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00–000
1999
[H.N.S.C. No. 106–3]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000—H.R. 1401
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
ON
TITLE I—PROCUREMENT
TITLE II—RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION
HEARING HELD
MARCH 3, 1999
SERVICE AVIATION MODERNIZATION PLANS
House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Subcommittee, Meeting Jointly with Military Research and Development Subcommmittee, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 3, 1999.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:05 p.m. in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. HUNTER. The subcommittees will come to order. This afternoon, we welcome witnesses from the four services, as well as the program executive officer of the Joint Strike Fighter program to give testimony on the Service Aviation Modernization program. This is a joint hearing of both the Procurement and the Research and Development Subcommittees. As we did last year and continue to do this year, my good friend Curt Weldon and I share the chair in our series of joint hearings. My ranking member and good friend Norm Sisisky and I look forward to working with you, Chairman Weldon—I know he is not here yet, but will be here shortly—and with the ranking member; and also to our good friend Owen Pickett and the rest of our colleagues on the Research and Development Subcommittee.
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As most of you know, I have been consistently critical of the inadequate levels of procurement funding by this administration, and believe that the defense budget should be increased $20 to $25 billion a year on a sustained basis. Here's why.
One week ago today we conducted a hearing on aging equipment. Lieutenant General John Coburn, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, told us that the Army's only heavy-lift helicopter, the CH–47 Chinook, has been in the inventory for 37 years and the Army expects to keep it for another 30 years, further driving up operating costs. Dr. Lauren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said, as a result of aging aircraft, the Nation spends more and more money on a less and less capable air fleet.
Lieutenant General Martin Steele, the Marine Corps Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans, Policies and Operations, reported that as a result of its aging aircraft, the average cost per flight hour has risen 43 percent over the last 3 years and the Marine Corps fixed-wing mission capable rates have declined from 81 percent to 70 percent between fiscal years 1994 and 1998.
General Martin, here with us today, stated for the record that, and I quote, ''While it is difficult to quantify the exact impact aging has on Air Force readiness, we are confident it has significantly contributed to the declining mission-capable rates and increasing operations and support costs.''
Lane Perot of the Congressional Budget Office warned that even if future administrations in Congress increased funding to the $62 billion that is the Department of Defense's procurement goal, that may still not be enough for DOD to achieve steady-state quantities of equipment that would, over the long run, halt aging and support forces of today's sizes indefinitely.
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Last Friday I attended a Readiness Subcommittee field hearing at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, and I want to thank incidentally—Herb Bateman is not here, but Chairman Bateman really conducted an excellent hearing. I want to commend him on the series of hearings that he has held that have brought out the manifestations of this declining lack of readiness and lack of modernization.
But that hearing once again confirmed a fact that diminished levels of procurement funding over the last 6 years have taken their toll. Where Admiral Timothy Beard told us that 14 of his 23 aircraft at the naval air station in Fallon, Nevada, the top gun training center, were grounded with mechanical problems. Eight of his aircraft could not fly at all because they were missing whole engines and maintenance crews were waiting for 137 parts.
An F–16 Aggressor pilot with the 414th Combat Training Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base told us that young pilots are flying half as many training sortie raids these days because not enough aircraft are available, usually because of maintenance problems. It is no surprise that the chiefs of the military services have advised this committee about increasing amounts of unfunded requirements.
Today's hearing will address how the Department plans to improve these conditions through modernization over aviation programs. Unfortunately, we are likely to hear that near-term readiness and personnel pressures on the defense budget continue to force a migration of funds out of procurement accounts. The result is that acquisition objectives are not being met, production quantities are being reduced to less economical levels and Band-Aid fixes, such as service life extension programs, are being funded instead. These actions push aviation modernization farther into the future, raising the height of the so-called ''bow wave.'' It is getting more and more difficult for us to catch up should we ever decide to catch up.
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With us today for what I hope will be a candid discussion of Service Aviation Modernization programs are Lieutenant General Gregory S. Martin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition; Lieutenant General Frederick McCorkle, Deputy Chief of Staff for Aviation, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; Major General Peter C. Franklin, Deputy for Systems Management and Horizontal Technology Integration, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development and Acquisition; Rear Admiral John B. Nathman, Director for Air Warfare, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; and Major General Leslie F. Kenne—or is it Kenne, excuse me—Program Executive Officer, Joint Strike Fighter program.
We thank you all for being here.
General Martin, before we turn the floor over to you, I first want to call upon the other members of our subcommittees for any remarks that they might want to make. I notice that Curt Weldon, my good colleague who chairs Research and Development is not here. So let's turn to Norm Sisisky, ranking Democrat on Procurement and then to Owen Pickett, Ranking Member on Research and Development.
Norm?
STATEMENT OF HON. NORMAN SISISKY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
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Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to join you in welcoming our witnesses this afternoon as we consider the aviation component of the Department's budget request.
Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, there are three programs and there are some others too, that drive the Department's budget request for aviation modernization—the F/A–18E/F Hornet, the F–22 Raptor and the Joint Strike Fighter. And because they are projected to claim as much as $16 billion per year, they will continue to drive the budget request for aviation and challenge the Department's ability to afford a comprehensive aviation modernization plan that is needed to meet all the needs of the services.
Also, I want to note that we have critically reviewed the F/A–18E/F and the JSF programs in the past. Although not perfect, both are performing reasonably well at this time from what I can discern. The F–22, however, has not been subjected to the same critical review by the subcommittees. Not surprisingly, the budget request includes about a $312 million in procurement cost growth since last year. Worse, a recent Government Accounting Office draft report indicates that the Air Force has acknowledged an additional $667 million in cost growth for engineering and manufacturing development yet to come.
If true, if true—and I usually await the testimony—today, that is nearly $1 billion in cost growth since last year. To put this in perspective, the $1 billion cost growth in the F–22 program nearly equals the entire aviation request for the Army this year. It is enough to fix the Army's Aviation Modernization program across the entire future year's defense plan, a program we all know is in shambles mostly for the want of money.
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Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that budgetary decisionmaking for so-called ''high-priority programs,'' such as the F–22, may be sending—I repeat, may be sending the wrong message, a message that says this is such a high priority, there is no cost too great, and we will starve other deserving programs to cover the cost.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward with great anticipation to today's testimony.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Norman.
Mr. Pickett.
STATEMENT OF OWEN PICKETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to join my two colleagues here in welcoming the witnesses before us today. Mr. Chairman, I want to join you in emphasizing the critical nature of the overall tactical aircraft modernization effort in this era of budget uncertainty, our main concern about our Nation's ability to field a capable and affordable military air component.
I am troubled with projected TACAIR budgetary levels amounting to as much as $14 to $16 billion per year throughout the future year's defense plan, and wonder about their collective affordability. This becomes even more troublesome given the recent experience of cost overruns in some of these programs. Briefly, I want to mention a few areas of concern that warrant attention by members of our committee.
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First, the multiyear procurement proposal for the Navy's F–18E/F. Although multiyear purchases effectively commit the government to specific budget obligation in the outyears, a multiyear buy in the case of the Super Hornet appears prudent, considering the program is on time, under budget and the multi-year procurement will save money. I hope the committee will give this proposal favorable consideration.
Second, the Army Aircraft Modernization Plan deserves considerable scrutiny. As an example, I understand that the Comanche helicopter program is hard-pressed to field two flying prototypes in fiscal year 2000 as, apparently, only 5 hours of flight time have been budgeted for this second aircraft.
Further, when I review the Army's unfunded requirement list for this year, I note a $56 million shortfall item for Comanche. I understand this figure may be somewhat higher in order to make this program healthy. In fact, the overall Army shortfall list identifies almost $300 million needed to address their aviation deficiency items.
Finally, as we proceed with our oversight responsibilities, I want to remind everyone of the importance of maintaining robust development designs, particularly with regard to the proposed Joint Strike Fighter. Given the fact that the Marine Corps has decided to skip one generation of advanced aircraft, the Super Hornet, and wait for the next, the JSF, it is imperative that the vertical launch variant of this program be successfully developed early on. Existing Marine Corps aircraft have a limited life span and will require replacement soon enough.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for calling this hearing, which I think will be very informative for the committee, and I look forward to hearing our witnesses' testimony today.
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Mr. HUNTER. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Virginia.
If any other members have a statement they would like to make before we take off on this hearing, that would be fine.
Bob, do you have anything you would like to—you want to talk about, the G–D merger with Newport News maybe.
Mr. STUMP. It is a very interesting subject, and I have some very strong views on that matter, but I am here to listen today.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you. I think that is going to be a hot one for all of us.
General Martin, thank you for being with us again. The floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. GREGORY S. MARTIN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR ACQUISITION, U.S. AIR FORCE
General MARTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. We have a prepared statement that I would ask be submitted for the record.
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Mr. HUNTER. Without objection, all written statements will be taken into the record, and you can go right ahead and summarize your remarks and prepare for action.
General MARTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I have an oral statement that is written, in the interest of getting right to these questions, particularly some of the questions that Congressman Sisisky brought up, I will summarize this informally if that is all right.
First of all, and probably most important, is to realize that the Air Force is undergoing a very significant transformation as it moves from a force that was designed to operate out of overseas bases that were fixed and relatively well known by our total force into an expeditionary aerospace force which I think recognizes the need for us to remain engaged throughout the world to prevent the occurrence of conflicts that might put our troops in harm's way. But with that has come a fairly significant increase in our overall operations tempo.
As a result of that, I think you will find and have seen in the announcements that the Air Force has made that we are undergoing a fairly significant restructure in the way we package our forces to train them, prepare them, and then deploy them on a regular basis overseas, and it is that change that I think is important for us to keep in mind as we focus on the priorities for our overall modernization.
