Air Force Campaigns to Save Jet Fighter

On a clear day at an Air Force base in Nevada, as a test pilot steered his F/A-22 skyward, the nose of the plane inexplicably turned down, pitching the $250 million fighter jet into the ground.

The pilot, luckily, walked away unscathed. But the crash, which took place just before Christmas, was not only a blow to Air Force pride but also, as it turned out, a bad omen. Days later, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld confirmed reports that the Pentagon planned to cut the number of F/A-22's it would buy by about a third, sending shock waves through the Air Force.

There is no plane more costly or more coveted by the Air Force, which has already spent $40 billion to develop the F/A-22 into a fighter jock's dream, capable of outperforming anything else in the sky.

But even though it is the Air Force's No. 1 priority, the F/A-22 tops the list of $30 billion in weapons programs that Mr. Rumsfeld wants to chop from the fiscal 2006 budget and years beyond as the Bush administration seeks to rein in spending while the costs of the war in Iraq continue unabated and a budget deficit looms.

"The conventional wisdom was that the Air Force would sacrifice their grandmothers to keep this program on track," said Pierre Chao, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan research group that analyzes foreign and military policy. "This cut was a clear surprise."

For the Air Force, and the hundreds of military contractors seeking a piece of the lucrative F/A-22 business, the big question now is whether they can overturn Mr. Rumsfeld's decision. To do so will require more than simply pressing their case to lawmakers.

Just yesterday the campaign for the F/A-22 began in earnest as the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. John Jumper, piloted one over the Florida skies - reaching speeds of Mach 1.7 - before returning to tell waiting reporters that the jet is "all that any of us had hoped it would be and more."

Equally adroit maneuvering, however, will take place on the ground. The decision on whether to keep the money flowing to the F/A-22, which is currently in operational trials, or to halt it by 2008, as Mr. Rumsfeld seeks, touches on a number of other issues - some monetary, some political and some personal.

Underlying the F/A-22 cuts is a policy debate between Mr. Rumsfeld and the Air Force over the future of the military air fleet and the nature of aerial warfare. This debate also sets up a political dogfight between the highly advanced F/A-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter, a cheaper, more prosaic fighter that is supposed to replace the venerable F-16 workhorse, starting in 2013.

Mr. Rumsfeld's decision to provide funds for only 180 F/A-22 Raptors, down from a previously planned 277, suggests that the Air Force has become more vulnerable in Washington's endless bureaucratic wars. That is partly a result of a growing political scandal over Air Force procurement practices that contributed to the resignation of Air Force Secretary James Roche, a staunch F/A-22 supporter.

Two years ago, when Mr. Rumsfeld, never a fan of the F/A-22, first attempted to cut it back, Mr. Roche threatened to resign and Mr. Rumsfeld folded. Today, all Mr. Roche can do is raise an objection on his way out the door.

"With these cuts, Rumsfeld has returned to a goal he first tried in the summer of 2002," said Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a research group in Arlington, Va., that advocates limited government.

"Rumsfeld didn't succeed because of Roche's threats," Mr. Thompson explained. "Now the Air Force is defenseless. Its political leadership is leaving and its uniformed leadership has been discredited by scandal."

Still, the political forces behind the F/A-22 will not go down without a fight. With the work on the project spread over 43 states and two of its biggest contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, among the most powerful lobbying juggernauts in Washington, backers of the F/A-22 will try to persuade Congress to do what Mr. Rumsfeld will not.

Cuts in the F/A-22 program would save about $10 billion, according to Pentagon calculations, with program reductions in aircraft carriers, landing ships and an Army high-tech combat system making up the rest of Mr. Rumsfeld's projected $30 billion in savings.

The bulk of the cutbacks would fall on Lockheed, which stands to lose $18 billion it was counting on from the F/A-22 and other programs. Also feeling the pinch is Northrop Grumman, which makes submarines and other Navy vessels and could lose over $5 billion.

