Don’t Worry About Disbanding The Air Force

10/26/2007

Aviation Week's DTI | Bill Sweetman | October 26, 2007


We can all argue for days about disbanding the Air Force. It's no doubt a hot and emotional argument among the Army and Marines -- the same argument's been made since Dunkirk, and well before that.

But there's no need to argue, because as testimony this week makes clear, the process is already under way.

The key quote from USAF Secretary Michael Wynne: "In the 1990s, the Air Force deliberately chose to assume risk in modernization and, instead, sustained aging weapon systems throughout continual combat operations.

"The tragedies on 9/11 and resulting War on Terror regrettably coincided with the period when the Air Force expected to recover and begin a true force-wide re-capitalization."

Basically, in the 1990s, the USAF elected to finish the Cold War B-2 and F-22 programs and defer replacement of other aircraft, including the fighter and transport force. The result is that the USAF today has three major programs on the books. Two are support elements -- CSAR-X and a new tanker.

The other is the Joint Strike Fighter. However, the key to the project's survival is that the Marines want it -- in the process, adding billions and several years to the development process and compromising its performance relative to what could be done with a CTOL fighter.

It's also increasingly clear that short-range fighters alone will not sustain future air campaigns. The diplomatic and logistical difficulties of acquiring and sustaining bases are limiting. But as Wynne points out, nations as small as Venezuela are acquiring the ability to deny their airspace to B-1Bs and B-52s.

Meanwhile, the Army and Marines are getting billions for Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, in the process rendering the C-130 fleet useless; as a result, the Army wants to control another vast program to develop a helicopter or tilt rotor, and Boeing's even thinking of selling C-17s to the Army. The Army has also foisted a new tactical transport on the USAF (the JCA) and is buying its own fleet of UCAVs that will be compatible with an Army-only ground control system. And then there is a $120-billion program to replace everything else the Army owns.

The Navy, meanwhile, gets what is essentially an all-new aircraft carrier and a new destroyer, its biggest surface combatant in decades.

Apart from Northrop Grumman, the industry appears to be reading the tea-leaves and deserting Air Force programs.

As one observer comments on recent third-quarter conference calls: "Neither Lockheed Martin nor Boeing listed any new military aircraft programs (beyond KC-X and BAMS) among their opportunities for 2008... Lockheed Martin's management seems fully absorbed with execution of existing programs, not new business, and Boeing's management is so obsessed with 787 right now that IDS (defense) was barely discussed."