With respect to the application of air power in all of its aspects throughout the world, we have found that having to write a mix of platforms is absolutely critical. We also know that based on previous opportunities and our current engagement philosophy, that having a right balance between our air superiority forces, our attack forces and our multirole forces is critical to be able to cover the full spectrum of conflict. In general, our analyses both from the Bottom Up Review quadrant of the defense role, as well as previous use of air power, shows that in general we need about 20 to 25 percent of our force structure that applies force to be in the air superiority role; about that same amount in the dedicated air-to-ground role; and then the balance, usually about 50 percent or slightly more, in the multirole. That comes about from the normal conduct of operations.
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Early on, the need to establish air superiority requires not only your dedicated superiority assets, but also contributions of your multirole to assure success in protecting the skies for all joint forces that will operate in and under that umbrella. Once the air superiority has been assured, then the majority of those multirole forces will begin to swing in the air to ground role.
Now, the dedicated air-to-ground forces are striking targets from strategic to tactical level throughout this process, so we need about 20, 25 percent dedicated in that role, and the multirole then begins to roll into that to continue to service the kinds of targets that will help the Joint Force commander pursue his objectives.
When we talk about employing the expeditionary Air Force in air expeditionary force packages, it is probably important for me to talk about our—some of our modernization programs with respect to the way we actually employ those forces. The first thing we worry about and are concerned with is information superiority. It is important for us to know where and when we should as a nation apply the appropriate amount of influence. Our force is not only in the space environment, but also our day-to-day intelligence surveillance reconnaissance platforms. Many of you know them as low-density, high-demand assets such as Rivet Joint, U–2 and others that the other services contribute as well providing us the eyes and the ears to keep our wits about us as some contingency develops. So we must pay close attention to those ISR assets, and we have modernization programs that are under way for those aircraft.
Additionally, once we do become engaged, assets such as the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System or the Airborne Warning and Control System become very critical not only to application of air force or air power, but also in providing information to each of our other services with respect to incoming threats or threats that are on the ground.
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We are proud of these systems. They are progressing well, but they do need upgrading and completion of the original procurement schedule. Once we know what is going on and once we have a clear understanding of where the threats are gaining, air superiority becomes very important.
We have relied heavily in the United States Air Force on the F–15 for years. It is old. We are updating it to keep it as viable as we can while the F–22 comes on board. We believe the F–22 is a revolutionary aircraft with the attributes of super-cruise stealth, and most important, we think the information fusion and sensor integration will be very important in allowing us the opportunity—
Mr. HUNTER. General, while you are talking about F–22s. I know Norman brought that up with respect to cost increases. Why don't you address those, so we can get that taken care of?
General MARTIN. Yes, sir. First of all, Mr. Congressman, the numbers that you quote are numbers we are aware of and are correct. They aren't necessarily the numbers that will be executed, and particularly the $667 million that you are talking about. But first let me address the $312 million that you discussed.
When we put the fiscal year 1999 President's Budget together, the 2000 column was listed at $312 million less than what it is listed at today. That was based on models and our best guess as to what the cost would be for Lockheed Martin to deal with its subvendors and produce the early aircraft.
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We are now basing that number on the actual vendor agreements that have occurred with Lockheed Martin and all of the subvendors—Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney and all of those. That cost growth is understood. We don't like it, but, in fact, with the knowledge of how much that is, along with that $667 million potential cost growth and the cost mitigation efforts that both the United States Air Force and the contractor are taking, we intend to remain within the caps.
I must tell you that that is a challenge. We have our work cut out for us.
The caps are the dollar amounts that we relayed to you last year for what we felt the EMD—what we were programing for Engineering and Manufacturing Development and what we were programming for the 339 aircraft. That does not allow much flexibility. Management reserve is about all the money you have in there.
We are dedicated to those cost caps. We plan on maintaining ourselves within them and so does the contractor. I will not tell you that that does not have its challenges.
To this point, the aircraft has performed exactly as we would have expected from our modeling analysis. We think we may be able to find some offsets within our overall flight test because the performance is spot on to those predictions.
We are also mitigating some costs through several means, but one of them is, we will not require the program to complete its external carriage—weapons carriage certification within the program; the Air Combat Command has agreed to that. The majority of the work that will be done with the F–22 will be air superiority work, not the external air-to-ground weapons, and we will be able to do that after the program delivers, although I will tell you right now, with the cost mitigation efforts that the program officer has projected, they think they might still be able to get that within the cost cap. But if not, we will defer that and do it under the Sea Eagle program, not an unusual technique and one that may cost less than the actual EMD and test force that we dedicate to our flight test program. We will, however, receive full certification on all of the aircraft or all of the weapons systems that are carried within the aircraft internally, which is the preferred method that we will use and operate the F–22 in its air superiority role.
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Does that answer your question, sir?
Mr. SISISKY. You have got a challenge.
General MARTIN. Yes, sir, it is a challenge.
Mr. SISISKY. What does the overhead cost—the Lockheed plant with the C–130 Js, how does that involve -
General MARTIN. Sir, we are estimating there could be a small increase to the production aircraft, but not in the early stages. We have both the Protection Representative Test Vehicle, lot 1 and through lot 4, the target price curve agreements with Lockheed Martin for the cost per aircraft, and we expect them to maintain the ability to produce the aircraft at that cost.
First, let me just say this about the C–130J. There has been lots of press and lots of discussion back and forth on that issue. I think it important to realize that the venerable Hercules is a critical asset to the United States Air Force and the C–130J is an appropriate and, we think, very, very fine upgrade to that program that will sustain us well into the next century. The difficulty is size of budget and need for the aircraft.
With the age of the aircraft and the performance of the C–130 as we have them today, the C–130J production is slightly ahead of need. We have been lucky in that there has been an FMS demand for it. We support that aircraft fully, would love to see that Foreign Military Sales demand continue to bridge the gap between where we are now and when we can afford to buy more C–130's starting in the 2002 timeframe. A great airplane, great plan.
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Now, if in fact they go into a position where their overhead costs are so great that we start to see a problem with the F–22, I think we have to remember that reasonable overhead is something that the Air Force would be expected to pay. The rest of the C–130 problem becomes an issue for Lockheed Martin to deal with in terms of their normal corporate structuring and downsizing.
With any luck, we will find that there will be work to be done in that plan. There are many, many opportunities out there, I think, for that plant to do productive aerospace work on Air Force aircraft or other service aircraft or international aircraft other than just producing C–130's. So with any hope, we will work very closely with Lockheed Martin who has been a terrific partner, particularly in this latest last 1–1/2 to 2 years with the F–22 to solve that problem without rolling the cost forward to the F–22.
Mr. SISISKY. I will be submitting a list of questions that you can do for the record.
General MARTIN. We will look forward to that and we will get those answers to you.
Sir, as I was mentioning, the F–22 will replace the F–15. We know from current flight comparisons with adversary aircraft that the F–15 in the hands of a capable aviator is the best in the world. However, we also know that other aircraft in capable hands have—are able to threaten it, particularly with some of the weapon systems such as the ISR missiles that are available elsewhere in the world. So we are dedicated to making sure we are able to provide job one, which is an umbrella of air superiority for our services. Once we have achieved that, it becomes very important for us to use those ISR assets, take advantage of that air superiority to pursue the global attack.
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We don't talk about global attack in terms of fighters and bombers anymore; we talk about it in terms of global attack, which includes them both. You will begin to see our road maps and our discussion of global attack include both aircraft; as indeed the most recent engagements that we have had in Southwest Asia have shown, we use a combination of assets to carry out the mission. Of course, the bomber force is underpinned by the B–52 for both conventional and nuclear roles. The B–1, which is coming on strong now as the multirole bomber, if you will, one that will be able to when it completes its upgrades, will go into low-to-moderate risk areas with both direct overflight and standoff weapons; and of course the B–2, which is able to hold an enemy's most prized targets at risk due to its stealth and very, very capable precision capabilities.
As we begin to watch our F–16, which is the balance of our multirole force, and our global attack dedicated assets, such as the F–15E and the F–117 begin to mature and age out, the JSF becomes a very, very important aircraft for us to do the attack mission, and it will have based on its stealth characteristics and its air-to-air weapons array, along with sensor fusion, a very capable air-to-air mission capability as well. So what we will see is our global attack mission and our multirole mission begin to see the JSF replace our F–16s.
We have not yet decided on whether there will be a follow-on bomber or a follow-on fighter aircraft. The bomber road map which has just been released talks about the future strike aircraft study that Air Combat Command is working now to determine the characteristics to achieve the correct effect in striking air-to-ground. Of course, all of that is underpinned by our ability to get the force to the theater in a rapid and capable way.
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Our C–17 that is coming on is a very, very strong and capable aircraft. The services that it supports have much laudatory, or have many laudatory comments about that aircraft. The C–5, of course, in its unique ability to carry outsized and oversized cargo is aging, and we are in the process of looking at an analysis of alternatives to determine the best way to either sustain or begin to augment that capability in the future. And, of course, within the theater the C–130 I talked about earlier is an absolute workhorse that we think is critical.
Underneath all of that comes our very important science and technology effort. I would tell you that the ABL to augment our air superiority in the theater missile defense area respond from the kind of work our S&T folks do day in and day out. We are totally dependent on them, and you will notice in our program that we are beginning to migrate more and more of our focus on S&T into the space arena where we think the Air Space Force of the future will be. So all in all, we believe we have a very balanced and time-phased modernization program.
