Originally posted by SOC
Check out the 18 Feb issue of Jane’s Defence Weekly-the USAF isn’t contemplating STOVL JSFs, we are going to buy STOVL JSFs. The only question is how many, and that’ll be decided later this year.
Ya know SOC? I was just going to mention that.
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AMERICAS, THE
Date Posted: 20-Feb-2004
JANE’S DEFENCE WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 25, 2004
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USAF leaders outline new initiatives…
MICHAEL SIRAK JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC
Senior US Air Force (USAF) leaders say the service intends to introduce a series of major platform-related initiatives in its next budget-planning cycle later this year that will continue the effort of making the force more agile, lethal and responsive.
Chief among the projects under consideration, they say, are a long-range strike system to augment the current bomber force, a standoff jamming capability, new refuelling aircraft and major upgrades to legacy fighter and strike aircraft. While some of these ideas have been under consideration for years, officials said it is time to move them forward beyond paper concepts and on to an acquisition path.
Secretary of the Air Force James Roche and USAF Chief of Staff Gen John Jumper, unveiled these plans, along with other senior air force officials, on 12 February at the Air Force Association’s 20th Annual Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida. They said the service intends to introduce them in its next biennial budget-planning process, known as the programme objective memorandum (POM), that it will start later this year covering Fiscal Years (FYs) 2006-11. The POM will serve as the foundation for the service’s FY06 budget request to Congress that it will release in early 2005.
These initiatives are in addition to others announced for FY06 like upgrading a portion of the A-10 Thunderbolt II fleet, buying the short take-off-and vertical- landing version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and acquiring a new stealthy transport aircraft for special operations forces and medium-lift personnel-recovery vehicle (JDW 18 February 2003).
Gen Jumper said the service wants a long-range capability that could penetrate hostile airspace and deliver a “significant bomb load” and serve as a complement to the current force of B-1B Lancer, B-2A Spirit and B-52H Stratofortress bomber aircraft.
While the service will consider many manned and unmanned concepts, “a regional-type bomber of the type that we could evolve from the F/A-22 [Raptor] called the FB-22”, remains an enticing option, he said. This aircraft has a projected range approaching 1,600nm and ability to carry approximately 30 Small Diameter Bombs (JDW 12 March 2003).
Another possible long-range strike capability is to incorporate a kinetic capability onto the next-generation of space-launch vehicles that are designed to launch on short notice. With it, Gen Jumper noted, the service would be able “to get warheads on target halfway around the world in minutes and hours rather than days or weeks”.
Gen Jumper said the service would also like to address the “growing need for standoff jamming” in the FY06 POM, most likely by integrating jamming equipment in the outer wing pods of the B-52H. The aircraft would be able to serve in this role in addition to its other missions, he said (JDW 11 December 2002).
Roche said the air force would also like to launch a programme for a new refuelling aircraft, called the KC-X, in FY06, as it had intended to do before the proposed lease/ purchase of Boeing-767 tanker/ transport aircraft. The latter remains stalled due to investigations over alleged impropriety within the company. Roche noted that the service will resort to the original KC-X acquisition plan if the 767 lease/purchase plan does not materialise.
Beyond new systems, the air force leaders said they plan to insert major upgrades to legacy aircraft in the FY06 POM.
Commander of Air Combat Command Gen Hal Hornburg said these include adding an active electronically scanned-array radar to the F-15E multirole fighter, incorporating an air-to-ground strike capability on to the F-15C and a new radar for the F-16 multirole fighter aircraft. The service also intends to procure new targeting pods for the A-10 and F-16.
A bomber derivative of the F/A-22 called the FB-22 is being considered
(Source: Lockheed Martin)
… and confront current challenges
While the US Air Force prepares to begin the FY06 POM process, it is grappling with a near-term force-structure issue: the Congress wants it to return to operational service 23 of the 32 B-1B Lancer bombers it decommissioned in 2002.
The air force retired the aircraft to apply the savings in operations and maintenance costs to upgrading the remaining Lancer fleet. Accordingly, it does not favour reconstituting so many aircraft, saying it would cost over $2 billion to bring them back and operate and maintain them, nullifying the savings.
“Some of the B-1s that they count in the 23 right now won’t fly,” said Gen Hal Hornburg, Commander of Air Combat Command. “Some of the parts for those B-1s are no longer manufactured and those who used to manufacture them are no longer in business.”
Instead, he said the air force would prefer to bring back only seven or eight aircraft.
“We agree with anyone who says that we need a few more B-1s . . . [but] we have got to work with Congress further to get this number in an affordable package,” he said.
In a move similar to the B-1B decommissioning, the air force would like to retire 10 F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter aircraft, about 20% of the operational fleet, starting in FY05, and has asked Congress to do so.
“We tend to deploy F-117s in smaller packages, six or eight, maybe a squadron,” said Gen Hornburg. “The way that we use the F-117 now in concert with the B-2 and other more survivable systems, lead us to believe that we don’t need the number of F-117s that we presently have.”
As with the B-1B, the air force says it would like to apply the savings – estimated to be $73.6 million from FY05 to FY09 – to enhance the remaining Nighthawk fleet, which the USAF expects to remain in service until around 2018 (JDW 18 February and 24 December 2003).
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