For the F/A-22, "the game has just begun," said Keith Ashdown, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a research group that focuses on ways to cut federal spending. "Lockheed has a battalion of lobbyists and they will be spending millions of dollars hiring the best and the brightest of K Street."

Already, lawmakers from Connecticut, Florida, Georgia and Washington State have raised a chorus of objections.

"We can't let civilian bureaucrats under the current secretary of defense make decisions that could harm the protection of our nation," said Representative Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican whose district includes the F/A-22 manufacturing site near Marietta.

Others chiming in included Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who sits on the Armed Services Committee, and the Republican Senator-elect Johnny Isakson of Georgia, along with 13 other members of Congress, who wrote the White House saying the F/A-22 cuts threaten the nation's "global air superiority requirements."

For its part, Lockheed, the prime contractor, remains cautiously optimistic. Thomas Jurkowsky, a spokesman, termed Mr. Rumsfeld's cuts "a starting point" for the fiscal 2006 budget to be presented to Congress by the White House early next month.

"The White House now has to determine the direction the president wants to take," Mr. Jurkowsky said. "We will want to see what the president proposes and how Congress reacts. Then we will respond accordingly."

Originally designed to take on the best planes the former Soviet Union would have to offer, the F/A-22 has been 23 years in the making and is scheduled to have its first combat-ready fighter wing ready this December. So far, about 25 F/A-22s of about 100 in the production pipeline have been completed.

Responding in part to changing global threats, the F/A-22 was redesigned to allow it to make air-to-ground attacks and not just engage in aerial combat against other fighter jets.

It is the most technologically advanced plane ever conceived - more lethal, more stealthy, more capable of sustaining high speeds for prolonged periods. Able to fly at over 1,000 miles an hour, it was developed to preserve American global air superiority and replace aging F-15's, F-16's, and F/A-18's.

"It's a plane that sends a message to the world, 'Don't even think about competing with the U.S.,' " said William C. Bodie, a vice president at DFI International, a corporate consulting firm in Washington, who was once a special assistant to Mr. Roche.

That is one reason the Air Force still thinks it has a good argument. Initially, it recommended that Mr. Rumsfeld cut the number of Joint Strike Fighters and leave the F/A-22 alone. While not getting into specific numbers, General Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, said last month that he was open to scaling back the planned purchase of 1,763 Joint Strike Fighters to spare money for the F/A-22.

Marvin R. Sambur, the outgoing head of acquisitions for the Air Force, said the service would make the case for its ultimate goal of 381 F/A-22's at the coming Quadrennial Defense Review, a once-every-four-year Pentagon report to Congress on future military strategy, threats and procurement requirements.

Mr. Sambur rejects the notion that the F/A-22 is a Cold War relic and instead calls it a vision of the future. Early investigations into the Nevada accident, the first for an operational F/A-22, point to problems with the airplane's software and flight controls. While the fleet was grounded briefly after the crash, the planes have since returned to the skies while an investigation continues.

Mr. Sambur, also takes issue with the celebrated $250-million-a-plane price tag, saying it includes all research and development costs to date spread over the number of planes to be made. A more accurate price tag, he says, is around $115 million a plane, the actual cost of making a new F/A-22 today.

"The cost going forward is significantly less than the $250 million everyone is talking about," Mr. Sambur said. "You compare the incremental price to the cost of a new F-15, which is far less capable, and the difference is relatively small."

In a world where inexpensive surface-to-air missile systems can be easily acquired by potential enemies, the F/A-22 is so stealthy and maneuverable that it can shoot down these systems and escape, quite literally, faster than a speeding bullet. Other planes in the Air Force's fleet are more vulnerable to being shot down from the ground while on the search-and-destroy missions that aid ground troops.

"Our air domination is taken for granted," Mr. Sambur said, "but it is the key for everything else on the battlefield."

Besides, Mr. Sambur said, the F/A-22 will be combat-ready by December, while the Joint Strike Fighter cannot be fielded until 2013.

"That means we have an eight-year delay until the Joint Strike Fighter comes on," Mr. Sambur added. "We'd like to take advantage of having more F/A-22's and delay some of the Joint Strike Fighters."