When asked if we could use more, of course we could. But where we are right now, we believe is affordable. It falls within our standard average procurement share of the budget. It has been phased to do that.
We are excited by the opportunities that those aircraft will bring to us. And we believe that we are still today building the world's most respected air and space future. I look—air and space force. I look forward to your questions.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, General.
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[The prepared statement of General Martin can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. General McCorkle?
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. FREDERICK McCORKLE, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR AVIATION, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General MCCORKLE. Thank you, Congressman Hunter, distinguished members. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to talk to you about Marine aviation. I will make my opening comments brief by saying that I truly believe that we, the Marine Corps, remain most ready only through the dedicated work of all our young Marines out there, but this is also because of the support from Congress, from this body here. And the Marine Corps quite frankly would be down the tubes if it weren't for all of you.
My testimony is submitted for the record and I stand by to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of General McCorkle can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, General.
General Franklin.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. PETER C. FRANKLIN, DEPUTY FOR SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT AND HORIZONTAL TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. ARMY
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General FRANKLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members. It is a pleasure for me to be here today. Before I begin, though, I would like to introduce my backup witness, Brigadier General Tony Stricklin, who represents the operations side of the Army. The Army aviation and modernization plan priorities are, one, to solve the aviation's most critical battlefield deficiency, tactical reconnaissance and security; No. 2, to maintain combat overmatch in the 21st century; No. 3, to enhance command, control, and communication and intelligence and interoperability in a digitized force; No. 4, to recapitalize an aging fleet; and, No. 5, to develop the technology underpinnings for Joint Vision 2010 and Army After Next.
The physical year 1900 budget represents $1.894 billion for modernization, aviation modernization programs, while the FYDP includes $16.524 billion.
I would like to focus on four aircraft. The first is the Comanche aircraft, which solves the No. 1 deficiency in our modernization priorities for aviation. It enhances the information dominance through armed reconnaissance and its ability to tie into the digitized force. It is faster, stealthier, more agile, and more easily sustainable than any other rotary aircraft that we have in the fleet. An example of this is, to maintain the engine on this aircraft, on our other aircraft would take what we would call a general mechanic's tool box. It is about this big by this big by this big, weighs about 40 to 50 pounds. It is replaced by this tool kit.
The aircraft has a level flight speed of 175 knots—
Mr. HUNTER. I used to have a tool kit like that. Couldn't do too much with it, but I had a tool kit about that size.
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General FRANKLIN. You would be happier to carry this around in your Basic Terminal Unit pocket, I think. Sir, it has a level flight speed of 175 knots, which is 40 knots faster than the H–64D, and it can fly sideways and backwards at 75 knots. Its acoustic signature is six times smaller than the Apache, its infrared signature is three times smaller than the Apache and the radar signature is almost 300 times smaller than the Apache.
The Apache, H–64D, while it looks similar to the model that we had in Desert Storm, the H–64A is significantly different. If you look at the model, you will see a radar at the top of it. It is a millimeter wave radar that gives us capability that we never had before, and that is to fight in all weather and at night conditions. The millimeter wave radar that you see on fronts can classify, detect 128 targets. It can prioritize 16 of those targets. It can send those targets to other aircraft and to ground forces within 30 seconds.
This aircraft, because of its capability, is three to four times more lethal than the H–64 Alpha that we have in the fleet. It also has a radar inferometer that can pick out enemy air defense systems and, combined with its millimeter wave radar, it can attack those air defense systems. It provides about seven times more survivability than the current fleet we have with the H–64 Alphas.
The Army modernization strategy requires recapitalization of the utility and cargo fleets also. The UH–60 provides general support, air assault, MEDEVAC, and command and control capabilities. First fielded two decades ago, suffering from operational support costs that are beginning to creep, we have decided that we will SLEP the program, which is a Service Life Extension Program, beginning in 1902. This will upgrade the lift, the range and digitization capabilities.
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The CH–47 Delta is the Army's only cargo helicopter. Average age of the fleet is over 30 years old. It has been brought up before, and it requires an immediate engine upgrade to recapture lift and range capabilities lost through prior structural modifications. The CH–47F, which is our improved cargo helicopter, will extend the life of the CH–47 fleet until development of the Joint Transport Rotorcraft. It will do this through vibration reductions, structural modifications and increased digitization compatibility.
Together, these Army aviation modernization efforts will provide our soldiers with the equipment and technology needed to fight and win in the joint battle space of the 21st century. Our efforts, as they have in the past, can only succeed with your continued help and your support. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Franklin can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, General.
Rear Admiral Nathman.
Admiral NATHMAN. It is Nathman, sir.
Mr. HUNTER. Excuse me. The floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. JOHN B. NATHMAN, DIRECTOR, AIR WARFARE DIVISION, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, U.S. NAVY
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Admiral NATHMAN. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon to testify.
Today we have the Kitty Hawk Battle Group in the Western Pacific, we have the Carl Vinson Battle Group in the Persian Gulf, and the Enterprise Battle Group in the Adriatic. It is clear that those battle groups are there to provide air presence in Bosnia for potential strikes against Serbia in support of the European command, to provide continual support as we diminish the capability of Iraq and southern Iraq for their air defense system, and to provide support for contingency missions in the Western Pacific, specifically against Korea. Our forces are there and our forces are ready.
To me there is an increasing need for these forces and their relevance, a relevance they bring due to their presence, the dominating force and the power projection capability that we get from those carrier battle groups. The centerpiece for those carrier battle groups in terms of power projection comes from those air wings and aircraft on those flight decks, those four and a half acres of American sovereign territory forward deployed. These air wings bring the sustained power projection, they bring the lethality, the precision and the coherence of the way we train and fight.
Now, the centerpiece of those carrier wings right now are our strike fighters, the F14, the EA–6 B and the F–18, in terms of the capability that they bring. As a task force commander last year in the Persian Gulf with two carrier battle groups and some 20 other ships, I had an opportunity to watch us plan and develop Desert Thunder, and I understand clearly the power and capability that we bring to the warfighting CINCs with our presence and the unique power projection capability that we bring and the capability to get there.
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I would like to take a few minutes to talk about what I think is the future for those air wings in terms of their power projection capability, and that is the F–18E/F Super Hornet. The Super Hornet program in my view, as you heard earlier, is a model program. It is on time. It is at or under cost. It is clearly underway. We already have some 4,290 flight hours on the aircraft and some 3,800 flights.
It is delivering exactly what we have asked it to deliver, from range, weapons carriage, survivability, bring-back, not only for it to carry those very sophisticated weapons but also to provide extra pilot safety and the growth against potential and future threats. It is a superb strike fighter. It fits perfectly into our concept of options for power projection. Right now the airplane is ready for OPEVAL. We have completed some 98 percent of our testing. It begins sea trials, carrier tests on the U.S.S. Truman today on the Virginia Capes.
One of the keys in procuring this particular aircraft in terms of savings and the ability to take advantage of the money that we have in terms of our aircraft modernization procurement programs is the multiyear procurement for the Super Hornet. Frankly, the multiyear procurement is everything you would expect it to be, and you would expect the naval service and the Department of Defense to come forward with this type of presentation.
Our multiyear procurement program will save Congress and the American taxpayer some $704 million over the FYDP. It will save this year alone some $147 million. The Navy literally gets 220 aircraft for the price of 200. It meets all the criteria for multiyear: substantial savings, great warfighting capability, a stable requirement, stable funding, and most importantly, stable configuration.
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Before we commit funds to any type of multiyear, we will have the opportunity to complete the operational evaluation of that aircraft, which completes in October of this year. The multiyear is fully supported by the Secretary of the Navy as well as the Secretary of Defense.
Let me conclude by saying the purpose of my being here is an opportunity to make sure that our young men and women, our pilots, our maintenance crews, our officers, men and women, are provided with the most cost effective, combat efficient and safe aircraft and equipment to support their needs at the tip of the spear. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Nathman can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Admiral Nathman.
And General Kenne.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. LESLIE F. KENNE, JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER, U.S. AIR FORCE
General KENNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, distinguished Congressman. I am Leslie Kenne, director of the Joint Strike Fighter Program and I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to testify. I have a brief statement now and a more detailed one for the record.
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The primary focus of Joint Strike Fighter has been, from the inception of the program, affordability. That is what our warfighters want, is an affordable weapons system that meets their needs.
There are three key drivers, in my opinion, to affordability. One is jointness. There was a study done in 1996 that said if each service did the program, each unique aircraft, and developed it separately, there would be a certain cost; if they did it jointly, the cost would be almost half. The cost avoidance was in the order of $16 billion by jointly developing a family of aircraft. Joint Strike Fighter is doing that.
A second aspect that is a key driver is commonality. In this program there is a family of aircraft being developed that have a tremendously high degree of commonality across the designs, 70 to 80 percent commonality. Joint Strike Fighter is taking every advantage of that to keep the weapons system affordable, not only in its manufacturing but over 30 to 40 years of supporting it among three services and allies. You have a tremendous number of common parts of the weapons system.
The third aspect is affordable requirements. It is hard to have an affordable weapons system if you don't start with a requirement that is affordable. Our warfighters have been involved in the last three to three and a half years integrally with us and industry, understanding the cost of what they are asking for and doing trades between performance and the cost of the weapons system. An example is, they have chosen a single-engine versus a two-engine aircraft, a significant cost saving over the life cycle of this system, and that was not a trivial trade on their part.
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The rest of the program, the engines that are being developed right now were developed in record time. They cranked up and ran the very first time. There are two separate engines for each of the designs that are being proposed by our two contractors, Boeing and Lockheed, and these are both engines, both derivatives of the F–119 engine that is in the F–22. That engine is performing exceedingly well. We are very, very pleased with the progress that we see in the propulsion area.
