Fighter Aircraft

Like our bombers and missiles, our fighter aircraft are exploding in cost and imploding in sheer numbers.

Look at the case of the F-16 Fighter. It costs about half as much as the F-15 Fighter and outnumbers the latter by about 3 to 1. Similarly, the F-18 costs much less than the F-14 while also outnumbering them by about 5 to 1.

At the same time, both the F16 and the F18 have now been in production for about 25 years and, from all appearances, these fighters, or variants of them, will need to remain mainstays of our Defense for another 10 to 20 years. This is a record.

Behind the experience of the current fleet of U.S. jet fighters, one finds a similar story. Where once DoD purchased F-86, and F-84 fighters in the thousands, the fleet buys of the Century Series fighters - F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-4, F-105, and F-106 - were more restricted. At the same time, the F–14 with its vaunted beyond-visual-range, multi-mode Phoenix missile has remained largely unused. Why? In part, because the F-14 is committed to defense of the carriers, and because the US Navy's excellent fighter pilots have seldom been committed to significant air battles.²

In 1970, an Air Force "Force Structure Group" concluded that the purchase of the F-15A Fighters would require a reduction in the size of the Air Force's Tactical Air command from 19.5 to 18 fighter wings. It also concluded that if the cost of the F-15 increased much more, the Force would need to be reduced to 15 wings.

These revelations spurred me to conceive and advocate a novel, lightweight, low-cost fighter that could increase the size of our air superiority fleet. The result of the effort was the F-16 program of the Air force and the F-18 program of the Navy.

The F-16 was created outside the normal acquisition system and thus does not offer the classic example of unilateral disarmament that the F-22 procurement program does.

With the F-22, all the ingredients for unilateral disarmament appear to have come into play - the early overstatement of capabilities, the early understatement of costs, and an overall failure to adequately explain what the aircraft would be able to do.

The F-22 was conceived on my watch at the Flight Dynamics Laboratory. It was intended to be able to fly deep into the heart of the former Soviet Union at supersonic speeds and without being detected so as to intercept and destroy Russian bomber well before they could carry and drop nuclear bombs on the United States or our allies. The success of the F-22 was to be guaranteed by 70,000 lbs of thrust driving a 50,000 lb aircraft. It was to have "magical" avionics, providing its pilot great battle awareness. And it was projected to fulfill its mission at a bargain basement cost per unit of about $50 million or about the same price as the F-15C, the aircraft it was meant to replace.

The F-22 fleet initially was projected at 800 aircraft and a total cost of $40 billion. The idea of this fleet was that it would provide the air superiority previously guaranteed by 1600 fighters - 400 F-15s and 1200 F-16s, all of which were acknowledged to be wearing out.

The backdrop to the development of the F-22 among fighters is much the same as the Cold War history of America's bomber aircraft. In the decade following World War II, the United States was able to purchase some 17,000 fighters, 6,000 of which were F-86s purchased to fight the Korean War.

The cost of the Century series fleet started to draw down the number of fighters that could be bought. The F-111 was typical. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara initially planned to buy 1,500 of the aircraft for both the Air force and the Navy. Ultimately, only 560 of the aircraft were purchased since they proved far more costly and less effective than original projections.

But it is the F-22 procurement that provides a classic example of unilateral disarmament. Over the two decades in which it has been under development, it has never been fully tested nor has it ever been frankly represented to either the American people or their Congress.

What is now indisputable about the aircraft is the fact that its initial mission has largely evaporated and its capabilities have been downgraded. Its problems include the failure to even define effective supersonic cruise correctly 3 and a misunderstanding of the features of stealth technology. At the same time, its projected cost has skyrocketed.

