This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz said increasing production rates for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and developing the next-generation bomber are at the top of his wish list of projects to fund if the service had more money.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on the Air Force’s $160.5 billion fiscal 2010 budget request May 19, Schwartz said service leaders felt they had enough tactical aircraft capability despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to halt F-22 Raptor procurement at 187 aircraft.
The Air Force chief said the service’s leadership believed it was a “prudent opportunity to accelerate the retirement of older aircraft.” The FY ’10 budget calls for retiring 250 F-15s, F-16s and A-10s, enabling the Air Force to redistribute more than $3.5 billion over the next six years to modernize combat air forces into a “smaller but more capable force,” Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told lawmakers in joint written testimony.
Schwartz did say more money would make it easier and faster to upgrade remaining legacy aircraft and make modifications to the F-22 until the F-35 starts rolling off the line in large numbers.
Schwartz said the Air Force would like to see F-35 production boosted to at least 80 aircraft and perhaps as many as 110 per year before the F-16s start retiring in large numbers.
Committee members, including Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Rep. John McHugh (N.Y.), the senior Republican on the panel, worried about producing and flying an aircraft while it was still being tested.
Donley conceded budget constraints compelled the Air Force to make some difficult calls. If there was more money “we might have made some different choices,” Schwartz added. But both leaders insisted the Air Force was not short-changing itself.
The chief of staff said his wish list also included developing plans for the future long-range strike capability. “We need, through the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] and the NPR [Nuclear Posture Review] to get our secretary of defense comfortable with the parameters of what we propose for that platform.”
Read the rest of this story, see who’s calling for more laser power, see if it’s a drone or a toy and read the USAF wish list for 2010 from our friends at Aviation Week, exclusively on Military.com.
– Christian
Tanker should be on the top of the wish list. I like that the NGB is pretty high up, but they better not mess it up like they did with the B-2s and only make 21!
And produce more Raptors!
The tanker isn’t on the wish-list, its on the go-list, unless I’ve egregiously overlooked something.
It’s also unfair to pick on the B-2.. it was a different aircraft for a different time in American history. We only needed a few short of two-dozen because they were carrying the bombs that would mark the beginning of the would-be end war. Nowadays, we actually have the audacity to expect big Soviet-killers to actually be able to do something practical.
It looks like a reasonable wish list to me. I also like the idea of a smaller inventory of high-price planes. In the era of brushfire wars (no downplaying intended), our whole air force ends up being over-engineered for COIN and CT operations anyway.. first echelon advanced stealth air force for air superiority, and less-expensive drone fleet for exploiting it, in my opinion.
JH & Earlydawn,
RE: B-2
I think perhaps you are both materially correct.
It sounds like JH is asserting that the powers that be screwed up in not buying enough B-2s versus buying B-2s per se. It also sounds like Earlydawn is stating that the powers that be perceived the B-2 as being a nuclear asset and that we did not need as many nuclear assets at the end of the Cold War as we did during the Cold War.
That the AF in general did not appreciate or sell the conventional capability that was buit in to the B-2 to the extent it should have was largely due to:
1. The SAC single-mindedness on the idea that ONLY “nuclear” equaled “strategic” that arose post-Manhatten Project since the ‘50s
and
2. The general under-appreciation for the quantum increase in conventional weapon effectiveness that came about through the ‘precision’ revolution by ALL of the Defense Establishment (for a lot of reasons).
Because the Fighter Mafia was running the AF after SAC defacto abdicated the Airpower leadership mantle in the late 60’s through early 70s, they (AF Leadership) didn’t even think of the bomber for the conventional mission at the time Colin Powell and his “Base Force” structure for the post Cold War military was put together. Aspin (spit) and his first so-called Bottom-Up Review was biased against Bombers on principle, due to Aspin’s (spit) anti-military bent. Whether he was merely naive or philosophically bankrupt on Defense I will leave to History to determine, but it was in eveidence even when he was in the House of Representatives that he was ‘anti’ long range strike in particular.
When this force sizing was all going down, there were people in the know who DID know that we should have bought at least twice as many B-2s as we did. The Dems and their allies on the left and in the media (but I repeat myself) were just SO hot to sell their ‘Peace Dividend’ tripe that no one would have listened anyway.
A potential restart on the NGB would allow the AF to correct some woefully deficient design and mission need assumptions — especially the pitifully short (for a LRS asset) range criteria.
@ JH
thats the problem.
Cause as a person you is countless times more wiser then me on the subject sayed:
AF number will never be 4 digit. 2000 max planes for all buyers.
And I think he is right.
political term: smaller more lethal force.
real meaning: downgrade forces, hire more civilian contractors and keep up pie in the sky projects that never leave the napkin doodle phase.
