The online military information source The War Zone published a detailed report this week, focused on U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall addressing financial “uncertainty” involving current modernization efforts. In his keynote address at the Airlift/Tanker Association’s annual symposium last Friday (November 1), Kendall discussed the affordability of new stealth fighters, advanced aerial refueling tankers, and highly autonomous drones. He said the USAF’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative, the Next Generation Air Refueling System efforts, and the sixth-generation combat jet program (also known as the Penetrating Counter-Air [PCA] platform) with its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone program, are assembled under the wider NGAD umbrella, and that affordability is a problem.
Considering that in about 75 days we’re going to have a new SecAF with entirely different political views, Mr. Kendall’s position on the matter may be irrelevant.
His comments won’t be irrelevant if what he says is true. I fear that we have gotten to a point where military hardware is so sophisticated, but so expensive, that we are bankrupting the economy chasing the latest weaponry. Bill B.'s comments about the MIC may be partially correct, but the military is also guilty of compounding costs by constantly changing the specifications for a weapon while it is being developed. The ever elusive mission creep.
We know how to make aircraft cheaper. We just refuse to do those things. 1) Capability and cost go hand in hand. Requirements need to be carefully written. And avionics is by far the biggest price tag, especially for fighter aircraft. That’s why an unstealthy F-15EX costs about the same as an F-35 2) Sustainment of older systems eats our lunch. We need to buy new more often 3) Large buys means cheaper unit costs. And the big cost is operations and sustainment. We should have bought the 650 F-22s we planned for and then parked 400 of them in the desert under a glass box with a sign “break glass in case of war”. 4) Running through a bazillion tests points and dealing with airworthiness has to change. They both take gobs of time and money. But what’s worse than a system that costs more than you want? A system you never build because you vacillate and hesitate.
You’re correct, Jason. I wore the uniform of the USAF doing flight test work for most of my career and then worked for a major contractor on the other side of the fence for almost as many years. I’m here to tell you that some of the folks who write the specifications for major weapon systems ask for everything under the sun and then when the contractor presents the price, they go wimpering off and reduce the buy … which increases the unit cost substantially. Witness the B-2 Spirit. Originally it was going to be 132 airplanes but then when the Russian bear collapsed, it turned into 21 (one was charity). The fixed costs to bring that system online were rolled into fewer airplanes making the ‘apparent’ cost seem much higher. And then when the contractor offered more airplanes AT COST, the USAF said no … ostensibly, I guess, because some knothead thought it was a kinder gentler world. Yeeaahh!
Same thing with the F-22. Originally ~750 airplanes, it was shut down at 182 yet the USAF is claiming that the F-22 is THE best airplane ever. What good is too few of 'em? The F-35 is proving to be problematic, too. And flown in ‘dirty’ mode, it ain’t stealth … so what was the point.
Having flown in the F-15, I can attest that it’s a helluva airplane. Just build hoardes of 'em and stop playing around with newer and newer designs that cost too much, take too long to gestate and often fall short anyways.
I’ll tell ya one thing … if I was running the USAF, things would change BIG TIME and FAST in the world of developing new systems.
To plan for fighting even ten years from now, with our rapidly changing technology, it’s a total unknown what will be needed. Just 4 years ago, before Ukraine, who would have imagined the small drones being as used and effective as they are now. It’ all a WAG.