The Joint Strike Fighter, currently in development, is intended to be a plane for all services and for all countries. It is being developed jointly by the United States, Britain and other European allies and will be produced in versions for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines.

It will have one engine, where the F/A-22 has two, and with its simpler design and less sophisticated technology, it is expected to have a much smaller price tag of $40 million to $50 million a plane.

But because the Joint Strike Fighter will be purchased by three services and because it, too, has manufacturing spread across the country, it has a lot of political firepower inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

In the end, the decisions on both planes will probably turn as much on politics as on military policy.

"The F/A-22 program will be cut," said Steven M. Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a research group in Washington that favors transformation of the military into a more flexible force. "But how much precisely is hard to say. Everyone agrees it's a good plane to have. But do we need 300 of them?"

I think though planned the Hog won't die even when JSF comes on line. This thing is just unmatched at CAS from its platform characteristics.

Even though the AF is starving funds for it and just recently upgraded from the Pave Penny (All the AF cares about is fighters), still has all steam gages, no high tech electronics/avionics, no major ECM type capabilities etc this machine is STILL awesome.

The AF tried killing the HOG after the fall of the wall, then came Desert Storm.

They wanted to kill it after desert storm and then came the Balkans.

After the Balkans they wanted to kill it and then came Afghanistan.

Of course, it was used in Iraq in 2003 as well.

The HOG can carry a lot, loiter a long time, sustain serious damage and the 30mm is a capable weapon. It’s obvious the AF sees the HOG as a bastard child though. They do as little as possible and LESS capable CAS platforms had lots of money pumped into them to increase their capabilities while the HOG (From it’s base design is more capable) is let in the dark and starved for funds and is let aging.

Despite all the theorizing and starving for funds, in the end this platform is from its concept in design extremely capable for CAS and I think the JSF will not be able to fill its shoes, despite what they say. The AF thinks strategic more than the Army. A bunch of fighter Jocks (Fighter mafia) who are generals leads them. The AF seems to loose perspective or not care for what is needed in the close in fight on ground. It’s all about fighters for them and the A10 is a victim of perceived priorities.

“Viva la HOG!” But that’s the typical answer you’ll hear from a ground pounder such as I.

Red6

Thank you for reminding me about flight medicine. Please check FLIGHT SURGEON'S GUIDE from the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine and look in Chapter 4 about G-induced loss of consciousness. There's no point in buying aircraft with flight characteristics that exceed human tolerance.

IIRC, the UAV used a Hellfire to nail about 4 - 6 Al Qaeda guys in a vehicle in Yemen. We thought we saw Osama in Afghanistan with a UAV, but they had not yet been armed in the earlier versions.

Depending on load out, altitude etc the aircraft may only be able to achieve less than the maximum listed structural g limit. An aircraft may be rated at 9g but under certain instances can only push 7.5. The F22 will be able to do things at speeds where the F16 would get spanked.

A F15 can’t sustain some of the turns which it may do instantaneous. A F22 can turn and turn and turn while the other runs out of energy. No energy=dead.

More electricity=see further and jam better. TWO really big F**ing engines provide lots of power both for a fight (maneuver) and for a radar. One over Radius Squared.

Think of the F22 and F35 as a F15 and F16 with stealth respectively. (Conceptually)

No stealth=modern radar and air to air missiles see you really far and clear. Soon it will no longer be viable to fly with a 6square meter RCS (F4) frontal. There won't even be holes in the IADS where you can squeeze a conventional 4th GEN airframe through. You’ll get seen from far away, you’ll be shot at from far away. Finally, you’ll die stupid, never knowing you were even shot at.

But that’s just how I see it.

Red6

Sort of off the topic, but due to the down-sizing of our military, what we have left has to be more effective. I notice a lot of articles recently in the various media about Reserves and people who have left the Guard, some years ago, being recalled.

The training needed to put a pilot in a front line aircraft is considerably more than training someone to fly a drone. There is such a shortage of trained people that the services are forced to extend tours of duty as well as call up those whose service obligations are completed.