The demonstration aircraft that are being developed are being built as we speak in Seattle, St. Louis, and in Palmdale, California, and we expect to fly them next spring.
Not all is perfect in the program. We are 2 years into a 12-year development for the Joint Strike Fighter and we are experiencing some cost growth. We are dialoguing currently with the contractors to come to some resolution on how to handle those issues, and we will do that. We have skinned our knee. There are ways to fix it. We should have resolution by mid to late March, and we prebriefed the committee staff on the issues. We plan to come back to the committee staff once we have resolution and tell them, share with them how we plan to solve the problem, but it is not insurmountable.
Whatever we do to solve the problem, the program is generally very healthy in its maturing technology, in its getting the aircraft built, in designing the final proposed design that will be given to the government, and we anticipate that anything that we do, we will be able to still deliver the aircraft on schedule within—for the needs of the services.
This is also an international program. We have six partners in the program. Our largest investor is the United Kingdom, but we have five other partners in Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Canada, and Italy, all of whom have representatives working with us and participating in our program office here in Washington.
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So my message to you today, Mr. Chairman, is that as we prepare to meet the fiscal and threat demands of the 21st century, Joint Strike Fighter is focused on reducing the cost of the manufacturing and production of the Joint Strike Fighter and also, very significantly, its support costs over the life of the system. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Kenne can be found in the appendix.]
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you very much, General Kenne. I want to ask—first, we have the Ranking Member of the full committee, Mr. Skelton, and the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Spence, with us. Floyd, do you have any questions you would like to ask?
The CHAIRMAN. No, I don't. I just appreciate your having this hearing and appreciate all the participants today. Thank you for coming.
Mr. HUNTER. Ike?
Mr. SKELTON. General, what was the name of that aircraft carrier from which you did the test flights?
Admiral NATHMAN. Sir, the airplane is going out right now on the Truman.
Mr. SKELTON. That is what I thought you said.
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Admiral NATHMAN. That is right.
Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Skelton. I have got to step out for just a second. Mr. Bateman is next up for questions. So Herb, I would ask you to take the chair if you could for us, and go ahead with your questions.
Mr. BATEMAN. [Presiding.] I certainly have been playing a game of musical chairs this afternoon, for which I apologize to my colleagues.
The principal question I wanted to ask is a generic one, not dealing with a specific program, but we are generally concerned here today with modernization. We have had any number of witnesses from the secretariat and members of the Joint Chiefs who indicated that in recent past years we have been sacrificing modernization in order to sustain our readiness. I don't challenge doing that if that is what you are forced to do. But I would like your comment on why is it that we are continuing, it seems, to defer modernization and reequipment which is equally as important, and we are still encountering very significant concerns and degradation in readiness. It seems the strategy isn't working, if it was supposed to be sustaining our readiness capability. You all have any comments on that?
General MARTIN. Congressman Bateman, I would say that is a difficult question with many faces, but perhaps a couple of thoughts on that. First of all, the cost of readiness varies according to the mode of operating, but from an Air Force perspective, we have changed our mode of operating since the Desert Storm conflict.
I don't think that we knew as we went into that what the true costs were, particularly given all the moving parts, in terms of force structure reduction and the continuing modernization that we had under way at that time. But as we began to realize—and the budgets came down significantly, so we did everything we could to keep everything going as best we could, and I think we put the load of performance on the troops, on the backs of the troops that are engaged and being heavily used each day.
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When we understood that and it became apparent about 3 years ago, we began to work the spares accounts and the O&M accounts very hard. That did cause fairly significant reductions, or at least a continued flat line on the procurement. I think we had about a 2-year point of flat line after a rather dramatic reduction.
The near-term readiness may be the most critical thing to sustaining a force that will have the opportunity to use the modernization product, which is our—or the product that is our long-term readiness. And as we have gone through a period of fairly significant attrition and retention issues, I think that deserves our closest and most important attention, particularly in the environment we find ourselves internationally, where most people will tell you if there is a chance to take a risk, you can probably do that here.
So we have tried to keep a balanced program, meaning that we were still pushing forward with modernization, albeit at a slow rate, one; two, a stretched out and more expensive rate in the long term, but nonetheless deferring those bills while we understood and took care of the people that are doing the mission that we ask of them. And the people need to know that someone cares about them today and tomorrow, someone cares about the facilities they are operating in and living in and, last but not least in priority, but the equipment and job that they are asked to do has the attention and the resources so that they can be successful.
Those are the measures, I think, that an individual uses to determine whether the job that he or she is being asked to do is worth it. And we may have slipped below their expectations for a while, but I think they are seeing we are serious about fixing that first, and we will handle the new stuff as best we can within that top line allowance.
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General MCCORKLE. As we started this budget progress, Marine Corps aviation we felt we were about $5 billion short of being where we wanted to be, thanks to the top line increase from Congress. That still leaves us about $3 billion over the Future Year Defense Plan. When you look at that and when you look at it from a Marine Corps perspective in balancing the legacy systems, as you know, with modernization or whatever, it really does put us in a bind.
I said before I came up here I was an aircraft wing commander, Third Marine Aircraft Wing, for 2 years with 17,000 Marines, and I watched over the last 4 years our mission capable rates slide about 10 percent. I think it was mentioned that General Still had talked to this group. Their flight hours rose over the last 4 years 43 percent, from $3,300 dollars and some change and now to $3,337 an hour, which is really significant when you are sitting out there as an aircraft wing commander and you are trying to decide whether to buy parts or whatever else you are going to do.
We have also seen the mission capable rates, because of supply, go down because of parts, as was mentioned early on. And this has been put on the backs of the young Marines, sailors, airmen, soldiers, or whoever, and speaking, I think, for all of us up here.
Mr. BATEMAN. General Franklin, you have any observations?
General FRANKLIN. Just one point to add, and that is, it is a delicate balance between near-term readiness and between far-term readiness. We are expected to be able to fight the Nation's wars at any time, anywhere in the world. And to do that, we have to have the trained and ready forces and we have to retain the right type of forces to do that.
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And so I would just echo that we do take some risk in the modernization accounts and it does cause programs to be stretched out. It does cause those programs to rise in cost.
Mr. BATEMAN. Admiral?
Admiral NATHMAN. Yes, sir. I would say there has been a great deal of focus on readiness by naval aviation and naval service. Inside of our interdeployment training cycle we are very concerned about our decline in readiness for nondeployed forces, and the ability to get them ready for the end of their training and to deploy them, because our forces are on scene.
I think we have made significant investments over the last several years in flight hours, in spares, in outfitting, in trying to expend money on depot, to repair aircraft, to make up for some aircraft inventory shortfalls, and to go after some engine problems that we have. We have made those investments with a great deal of pressure, of course, on our modernization, our ability to keep our force new.
As a result of that, we have seen some higher operational and support costs as our airplanes continue to age. We certainly have seen a lot higher flight hour costs as we try to put more money into that so pilots can fly. That certainly aggravates our readiness issues, and we have to watch very carefully the readiness of our nondeployed forces because of that.
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The Chief of Naval Operations has an above core list that I think outlines our needs in terms of the modernization accounts that we would like to invest in. So I appreciate the opportunity. I think that is part of the record. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BATEMAN. Thank you, Admiral.
General Kenne, do you have any comments you want to add?
General KENNE. No.
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Franklin, last year when this committee was holding a hearing on attack air issues, we heard from the chief Comanche test pilot who told us that the helmet-mounted display, such as the electroptic sight system and the helmet integrated display sight system added tremendously to the capability of the aircraft overall, because it allowed the pilot to devote more attention and time to warfighting as opposed to operating the aircraft. At that time I think the Army expressed support for that system, and I would just like to know how you feel about that now.
Sir, we think both the electrooptical site system that the pilot mentioned in the meeting—or in the testimony last year along with other things, such as liquid crystal device, helmet mounted displays, and we are looking at also miniaturized FCRs, fire control radars, for the Comanche that we are looking at, we are bringing those in. We would like to bring them in faster if we could. But right now we do have those planned as part of the program.
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Mr. PICKETT. Would you support some additional funding for that if it became available? I notice on one of your priority lists if you get additional funding for the Army air program.
General FRANKLIN. Sir, the No. 1 priority in the hardware part of the one to end list that was sent over by General Lander was the Comanche for $56 million, which would address that Extended Operation Systems as well as allow us to put some more fly dollars on the second prototype.
Mr. PICKETT. OK, thank you. Admiral Nathman, I know you have talked a bit about F–18 E and F program, but the Navy has a lot of support aircraft, and they are in inventory, and I don't think that an assessment and review has been made recently about the future of these different aircraft systems that you are going to be required to maintain into the future.
So I am speaking now about airborne early warnings, sea based theatre missile defense and surveillance and targeting and the carry onboard delivery, those kind of support aircraft. Is it the Navy's intention to conduct a study on your requirements in the 8 years for these kind of aircraft, and are you doing it now? Do you plan to do it?
Admiral NATHMAN. Yes, sir. Sir, to answer your question specifically, we are funding a study right now internal to naval aviation to look at where these missions should reside. We believe that the missions—we support the surveillance missions. We need the airborne early warning capability. We need the precision strike and targeting mission.
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We need the intelligence and warning mission. What we need to understand clearly is where we need to go with these missions and what airframes to put them into. We clearly intend to ask for funding in the future, to fund a study to look at where are these requirements, where these missions should migrate to and what particular airframes are on.
To answer some of the things specifically that we are doing right now, we are funding right now a demonstration for an upgrade to the radar for the E–2 that will help us specifically with supporting lodgments of shore against overland cruise missile defense, as well as very precise targeting.