When the aircraft was first conceived, its cost was projected at $40 billion for the 800 aircraft to be purchased. By the time the first prototype was flown, the projected cost had swelled to $70 billion. Since then, the U.S. Air Force has adjusted the program several times - first to a $64.2 billion program for 680 aircraft and then to a $64.2 billion program for 480 aircraft. Now, the F-22 program is advertised as a $64.2 billion dollar program for 333 aircraft. That translates to $192 million per fighter, almost four times the original estimate, yet no element of the government or the acquisition system objected to the distortion.

[See Figure 4]

While the Air Force has managed to keep the F-22 program moving ahead -- even as it cost projections have quadrupled, the Congressional Budget Office has informed me that the Air Force probably will only be able to afford 100 to 175 F-22s. This means the cost of the F-22 could escalate to insane levels -- beyond $350 million per aircraft. Meanwhile, the size of our Air Force's fleet of fighters would be reduced to such a small number that we would, in effect, be rendering it impotent. The idea of replacing the current air superiority potential of 1600 F-15s and F-16s which are admittedly wearing out, with that of 175 F-22s, is manifestly absurd.

[See Figure 5]

Figures 5 and 6 portray the cost of the F–22 as a function of its acquisition milestones and the number that can reportedly be purchased. When the true cost finally does emerge, the F-22 point will solidly prove that since the richest country in the world cannot afford the aircraft in meaningful numbers, the F-22, like the B-2, will most likely be the last fighter purchased by this acquisition system.

[See Figure 6]

However, for more than a generation now, no country has had a fleet of aircraft with which they could put our ground or air forces in jeopardy. Indeed, Russia's aeronautical industry has essentially disappeared and, with hostile powers largely obliged to protect their ground forces with surface-to air-missiles that are less costly than fighter planes, the obscenely expensive F-22 really no longer has a reason for being.

If anything, the F-22 was an aircraft of great promise. Unfortunately, most of its promise has evaporated. The dream of the F-22 being capable of cruising at supersonic speeds was lost because its weight swelled by 30 percent without a concomitant increase in fuel. The weight increase has made its performance commonplace -- about that of the Air Force's 20-year-old F-15C, the F-16D, and the obsolescing Russian Mig-29.

Furthermore, the promise of the F-22's "magical" avionic system has now become another cause for concern. A complete overhaul of the system may be in order because the computer chips in the aircraft are not compatible with the state of the art companion technology that is now available.

At the same time, the dream that the F-22 would be capable of positively identifying enemy aircraft and shooting them down beyond visual range remains unfulfilled -- and now it is highly unlikely, for a good long time, that there will be any enemy aircraft out there to shoot down.

Finally, the F-22's promise of being a stealth aircraft has been widely misrepresented. In fact, there are five signatures to an aircraft-visual, radar, electromagnetic emissions, infrared, and sound - and the F-22 is designed to excel in cloaking with stealth, only one: Radar stealth, and from limited directions. The other four signatures are very large on the F-22 and the aircraft therefore will not be able to hide from the enemy.

Ultimately, it is the lack of adequate numbers that defines the F-22 as the quintessential case of unilateral disarmament. A fleet of 100 to 300 F-22s will not be able to do what the Air Force currently can do with the 1,600 fighters in its possession, which swells to 2,400 when reserve forces are counted.

Unfortunately, the current force of F-15s and F-16s is wearing out. Thankfully, they can be replaced - if need be -- in large numbers for less than one fifth the cost of the F-22 fleet.

The F-15 and F-16 both have acceptable air-to-surface capabilities, a capability the F-22 can never possess while also remaining stealthy.

What the F-22 should teach us is that spending large sums of money to disarm goes against all reason. It is irrational - indeed, insane - and runs totally counter to the reason for our military. It must be strong -- not weak -- and it must be relevant to future threats to our country.

The military threats we likely will face in the future -- rogue national leaders who may generate weapons of mass destruction and use them irrationally; terrorists, insurgents, guerilla fighters, and drug dealers - certainly are not threats the F-22 is particularly suited to addressing.

Sadly, apologists for the F-22 seem to be left arguing for its advancement by suggesting that, since we have sold high performance F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s to friendly countries, we have created potential threats that must be offset by a new aircraft. Even our benevolent northern neighbor, Canada, has been mentioned as a possible threat.