So…this is what like the third time they have tried to get rid of the A-10 right? The last time I checked, third time’s a charm doesn’t really work for the Air Force. I would hate to see that bird be relegated to the history books. It still is helpful in ways the F-35 could never be as effective. It has more speed and range than an Apache and has a lot more protection from ground fire than anything in the Air Force inventory.
Nothing like that 30mm Avenger Cannon roaring to life and firing milk bottle sized shells of DU into an enemy position. As Larry the Cable Guy would say “Git-R-Dun!”
I still personally think we buy more raptors (300+ total), buy less F-35s (750ish total), buy/upgrade more ‘4th gen’ fighters and drones to fill out the tacical AF. The all stealth AF doesn’t make too much sense. Even the Hi-Lo mix doesn’t make sense. It should be more of a Hi-Mid-Lo mix. With enough of the Hi-Mid (F-22s and F-35s…probably just the F-35s would suffice) to dominate the skys in a ‘brushfire’ war we can send in the Lo end of the mix which would be the ‘4th gen’ CAS fighters/drones. But we still need enough Hi-Mid aircraft for the less survivable ‘non-brushfire’ wars.
What is the NGB’s mission? And it seems like the AF needs 2 new bombers. One highly survivable and the other a ‘bomb truck’.
Big waste of funds! Quick trying to make large stealthy objects!
Create a new generation of stealthy cruise missiles and buy cheap standoff delivery vehicles.
Maybe_I_Know_Something
It is 900max of JSFs for the AF anyways.
Musson,
the lasted stealth crusie missle are to be put out of service.
I donr thing an stealth one way weapon is the way to go. In that sense stealth airplanes are a good thing.
Why LRS?
Easy to illustrate (with only a little math.
First: Get a globe.
Second: Select a ‘safe’ air refueling distance from hostile territory (your choice).
Third: Measure the distance between the most ‘inland’ point on the planet and the open airspace (usually over ocean)
Fourth: Add the safe refueling distance to the inland point distance.
Fifth: Multiply by 2 (in and out y’know)
Options:
a. If you worry about Naval pickets offshore add the distance you expect them to be offshore (x2) as well.
b. If you care about operations costs, add as much range as possible without making an infeasible aircraft design in the end, because gas is ONLY an order of magnitude more expensive per pound when delivered in the air than at home station.
Cruise Missiles?
Cost out a cruise missile. Any of them. They are cost effective for general use only if you never use them. In 2000, the cost of attacking 1000 aimpoints with Tomahawks could have also bought you an Aegis Cruiser. (that is IF the tomahawks were 100% effective AND suitable for all aimpoints — neither of which is true)
BTW, the conventional JASSM is LO. Not as LO as the TSSAM by a longshot, but it was determined by the req’ts types once upon a time to be LO ‘enough’.
Stealth Cruise missiles are not a good idea.
Stealth technology is expensive, and hard to maintain and fix; thats alot of money, time and energy to be pouring into a one way platform.
Secondly, what is going to launch your stealth missile? B-52? thats a sixty year old platform. B-1B? Might not fit the bomb bays, B-2? There ain’t enough of them to launch many, and there aren’t enough available.
F-22s and F-35s are going to have a hard time fitting a long range cruise missile into their bays. F-15 and F-16 don’t have the range to get into launch position. With any of those “small” planes, you’d have to sacrifice range and payload to fit the missile. You’d be better buying SLAMers from the navy.
No, the answer is new bombers. Then possibly new missiles to launch from the new bombers, if the bombers themselves aren’t stealth.
A conventional cruise missile is stealth to an extent, considering its small size, low altitude flight path, and the ability to launch large numbers of them.
What we really need, is a simple straight forward replacement for the AGM-86 family of ALCMs.
Cruise Missile Cult Alert!
With the advent of Stealth, standoff attack is NOW ALWAYS more expensive than direct attack. This is true because indirect attack requires more technology (read = more cost) than direct attack which also means there are more things to go wrong over a longer period of time that it takes to get to the target.
Weapon complexity rises with range. A JDAM or SDB w/o deployable lift devices has fewer things to go wrong than equivalent systems with range extension devices. Add a rocket booster and there is something else to go wrong.
Cruise missiles are harder still. Small jet engines are designed (for cost purposes) to work just long enough to get the missile to a target and not much more. They have to be able to sit for a decade in a container and fire up the first time every time. Explosive devices to deploy surfaces and shed covers have to all fire in the proper order at the proper time. The (cost-saving single point failure) onboard generator has to power the electronics for a relatively long time without interruption or variance (short range weapons typically use a powerful battery or gas grain generator, or something similar to generate power just long enough to get to the target).