We are looking at the capabilities that we have right now and the investments we are making in the P–3 in its anti-circuitous warfare improvement program to provide that capability to look into the littoral, to find out how we can target these types of targets. And we are upgrading slowly the S–3 to keep it from becoming more obsolescent. It is a concern. But we need to understand this so we intend, sir, in the future to ask for money to study where these missions ought to be and what these airframes ought to look at.
We still have some capacity in the airframe life and in the P–3 and the C–2 and the S–3 and in the E–2 to wait some time, wait some time before we have to make that decision. I think we need a well-founded analysis before we make that decision, sir.
Mr. PICKETT. Have you established a timeframe as to when you expect to commence and conclude that study?
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Admiral NATHMAN. Sir, I think our intent would be to ask for the money in the upcoming FYDP, and that would probably take a couple of years to do that and then we can make the decisions about where those missions should reside and how we should upgrade, should we provide a new start, should we just transfer the mission to another airframe, or should we upgrade the capability in the airframes that we have now.
Mr. PICKETT. Finally, in the test and evaluation of the F–18 E and F, it seems to have gotten more publicity than most other aircraft programs. I don't know the reason for that. But maybe I can use some of your publicity people myself sometimes because they do a good job of getting publicity on this issue.
But one of the things that is being talked about are the so-called deficiencies in the program. Would you care to comment where you are on that and how do you expect to dispose of those?
Admiral NATHMAN. Yes, I would, sir. I think it is important to understand that right now the airplane is ready for OPEVAL. Right now the airplane is meeting all its critical performance parameters that were approved by the Joint Resource Council inside the Chairman. We conduct specifically about the deficiencies. You may be talking about the O2T BRAVO test report.
I would like to comment on a couple of those right now to give you an example. First of all, the OT2 BRAVO test was a series of three operational tests to develop the airplane. It is kind of how you want to—you have an operational test and a development test to get this airplane for OPEVAL. Operational Evaluation is the final exam for the airplane. So you would expect in the development of this airplane right now that you would have some deficiencies, but here is some examples of what we have done.
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Some of the deficiencies noted was that we had weak brakes in the airplane. We have fixed the brakes. There was a discussion about the fact that there was a concern about pilots climbing aboard this leading edge extension on the airplane. The Super Hornet has a much larger extension. I had the opportunity to fly the airplane last week, it is a much larger Leading Edge Extension, you have to be careful. But it is not a safety issue. It is just a matter of a pilot understanding that it is a larger piece of extension that he has got to climb over to get into his ejection seat of the airplane.
We had some real criticisms in the airplane, but this goes with developing the airplane, about the maneuvering performance of the airplane. One of our concerns which we saw in the F–18 C was the stability of the airplane, that we have been losing airplanes to spin in departures. And in fact one of our goals was to make sure we had a very stable airplane.
We may in fact have made it too stable. But recently we have corrected that with software changes to the flight control computers in the airplane. I flew the airplane last week. It is a wonderful airplane. It is a wonderful strike fighter. Now it has got great maneuvering performance.
We fixed the ability to slice the nose off, to rate the airplane around, we are going to keep it, I think, as an airplane that will not only be—that meets the threat today, it is an airplane that we can grow to challenge any type of threat in the future with the right type of architecture in that airplane, which would include a helmet mounted cueing site, very agile weapons like the A9X and an electronically scanned radar.
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Mr. PICKETT. How many hours did you say that this—these test models have been flown now today, sir?
Admiral NATHMAN. Sir, we have flown about 3800 and I think 3850 flights. And we have about 4,300 test hours right now in the airplane. So it is very mature. Our configuration is very stable. The airplanes that we approve for LRIP 3 this year are the same configurations that we propose for the multiyear.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. I thank you, Mr. Pickett.
Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman, thank you for your service to this Nation. General McCorkle, I just have a quick question with you on the Marine aviation side. You have 18 squadrons of Hornets today; 6 of which, 6 squadrons have no capability of employing the AIM20, the AMRAAM missile. Six of those squadrons as well have no capability of employing self designating target selection.
Do you intend to maintain those 6 squadrons in that configuration or do you intend to modernize them? If you do, what is going to be the cost of modernization of those 6 squadrons of Hornets?
General MCCORKLE. Well, as we transition into the Marine Corps to the joint strike fighter, we felt like, as you know, that skipping and going straight to the joint strike fighter from the C and D and also from the AV–8 was a way to go to the Marine Corps, and that was the cheapest and that would provide us with the best strategy.
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There are some things that we need to do to the F–18, particularly to the early models that will take us out to the joint strike fighter. And we believe right now that the ECP, engineering change proposal, 583 will get us there. This proposal allows the early model F–18s to be as capable in the avionic system as the lot 17 F–18s are right now, and that is a total cost of approximately $4.5 million per aircraft.
This engineering change proposal, which Admiral Nathman and I have both worked on will allow this aircraft to do JDAM, AMRAAM, it will put the R–210 suite in there also and will make this aircraft capable to be invited to the fight. And it will also give us the APG–73, the radar upgrade, which is in the later model Hornets, so the young captains that are flying this thing out there in the year 2010, or whatever, will be as capable in that aircraft as they are in the late model F–18s.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you. General, one final question to you. You heard your colleague there to your right describe the fact that the C–130J model is already ahead of production. Knowing the Marine situation with C–130's, the need for the air refueling capability of the C–130 that is going to replace much of the old 130's now being operated by the Marines, do you agree with your colleague that you can afford to put off till the year 2002 the C–130J model?
General MCCORKLE. No, sir, I can't. As you know, KC–130J has not been in the Marine Corps' budget and the Commandant has written a letter to the Hill saying that the MV–22 and some other things took precedence over there. We do have two aircraft right now in the budget, thanks to Congress, we currently have 7 KC–130's that have been given us by the Congress, and this aircraft, which I have flown, I can tell you is light years ahead of the old KC–130. Our current F models, the average age is 37 years, and next year our first one will be 40 years of age, almost as old as me.
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So they are getting old. We are having problems with them. We just recently—this nation was going to do a mission in Africa, it ended up taking 5 KC–130's out of the Marine Corps to get 2 of them over to do a non-combatant Evaluation Operation and two engine failures on the way, another aircraft had to carry the engines over. KC–130J we think is great.
We are working real hard with the Navy to get some of those in the budget, and we would appreciate any of the help that we can get from Congress. If the Air Force don't want them, the Marine Corps will be happy to take them.
Mr. GIBBONS. I understand. And there is a few others out there in the inventory of 130 markets, including the Guard and Reserves, which are far different in their needs as well than the active Duty.
Mr. Chairman, I will have some additional questions on this 130 production, the road map plans for all of that for the witnesses later. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. I thank you, Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Snyder.
Mr. SNYDER. I don't think I have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Spratt.
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Mr. SPRATT. Thank you all for your testimony, and I have had the pleasure of being briefed by several of you in recent weeks, and they were good briefings and encouraging. I hope the positive signs continue, particularly Major General Kenne, interested to see what you are doing with the JSF, it brings together things we have been talking about for a long time, the services have been talking about, the joint fighter, which lots of people felt never could be accomplished, particularly with three services participating and the technology you are trying to bring together at affordable prices.
I think it is a challenge and a revolution. If you can pull it off, it will be quite an accomplishment. And I am just reading quickly your testimony because I didn't get to hear all of it. What struck me is that everybody comes back to this theme of the technical overmatch. We clearly want to outpace and outclass our competitor in the foreseeable future, but there is a price to pay for that. When we push the envelope sometimes, the margin cost of getting them—the final marginal benefit of pushing the envelope hard can run the system up considerably.
As you look at the systems you are developing, just take them one by one, what are you really concerned about, what are you watching for likely cost growth, and what sort of program management have you set up in order to be attendant for that early on so you can take steps either to stop it, abate it or nip it in the bud?
General MARTIN. Congressman Spratt, I think that when you take a look at many of the Air Force's modernization programs, whether they be in the air or in space, they are very high tech and state-of-the-art systems. The F–22 is certainly one of those systems. It looks like we have had very reasonable success with the engine development, the concept of being able to sustain supersonic flight without use of after burner for extended periods of time at various substantial market numbers is revolutionary and the folks at Pratt and Whitney have done a superb job on that engine.
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And we look forward to seeing that engine roll into the JSF and also the General Electric, into—add competition to that which will help us drive the price down. So from an engine perspective, I think we have some challenges. Every now and then we will find a fatigue failure or a difficulty in the fan section that we have not anticipated, and so we will go through some maturation and growth in the next few years.
I think what is important though is that the system is attuned to that and there are no chances being taken when a system or one of those difficulties pops up. So a lot of effort there and of course our Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology program is working very hard at technological insertion into that activity.
But although we have no reason to be seriously concerned about where the engine is, what we are asking that engine to do is very challenging, and we are watching very carefully. I think IHPTET will help us in that area.
Mr. SPRATT. What about the integration of your avionics and the one screen on the balance? It is kind of a low profile issue, but it is a real technical change as I understand.
General MARTIN. It turns out that—I would just say that, for whatever reason, the Sleeper, in terms of being able to provide our modern forces, and I think this is true in all services, the capability or the activity that will give them the greatest punch for their effort tends to be now in the integration of information, the assessment of that information, the modeling simulation and analysis of the circumstances, the development of courses of action and likely outcomes.