If we erred with such sales, clearly those who made the decisions should be tried for possible subversive behavior.

Worse yet, however, is the fact that Lockheed Martin, one of the makers of the F-22, has already sought licensing to sell the aircraft overseas. Under the guise of reducing aircraft costs, Boeing also has sought a license to sell a better, more modern version of the F-18E to foreign countries than it currently is providing the U.S. Navy.

These are totally reprehensible actions, and, if they are approved, will place the United States in a perpetual arms race with itself -- at the expense of the US taxpayer.

At present, the major tragedy of the F-22 program is the loss of the $70 billion to the American people. Another tragedy is that the waste on the F-22 program could have been devoted to funding aircraft the U.S. armed forces really do need.

Today, apart from the F-22, there is only the very tenuous, ill conceived, four-service, multi-configuration Joint Strike Fighter under consideration as a next generation aircraft. Again, the cost projections are now such that one can very legitimately wonder why the procedures by which America purchases weapon systems are not completely overhauled before any new developments are undertaken.


Root Causes of Unilateral Disarmament

Now that the problems are visible it is possible and necessary to summarize some major causes of Self-Imposed Unilateral Disarmament. The problems have been fed by -

1. Misrepresentation of the facts by the USAF to the DoD and to a credulous Congress.

2. A collapse of integrity in the acquisition system, nullifying its checks and balances.

3. A system that gives contractual awards to those that excel at misrepresenting the facts.

4. Black programs that bypass the checks and balances and hide the total program costs.

5. Planned erosion of the power of the Government Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Effective, patriotic investigators are reassigned to obscure, irrelevant posts.

6. The power of the "Iron Triangle" composed of the Military, the Congressional Armed Service Committees and the Congress, and the Contractors. They serve themselves rather than the country. They were meant to be checks and balances on each other, but instead cooperate (for different reasons) to create the disaster.

7. The willing claques and sycophants among the alleged pundits and the media that support deficient programs and pander to the elements of the "Iron Triangle."

8. The universal and fundamental motivation - Greed.

Resolutions to the Problems

Knowing the problems and their causes makes it easy to find resolutions.

1. First and foremost - the Department of Defense must generate a new culture that allows and accepts only The Truth in the Acquisition system. The penalty for misrepresentation must be made high. In competitions, contractors are inevitably tempted to misrepresent. Government personnel must have the knowledge to detect the distortions, and the power to penalize the offending parties. It is the general failure to act on the part of the government and the DoD, that fosters the tendency to misrepresent. Contracts must be written to insure that misrepresentation and over-optimism are expensive, punishing, and counterproductive to the offender. Mistakes can and must be tolerated, but misrepresentation - never.

2. But if misrepresentation by contractors is bad, misrepresentation by the military to anybody and especially to the Congress should be anathema. Yet it happens very frequently. Something has happened to the honor code adhered to by the many fine officers I served with and that inspired me for thirty years. The military must once again embrace the Honor Code.

3. The Congress must lose its tendency to credulity. Yes, specious programs create jobs, but good programs can be even more effective, e.g. the F-16. The Congress must re-inject power into its watchdogs—the GAO and CBO. This is done by supporting rather than slashing funding for these services, assigning tough, knowledgeable people into the watchdog organizations and rewarding them for uncovering and realistically facing difficulties.

4. The only way to counter distortions by panderers, sycophants, and the alleged pundits, is to expose them, their associations, and their agendas.

5. It took only four years to go from a gleam in the eye to a production F-16 program, so a true air superiority force capable of ultra-high performance, real supersonic cruise capability, together with pragmatic stealth can be generated in time.

The current tendency of the Military Services, the Department of Defense and the Acquisition System to Disarm Unilaterally is a removable, self-inflicted wound.

The current Weapons acquisition system must be extensively modified and corrected.