon community might be the hardest hit in the near term. Air Force officials look to retire close to half the F-16s to save money for other initiatives and prepare for base closures, said service and industry sources.

Potential F-16 cuts stem from the Air Force not using “even half” of its combat aircraft in current contingencies, said a defense industry consultant who asked to remain anonymous.

“Since the beginning of the year, there has been a plan to give up several hundred fighters to bring force structure into alignment with current needs,” he said.

Air Force officials declined to give details of possible retirements because no decisions have been made.

It appears F-16 retirements would impact the Air National Guard, which operates some of the oldest Falcons. The retirements would come at a time when homeland defense policy relies heavily on the Guard to perform combat air patrol missions over select U.S. cities.

Aircraft retirements are not new. The Air Force’s inventory declined steadily during the past 50 years. It peaked in the 1950s with more than 20,000 aircraft. In 2001, that number barely topped 6,100, according to the Air Force Statistical Digest.

Hornburg, McNabb and others argue that even though the Air Force will shrink, it won’t be less capable because technological advancements such as advanced avionics and supercruise — the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds without afterburners — of the F/A-22, and advances in precision-guided munitions like the Small Diameter Bomb, will make up for fewer planes. In essence, the Air Force says it will do more with less.

“Technology … enables fundamental reforms in our force structure,” McNabb said, referring to aircraft reductions.

But this hypothesis has doubters who point to the number of ongoing conflicts around the world. Between operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and the nonstop combat air patrol missions to protect American skies, the Air Force inventory has been strained since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then there’s the need for more aircraft for unit training and a reserve to replace lost planes.

The F/A-22 illustrates this point, a defense contractor who works at the Pentagon pointed out. The Air Force has said the F/A-22 fleet will be able to “kick down the door” during the first days of a battle, carry out both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions and hunt down cruise missiles in the event of a launch against the United States. But a silver bullet force of about 220 — far less than the 381 the Air Force said would be necessary for 10 air expeditionary forces, training and attrition reserve — will not be enough to simultaneously perform the functions Air Force officials advertised for the fleet.

“Quantity has a certain quality,” the contractor said. “It doesn’t matter how transformational the technology is: A plane can only be in one place at a time.”

Laura M. Colarusso writes for AFJ’s sister publication, Air Force Times. Vago Muradian, editor of Defense News, contri