More complex seeker/sensors have more failure modes. On a cruise missile they have to either work longer or be more precisely timed to activate early enough to be effective but not too early that they run out of power or cooling.
I won’t get into how unsuitable cruise missile warheads and attack profiles (that give them their survivability) are often have insufficient kinetic energy for classes of targets.
Cruise missiles are good when the target is relatively soft, high-priotity, and too high risk for direct attack. A very small subset of potential aimpoints ESPECIALLY against the remaining, and rapidly burrowing, Axis of Evil.
Oops.
Should read “Soft, high-prioRITY“
(Other errors not amusing enough to correct)
Why are we retiring any A-10 aircraft? Shouldn’t we be making more of them? I know the airforce hates them but every single guy I have talked to that made the march to Bagdad (Mostly 3id) just couldn’t get enough of those things. I wouldn’t go into the amazing things it can do while supporting the troops up close cause I am sure you all already know, which is why I am asking. Why are we retiring any A-10 aircraft?
Why are we retiring A10s?
The USAF hates them. They tried once before to retire them but saner minds prevailed and the USAF was forced to keep them for CAS. As an ex-USAF myself, if the Army wants them and the USAF doesn’t, then give the planes to the Army. Makes both groups happy.
What about a small plane that has the A-10’s main gun and is remotely controled. I know that “small” and “A-10’s main gun” are oxymoronic, but What about shortening the barrel? This way you have an aircraft that can take off from small airstrips and you aren’t risking a pilot’s life because the plane is remotely controlled.
Mac is right. Good posts.
Oh, and I almost forgot.. “Go, submarines!”
Maybe I am talking bull.… but what about a drone A-10 using the technology of the reaper and the 700 A-10 in storage .… http://warisboring.com/?p=2151
Maybe I am talking bull.… but what about a drone A-10 using the technology of the reaper and the 700 A-10 in storage .… http://warisboring.com/?p=2151
@Matthew D. Brasel Jr.
Ok, I don’t know if you have ever had any experience with an A-10, or it’s 30MM cannon, the GAU-8A, but you can’t just drop that thing into a reaper and call it good. The A-10 is a perfect match for the Gau-8 simply because of it’s size. The entire weight of the cannon, including a full drum, is about 2 tons. That’s the entire payload of the Mq-9, and more than 4 times the payload of the predator. The A-10’s got that, and an a**-ton of ordinance, to boot. You can’t replace the Tank Hunter. Although, transfer of ownership from USAF to USA makes a bunch more sense. If they want CAS, let’s give it to them.
AMMO.
I am talking exactly the oposite.Make the A-10 in storage in some lost desert a remoted controled aircraft.I read that we already make with Phantom for use as target.I have not any experience with a A-10 and this is only a though.BUT some times is cheap refurbished that brand new.
Wait a minute.
First they complain about the cuts to the F-22 buy being some sort of national security apocalypse, and now they say they have enough tactical capability and would spend additional funds elsewhere?
Time to get these guys to answer what they would cut if they had LESS money. Clearly, they are desperate to spend money on their pet projects, regardless of whether it makes sense for the country or not. Transfer the money to the services that have their priorities straight.
SMSgt Mac
I don’t want to use the A-10 like a long strike next generation bomber.I am talking about use all 700 A-10 rusting in the desert ‚made a remote controled plane like a reaper and use it like close air support. We refurbished a lot of M1 Abrams .Could we make with the A-10?Shoul be cheap that make a new airplane? I am not sure if is posible, just asking
Good Evening Folks,
I’m not really interested in this topic but there is one point on stealth that I would like to bring up. During the ten years of no fly over Iraq one tactic evolved and that was how to defeat the Soviet/Russian S-300 ADM Systems.
These systems, there are several variants have been so throughly defeated that the bad guys don’t even bother to turn them on because they know that with in seconds a plain Jane JADAM II will come down their radar beam. Manning an ADM system against the U.S. Air Force or Navy is a suicide mission.
Another bit of intell. is that the Predator A flies so slow that even down below 5K ft. it can not be picked up by most radar systems, thats why the can fly in any air space with immunity from being shot down by ground fire or shoulder fired missiles.
The Russians are so despondent about this that they have for all practical purposes stopped development of an S-400 ADM System. The era of “active radar” would appear to be over.
Of course the defense industry would rather that this not be widely known, Congress historically slow to pick up on technology since anything that had the word “stealth” attached to it double or more in price.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Iraq had NO S-300 systems in 1991 OR 2002.
They wanted them, and were trying hard to get them in ’02 but they did not have them. Which pretty much characterizes the ‘accuracy’ of the rest of that ‘intell’ as well.