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We have become used to watching the television channel show what the weather not only has been, is, but pretty reliably tell you what it will be. That is why we run out of milk in 1996 when the snowstorm hit here, everybody believed the snowstorm was coming because the model analysis simulation was clear to everyone. That is the kind of integration we are looking for on an airplane like the F–22, where we are taking every electron that is out there of significance, pulling it together and displaying it in a way that gives our crew members the information they need to understand the situation and understand the consequences of their actions.
What we are doing to mitigate the costs of that doesn't sound very revolutionary, but it is fairly significant and that is the flying test bed being operated at Boeing where we have the radar on the nose and now we have the wind sweep attached above the cockpit section. That aircraft has just finished its flight certification profile and will now put somewhere between 15 and 30 engineers on board for 5 to 6-hour flights, each to be able to do the software assessment, integration and oftentimes changes on the spot to gather that information and to display it in an appropriate manner.
We will also have crew members as a part of that force to make sure the information that is being displayed will be displayed in a manner that is useful to the decisionmaker. When it comes to stealth, we are in what I would consider to be a fairly significant evolutionary growth in our ability to apply, to understand the types of coatings that will make the biggest difference, and then pay very close attention to the application and maintenance of those coatings so we will reduce the maintenance costs per flying hour.
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The JSF I think will be the largest beneficiary of the learning curves we have gone through. We are not out of the woods with that. The work we are doing with the B–2 and the high frequency materials will be very useful to us and, of course, the work that we are doing with the F–22 will be significant, but still behind where we expect the JSF to be.
So when it comes to the F–22, several areas that we are working on. I alluded to the B–2. I would say in addition to the observability feature, one of the areas that we are paying very, very, close attention to is the planning and avionic system integration. There are risks there when you are talking about being able to fuse the information to properly display the enemy order of battle, understand its effect on the platform that would be penetrating it and then put that into a useful format quickly to be able to do near real-time mission planning.
We have come a long way, it would take somewhere between 50 and 60 hours to plan those missions just 2 years ago. We are into the 8-hour ballpark now. That is not good enough, we are working it down further. So that kind of integration is important.
When it comes to our cargo systems, I would just say that the C–17, as you know, has just been a magnificent performer recently. But interestingly enough as new as it is, the software and computer systems and avionic systems on those aircraft are of the 1980's design and at the pace that we are moving through those types of technologies, they are out of date and maxed out.
So we are having to redo some of those even on a new aircraft in order to be able to accommodate some of the mission planning capability and the global air traffic management or access to navigation space. So ultimately I think the comments that you are making are absolutely critical. We have focused on them and are beginning to, we think, make some fairly significant progress.
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Mr. SPRATT. General McCorkle, it is unique enough for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps all to be buying the same airplane but in your case it is going to be reconfigured for a vertical takeoff capability and that requires changes in the airframe and the engine. Are you comfortable with this, or do you see it as a significant area of risk?
General MCCORKLE. I can tell you that the joint strike fighter is absolutely critical to the Marine Corps and to our future, since it is replacing the F–18 and the AV–8. Right now we don't, and I have visited both factories and looked at what both companies have to offer, we don't see anything as a great risk. Our greatest challenge we see in there, and I think the greatest challenge to the aircraft is the STOVL variant and putting the integrated flight control system and propulsion system together.
When I look at this aircraft and look at what you said with all the services coming together and making it a joint, I think that it is probably going to be the most affordable and most capable aircraft that this country has ever bought, and the Marine Corps is really looking forward to it. I think a lot of the risk that was there in the program has gone away in the last 2 years.
We still have challenges, as my colleague said, but we are getting a great deal out of what has happened on the F–22 and other aircraft, and we are really happy with the way the program is going.
I would add, since I am kind of on the stage here for a couple more seconds, on another aircraft that a lot of people had talked about on risk, the MV–22, for this distinguished body I got to fly that aircraft about a month ago. And when I looked at the jet engine and the invention of the jet engine, the invention of the helicopter, I put the MV–22 right there with it. At the end of the runway, I could take the fastest helo that the Marine Corps has, one that I lost five of in Vietnam, this H–46 and 120 knots and I was pulling back on the power to stay below 250 knots; 46 will carry 3,000 pounds, MV–22s 10,000 pounds, and we have put 20,000 pounds in it.
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And we are supposed to go 2100 nautical miles with one air-to-air refueling and we are capable of 2600. So that is a real success story. Hopefully the joint strike fighter will be as good.
Mr. SPRATT. General Franklin, there have been concerns for a long time maybe the Army was asking the Comanche to do too many things, be a scout helicopter, an attack helicopter, have a stealth airframe, and seeing your testimony you call it the quarterback of the battlefield of the future. Are you concerned about bringing all of these capabilities onto one airframe?
General FRANKLIN. Well, certainly, sir, of the four aircraft, that is the one that is in the premilestone two decision point right now, so we are into risk reduction. We understand the capability of being able to add the stealth, being able to reduce the Infrared signatures, being able to reduce the acoustic signature, and being able to do the types of mission that that aircraft has.
Now to handle that risk, we have done several things. First of all, while we only have one prototype flying, it has accomplished more in its early stages of flying 129 hours than we have in other previous prototype. It has already expanded the envelope to 175 knots forward speed, 75 knots side and backwards speeds. It has gone to 9600 feet altitude.
In the first 12 hours that we had that helicopter, we had a military pilot flying. To reduce the risk in the program, we have accelerated the bringing in of the mission equipment package, and we have also had some breakthroughs in the fire control radar so that we can miniaturize that and put that on the Comanche up to 5 years earlier than what we were planning.
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It is one of the best run programs in the Department of Defense. It has shown about less than 2 to 3 percent in costs and schedule variance, which is six times less than a normal program in this area. So while the technologies are challenging, I believe that we have a sufficient program to address those challenges.
Mr. SPRATT. Fine. Admiral Nathman, and, General Kenne, you have both answered my questions, Admiral Nathman in your case through somebody else, but they gave us a very good briefing on F/A–18 and General Kenne, good luck JSF. Truly a revolutionary program acquisition. And we hope you pull it off, but it looks like you are succeeding so far.
Thank you very much for your testimony.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Saxton. And Mr. Jones will be right with you. See, you started this thing by letting Mr. Gibbons go in front of you, because he had to leave, now everybody knows they can prey on you like this. Mr. Saxton.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask General Franklin a couple of questions if I may. General, it has been brought to my attention that the Army has an unfunded requirement for the Apache amounting to some $45 million involving the Apache Longbow systems processor, apparently relating to obsolescence. I also understand that obsolescence has a serious impact on the future of the Apache multiyear two program.
What do you contemplate or what steps are you taking to solve this issue and how important is the production program, how important is the $45 million to this program?
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General FRANKLIN. Sir, as you are aware, we are embarking on a multiyear, we are going to be requesting a multiyear starting in 2001 year to buy the rest of the 298 aircraft. What we have now recognized, and we did not recognize this until January, is that we have an obsolescence problem because the other aircraft were built on 1990's technology. We have performances spec. We are moving away from the mil specs, many of the parts are obsolete. We cannot buy those.
So we recognize that we will have to fix this before we go into the next multiyear production. We have several ways that we are looking at that. We are going to explore that over the next proof of manufacture bill, but what we are doing immediately is to address that within the program office to see how they can fund that now, and then we can look at replacing that money in 2001.
Mr. SAXTON. Is there anything that our committee needs to do to be helpful to you?
General FRANKLIN. Sir, if there was $45 million available above the top line, then that certainly would help this problem.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. With regard to the Chinook, one of the Army top's unfunded priorities for fiscal year 2000 is 56.1 million to ramp up the CH–47 F engine conversions I believe to a number of 120 a year.
General FRANKLIN. That is correct, sir.
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Mr. SAXTON. I understand that the same problem exists for 2001. Just speaking from my side of the table, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to ramp up and then immediately in 2001 ramp back down. And so if Congress provides the additional funds for 2000, will the Army commit to fund 120 engines for 2001?
General FRANKLIN. Sir, I will take that question for the record and get back to you on that. I do recognize that that would provide a ramp up and a lessor amount in 2000. But I have to tell you that CH–47 is very important to the Army. We recognize that, and we recognize that we will need to address that as we build this next budget.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. Let me return to Apache Longbow for just a minute. This question involving 530 Apache Longbows or 740. I am confused frankly. I guess the question is this, which costs more 530 Apache Longbow, a program with 500 radars, or 740 Apache Longbow programs of 227 radars? Apparently those are two options that you are looking at. And how much—what is the difference in the cost, which costs more and what is the difference in the costs?
General FRANKLIN. Sir, the Army is—during the development of the last year's POM, the Army recognized that we had an issue in the 2006 and 2008 timeframe. And that was being able to build both the Comanche and the A–64 deltas at the same time. We also knew that the objective force for the A–64 delta would be 475, and that we would meet that objective force in 2005. So we made a very tough decision that we would stop production of the Longbow Apache at 530.
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The requirement was still to upgrade all of our Apaches, which we have 746 of those on hand right now. The program as listed right now funds in the POM 530 aircraft and 241 radars. It also funds 79 radars in Advanced Procurement Plan, which is not the full 500 radars. And so right now if you compared the plans, the 530 is cheaper, but we are not buying the full 500 radars.
What we are doing now, though, is assessing those radars to determine how many of those radars we need and we hope to have that assessment completed by 1 October.
Mr. SAXTON. I am still confused, and I am sure it is not your fault, it is probably just me. But let me ask you, are we spending more for 530 Apache Longbows with 500 radars, or would it cost more for—to convert 748 Apache Longbows with 227 radars?
General FRANKLIN. Yes, sir. The costs would be very close to each other, but the issue was being able to afford to buy Longbow Apaches at the same time we were buying Comanches, and Comanche is our No. 1 priority.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Maloney.