By having an aircraft such as the F-35 which is supposed to be able to do it all, less pilots would be needed as well as less overall aircraft. While I can see the logic of this arguement, what it means is that in order to save a little money, we are giving our troops less than the best to do their job with. I had hoped the unarmoured Humvee issue had taught the government a lesson.

From the first paragraph in the link of comment# 42:

INTRODUCTION

Aeromedical concern about the effects of acceleration has a long history. Concern was first stimulated during World War I when pilots complained of a loss of vision and consciousness during pullouts from dives in aerial combat. Interest in this area has continued until the present day, where the effects of sustained acceleration have become a major limiting factor in the operation of the newer generation fighter aircraft (F-15, F-16, F-18). Because of their high thrust-to-weight ratios and structural strength these aircraft are able to routinely fly in the 7 to 9 +Gz range for sustained periods. Future aircraft designs such as the advanced tactical fighter (ATF) will make it possible to fly in the 10 to 12 +Gz range if the human limitations to such operations can be overcome.

I'm a doc, not a flyboy. Could you translate or explain the following?

Soon it will no longer be viable to fly with a 6square meter RCS(radar cross section?) (F4) frontal(?). There won't even be holes in the IADS(improved air defense system?)where you can squeeze a conventional 4th GEN(eration?)airframe through.

Poohbah, any comments?

(RCS) Radar Cross Section.

(IADS) Integrated Air Defense System.

4th Generation fighter. (Example F14, 15, 16, 18)

F4 phantom has a RCS somewhere around 6 square meters. A JSF will have LESS than 1/10 that.

A F16 with a GE power plant will whip a Pratt and Whitney at low flight. The Pratt will win at altitude. Both have similar thrust and both have the same airframe. There are differences in performance because of “how” thrust is developed, altitude, load out, instantaneous and sustained turning abilities, complexity in the wing design and what it can do to help turn, avionics which help turn the plane (F16/18)……. and much more influence how well a plane turns. These issues are WAY over simplified here. A F18 turns better than a F16 but both are rated at 9g. The key difference between the new and older planes is STEALTH. I don’t think any of these planes will seriously fly in a 12g range. But fact is a F16 in certain maneuvers will run out of speed, as it does so it must exchange altitude to keep up the pace. A plane like a Raptor has lots and lots of power. It is capable of enormous performance without afterburner. Sometimes you want performance but no afterburner. The plane can turn on a dime and SUSTAIN it. It has a reduced RCS and is capable of penetrating enemy air defense and is less vulnerable against capable radar AAMs.

But that’s just what I think.

Red6

If we can swear that we will only fight guerrillas, then we don't need Raptor. But our enemies deploy guerrillas because they dare not confront us openly. If we no longer have clear military superiority, if we no longer have clear air superiority, we will find ourselves confronted at that level.

China will be our main opponent in the 21st Century. They have the economy. They have the smarts. And they are old hands at playing patient and subtle games.

There is a lot of evidence they are playing behind the scenes at promoting the current conflict between the Islamists and us. It goes with Maoist principal: make us expend our strength and fortune fighting a succession of minor enemies, while China sits back and builds her capacity

The advantage the agressor has, is that he gets to choose when to attack. Which means that he doesn't need to spend that much on military hardware until shortly before it's time to play

The Question Is," Do we Own the Skies Now, & WILL WE "Own the Skies" in 10, 20, 30 years!

Our "Best Minds" are "Focused on" the Next Few Decades.

The "F/A22" is a "Project Designed For" "Conflicts of" the NEXT couple of Decades.

WHATEVER Challenges "Western Culture" faces in the next few Decades, there is LITTLE DOUBT that we will need a "Military Equalizer"!

The "F/A22" & OTHER technological achievements will be ESSENTIAL to preserve our Civilization!

There is OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that there are EVIL FORCES "at Play!!"

"Radical Islam" presents a PRIME EXAMPLE of the "EVIL FORCES arrayed "against Us!"

Doc

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