Mr. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your dedication for aviation modernization, it really is critical to us. Let me follow up a little bit. We were talking about rotary aircraft. Let me follow up a little bit, particularly General Franklin, if I could, on the issue of the Chinooks that we were just talking about.
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If the additional priority money was made available, the unfunded requirement, could you just give us an idea of the impact on deployment? What would happen on the ground in forward areas like Korea, and what would happen in regard to the Guard and Reserve units if we could in fact provide this additional funding?
General FRANKLIN. Sir, if we could ramp up to 120 going up to 180 engines per year, we would be able to accelerate the fielding of this to Korea by about 30 months, and we would be able to accelerate the Guard and Reserve between 18 and 24 months.
Mr. MALONEY. Very good. Well, I think that is an important consideration, and I know we will work on that during this session. And then let me do one other rotary aircraft, which is also, General Franklin, in your purview, which is the Blackhawk, if you could just give us a little summary of where we stand on the modernization program and, if I could just direct your attention, I know you know about it, in the Army fiscal year 2000 unfunded priorities list, the fifth priority on modernization band 1 is the Blackhawk service life extension program and the L/Q procurement.
Could you just talk to us about that, bring us up to date a little bit and comment on, if you would, the fact that—I know you have a plan and a program, but in fiscal year 2000 we have no money set out.
General FRANKLIN. Yes, sir. First of all, we recognized last year and we reported to you last year in order to complete all the UH–60's that we need for the war fight that we needed to procure an additional 90 aircraft to support the National Guard. At that time we had only had 50 of those funded. I would say even despite very big pressure to bring down some of our modernization programs last year, we were able to find enough money to fund 89 of those.
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So we are one short on that. So now that will take our—the UH–60's out for several years of procurement. We also would like to be able to produce or procure the kits to make some UH–60 Q models for the medical people. So those are our priorities in those unfunded requirements.
The other one is that last UH–60 helicopter will get us up to 90. I will also say in the emergency supplemental, we had in the Johnson City, Tennessee tornado destroyed two of our UH1s and two of our UH–60 Blackhawks. And we will be looking to replace those in the supplemental for about 3.8 million.
Mr. MALONEY. Very good gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. And now Mr. Jones.
Mr. JONES OF NORTH CAROLINA. Mr. Chairman, I think you were showing this distinguished panel as to how you treat PFCs on the committee. No, I am just joking. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the distinguished panel, thank you, as many of my colleagues have done, for your service to our Nation and your leadership also.
Mr. Chairman, I am going a little bit different direction, because I want to talk about readiness and also about our aviator suit. If I might start, as most on this committee know, I have four military bases in my district Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro and Cherry Point Marine Air Station, and also the Navy Depo at Cherry Point, and then the Coast Guard base in Elizabeth City, which again as you know is on the transportation.
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General McCorkle, I will start this by asking you a question, but I want to read some comments. I wrote an editorial for a paper, and I want you to if you will respond, give me a chance to read and then make a comment. Then I want to ask you. In this editorial that I wrote I said, since 1994, AV–8B full mission capability rates have steadily declined from nearly 80 percent in 1994 to a low point of 48 percent in 1998, where the average Harrier pilot flew 242 hours in 1992; in 1998, the average dropped to 105, barely sufficient to maintain official flight status.
I bring that up, Mr. Chairman, because in January 1998, I was asked by a former Air Force Colonel Jack Trabuko, who flew during the Vietnam war in F–4 and won the Civil Star because of a night mission to meet with two Harrier pilots at his little airport. He has about 8 planes that he teaches flying and also maintains a flying service. And these pilots from Cherry Point, General McCorkle, one was a captain, the other a major. And they asked to meet with me out of uniform at the Jack Trabuko's hangar office.
And we talked and I think I listened for an hour and a half. And I was somewhat spellbound by these two men that were telling me that basically they verified these figures that I gave you, and both of them said that they were not getting adequate flying time in the Harrier. They were not getting the same combat training, fewer hours. In fact, they told me that many times on the weekend they were going to Mr. Trabuko's to rent planes just to get up in the air.
And I realize with all the effort to balance the budget, which we all agree needs to be done and the military trying to get as much as it can out of the dollar, I was somewhat taken aback by the story. And I can tell this committee today that we lost a captain and a major that retired. In fact, one of them has a flying service in Greenville, North Carolina which is in my district.
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And I guess what I am saying if these numbers which I hope, because I used them in an editorial, are correct, my concern is how in the world can we expect whether it be the Air Force, General Martin, or Admiral of the Navy, how can we expect our men and women in many cases that are combat pilots to be ready, combat ready to be able to defend this Nation and take care of themselves quite frankly?
So I guess my question on that, General McCorkle, would be if my numbers are correct that I used, will you please tell me and then I think I will ask General Martin, because of the F–15 pilots I have had similar conversations with from Goldsboro, will you tell me what we are going to do to give these pilots the adequate time in that cockpit that they need to defend this Nation's interests?
General MCCORKLE. Well, when you are talking about the AV–8—first of all and as you know, since you own the district down there, this is an aircraft that is very difficult to fly. And, in my opinion, an AV–8 pilot needs to get 20 to 25 hours minimum a month in order to be ready to go to war for this great Nation.
With the engine problems that we have had in the past in the AV–8 and the other things in there, we are about now to where MEUs and our deployed debts are averaging about 20 to 25 hours. The latest MEU that came back averaged about 23 hours. In order to do that, because of parts, individuals back home and the young captains that you are talking about are getting about 10 to 12 hours a month, which is DCS for aviation. For the Marine Corps I consider that to be unsatisfactory.
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If you look, and your figures are pretty close, in 1994, we were 77.2 percent as far as mission capable, and in 1998, we ended up with 60.6 percent, a drop of over 16 percent over a 4-year period, which is unsatisfactory. At the same time, the nonmission capable supply, which is parts of DLR, we went from 10.4 percent running to 19.9 percent. So almost 100 percent increase and that is parts. And both MAG 13 and MAG 14, which is at Cherry Point, most of the young guys tell me if they had parts they could get these aircraft up and flying and, therefore, the pilots would get more time.
Mr. JONES OF NORTH CAROLINA. Mr. Chairman, excuse me—
The CHAIRMAN. If the gentleman would yield. You say they need 20 to 25 hours a month for AV–8B proficiency to maintain proficiency. What are they getting?
General MCCORKLE. Our deployed units, sir, the last couple that came back were getting right at 23 hours a month; however, once captain and majors that are in the squadrons right now in the States are getting between 10 and 12 hours a month, and I do consider that to be unsatisfactory.
The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.
Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I want to ask General Martin also, because again, off base, I don't always make this clear, I had conversations with some F–15 pilots from Seymour Johnson, and I am hearing basically the same thing that General McCorkle has said from some of the aviators in the Air Force. They are telling me they are not getting the adequate flying time to do what needs to be done in a war combat situation. So, General Martin, would you please respond the best you can to the same type of question?
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General MARTIN. Yes, sir. I would say that the same indicators that General McCorkle is talking about, we have experienced, but not quite to as great an extent. As you know, aviation is our business. So we work that very, very hard. Our numbers are about a 10 percent mission capable rate reduction during that same period of time, a little bit less than the other services have experienced.
But what was difficult and challenging for us was our readiness rates in the deployed aircraft were not showing us those trends, but the stateside units were. Our combat capable C–1, C–2 units in the States suffered, depending on which month you are looking at, somewhere between a 50 and 55 percent reduction compared to a very small reduction to our overseas units, in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 percent.
So the priority was going forward to our either forward based or our deployed based units and, therefore, the people remaining behind were sucking up the shortages, and that has gone up for a few years. And that trend has come down over the past 5 years. And then on top of that, with respect to the comments I made earlier, we created tremendous turbulence and instability in the lives of our people, both the rated force and the nonrated force in the way we were deploying our forces, very capable, fine young men and women overseas to do the Nation's work.
We had seen that we can—that is an anaerobic way of operating. We are running out of air. So we have got to get into an aerobic exercise here and we can sustain forever and the restructuring that we are doing with respect to the air expeditionary forces is designed to do that. Additionally, as we went into an accounting system that we all had heard of called Defense Business Operating Fund in the early 1990's and Depot-Level Repairable and ultimately the working capital fund, we had a good understanding of our Petroleum Oils and Lubricants and expendable costs, and funded that.
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And that began to take on the term flying hours. On the other hand, our depot repairs were kind of in a separate pot. And as we watched the forestructure come down and us use the spares and the parts of the aircraft that we are phasing out, our depot level repair money came down. We went to the point of funding our depot level repairs to about 83 percent of need, yet spending 110 percent of what we were funding, which means the minimum we can get by even in this deterioration was about 92 percent.
In this budget that is on the Hill, our depot level repairs are funded to 100 percent. Our flying hours are funded to 100 percent. In the Unfunded Priority List that we have sent over, the first 5 items in our request deal with engine spares, spares and training munitions so that we can hopefully stem the tide of the frustration that our stateside pilots are experiencing and then add some stability in their life.
At that point, we hope that we will prove to this very capable force that they are important, their readiness is important and we are serious about their readiness. The last point I would make, and this is one small data point, but within the first half of this year, the take rate on the aviation incentive pay has gone up significantly from where we were last year, and an indication that the people are believing that we are serious and that we are working for them.
And that comes from a result of our leadership, of the recognition of this concern by the President and as important as anything the support that you have provided to us, not only in the modernization, but in your sensitivity to the troops and their needs.
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Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I believe I have a couple more questions, but because there are other members that have not had that opportunity, and I don't want to bump them—no, I am just joking, I would like to say that I appreciate the response, I know I didn't give the Navy, the Army a chance to talk about the helicopter pilots or any other.
But this to me is a sad, sad situation, because I am 56 years of age, and when I see these young captains and I see these young men that are—and women that are willing to go give their life for this country and we can't give them adequate training, then I think it is a sad, sad time in this country. I really do.
Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones, let me just tell you, you are one of the most valuable members of this committee. Those are great questions, and I find it a tragedy too not only have we cut our forces almost in half since Desert Storm, but the half we got left is being starved. And this is very consistent, the testimony we have heard today is very consistent with what we heard at the—on the hearing just a few days ago with Mr. Bateman's committee at Nellis from the National Training Commands, and it is interesting, we are pulling these people in so many different directions. Spare parts problems aside, it is like having students who are pulled out of school 2 days a week and they are expected to get good grades when the finals comes around.
We are undertrained with comparison to what we had when we had a full force structure. So thank you for your very important questions. And I think the real test of this committee is going to be in this Congress, is if we can push that—at least give the services what they have asked for, which if you add the pay and the 1.8 million for Bosnia is right at 22 billion a year. If we don't do that, I think we are becoming irrelevant. Thank you for your questions.
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Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, Mr. Jones, because I too feel the same way. I just have a couple of quick questions regarding the Comanche for General Franklin. And it is my understanding that while this helicopter has been under development for about 15 years, and it is designated the quarterback of the digital battlefield, yet we have only had one prototype, irrespective of the fact that you commented this afternoon of the many successes and the many positives with that one prototype.
Next month we are set to accept the second prototype, and it is our understanding that it is only going to fly for I believe it is 5 or 6 hours, then it is going to be parked for an 18-month period. My question is, having had an opportunity to go down there and observe it and having a background in helicopters from my experience as a veteran, I am curious to know what kind of commitment the Army, first of all, has to the Comanche? And then second, can you tell me how much money would be needed in order to make the second prototype fully functional, so it wouldn't have to be parked?
General FRANKLIN. Yes, sir. Sir, the Army is very committed to Comanche. It is our top materiel program that we have. And I think in the way that you described this, this we went through our budget cut that we went through last year to bring in 2004, 2005 timeframe where we took a significant amount of dollars out of those years. Comanche remained untouched. So we have continued to fund that program throughout development.
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As to your second question, we have an unfunded requirement, General Reimer said over on his wanted list, it is our No. 1 hardware unfunded requirement. It is for $56 million and of that $12 million is to be able to fly that second prototype.
Mr. REYES. Is there any concern that because of the inordinate amount of time that we have been in the development stage with this helicopter that once it is completed and goes into production that it would be obsolete or outdated or even halfway toward that end, even though you designated it as a quarterback of the digital battleground? And I say that based on the fact that I am a Cowboys fan, and I am seeing the same things with the Cowboys.
General FRANKLIN. Sir, I think one thing you will be very pleased, and I know you have seen the helicopter, is that we have been able to keep up with technology as technology has grown and put that into the helicopter. Things like Special Electronics Mission Aircraft, things like taking full account of the building test equipment, the byte, the parts I have talked about on equipping the helicopter, being able to take advantage of what the Air Force has done in some of the stealth technology, the Navy, Marine Corps, being able to take advantage of what we have learned of how to down drive acoustic signatures, how to down drive infrared signatures.
I think what you are seeing, even though this has been a long time in development, that we have been able to keep this up with the technology, and we fully intend to take advantage of technology as it grows.
Mr. REYES. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman and thank him for the expertise in the background that he brings to this subcommittee.
Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Kenne, just to jump on the bandwagon for a second. I know you realize that the JSF program has a lot of importance beyond just the military capability that it will bring. Mr. Spratt talked about having several services working together on similar aircraft with some variations for their purposes. Mr. Pickett in his opening statement made reference to the decision that the Marine Corps made to forego the E and F, F–18 E and F and wait for the joint strike fighter.
That is the kind of decision that we are going to have more of, I think, as we look at budgets that are limited and needs that are great. That was not an easy decision to make. And if we punish them, in effect, by pushing off the joint strike fighter, I don't think we will ever have a service defer an improvement again, because they won't know that the follow-on is ever really going to get there.
And so there are a lots of reasons this program needs to be successful, and that a lot of us want to do everything we can to make it successful. And at the same time, I suspect that on both sides of the table, there is a number of folks that get frustrated and discouraged about cost overruns and continuing delays and the length of time it takes to field technology. That is going to hurt us more in the future than it has in the past.
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Certainly from your unique perspective, if you have suggestions on things that we need to do, changes in the law or whatever, that can help overcome some of the difficulties that you run into, the delays and the overruns and so forth, to the extent we can help, I know that I, for one, and I think others would like to hear from you on those suggestions, things that we can do to get the best technology possible into the field where it counts as soon as possible. So that is my soap box and thanks for listening.
General McCorkle, on V–22, it has been mentioned a time or two, but in the past, I know it has been the top priority of the Commandant, and I think he has suggested that if there are extra funds this year that an additional three aircraft would make sense. No. 1, is that right? No. 2, based upon the operations that are going on today, the things that you all are planning on today, how would the MV–22 fit into that? I mean is it something that you could use now if you had it?
General MCCORKLE. Yes, sir, that is correct. We could really, really use three additional aircraft in the upcoming year. And that would really help us with the standup to support the MEUs. And if you looked as the world as we operate today and—or men in the Navy who take the old class ships out and you take this MV–22, we have done NEOs in Mogadishu where we have had to fly 53s, 400 miles over the water.
Here is an aircraft that you could take about any distance that you want up to 2100 miles. It can also be self-deployed if you don't have the capability, and we are short on airlift right now to get to the fight, to get to where we want to go. But if you take any scenario from a Grenada to a Southwest Asia to a Somalia or whatever else, here is an aircraft that has already had a top speed of 326 knots. That is the one that we have got out at Pax River right now. It cruises at 250 knots, carries an incredible amount and will go the distance.
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Yes, sir, that would fit any scenario that you could come up with today, and the Marine Corps is really looking forward to it.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. General Martin, let me ask you briefly, this committee has attempted to put a number of F–16s into the budget over the past few years and have not had a lot of support from the Air Force. And then this year, we have 10 show up in the budget. I think we can understand that we need some additional aircraft to make up for the ones we are losing for one reason or another, but what happened?
General MARTIN. Sir, two things have happened; one, I think you have known and you have been very supportive of the need for our attrition reserve in order to keep the fleet health satisfactory as we transition the F–16 out and the JSF in the late decade of the first decade of the 21st century.
We have had that requirement changed somewhat from over 100 down to about 40, and in the past you all have helped and procured 15 of those. We had not asked for them, not because we didn't want them, but we flat could not afford them within the budget priorities we had and particularly, as I mentioned earlier, with some of our serious readiness concerns over the last 2 or 3 years.
The last time I think we asked for F–16s was in this 1997 President's budget. But the need was there, the requirement was there. This year, however, another thing happened, and that is as we restructured our—in the process of restructuring into the expeditionary Air Force and the building of our 10 expeditionary or air expeditionary forces so that we would have the appropriate capabilities, we came up a bit short in the HARM targeting capable aircraft, so in order to provide the appropriate suppression of enemy defenses for any one of those wings we needed some more block 50, 52-type of aircraft for suppression of enemy air defenses.
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Also, at the same time, you had asked us to take a look at the SLEPing of our older F–16s, those within the air reserve component. We have done that. The costs for SLEPing that aircraft, not only in terms of improving its fatigue life from 4,000 hours, many of which are over that 4,000 hours now, to 8,000 hours, along with some of the capability upgrades that we would need was in the neighborhood of $16 million per aircraft.
We felt that for a 4,000-hour gain, we would be better served by beginning to replay—beginning to buy those aircraft that were needed for the HARM targeting capability and trickle down some precision capable F–16s to replace those oldest A models that some of our Guard and Reserve Forces have. So the attrition reserve problem has not gone away. We still have that need.
But in addition to that, we have the need to maintain not only our Guard force structure with aircraft that are capable and able to come to the battle ready to fight with precision weapons, but also the need to outfit our air expeditionary force. So this proposal you see is really a win, win, win and it is not over.
We are looking very hard at trying to continue that to at least get the attrition reserve numbers that we need in addition to what we have put in the budget that you are referring to now.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. Let me ask if any of you who would like to comment on one other issue finally about this. Most everyone believes that in the future we are going to have to have systems that are interoperable, so if an incoming aircraft, for example, is picked up on a censure by one service, another service's aircraft or missile can be able to hit that target. We have to be able to talk with one another.
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I understand that there are some systems in the pipeline that do not have that capability, that, in fact, have very unique kinds of communication systems that are not as interoperable as they need to be. From your standpoint, is it an absolute requirement, and, you know, some of these are legacy systems where we are simply adding more, but for new systems, is it an absolute requirement that they be fully interoperable with the other services so that we can operate as one unified fighting force on a battlefield?
General MCCORKLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. THORNBERRY. We are going to make sure we are not going to buy anything that is not interoperable.
Admiral NATHMAN. I would be worried about the word ''fully,'' what that means. But I can tell you there is a lot of experimentation right now, there is a lot of demonstrations right now that are seeking—I can give you examples right now both under Third Fleet and the Second Fleet, the fleet battle experiments that look at interoperability in what we call the ring of fire, which is to bring any type of fire, whether it be from aircraft, come from a gun off of a ship that would deconflict, rounds that would come from the Army or the Air Force to support the maneuver scheme, and that is an example of how you build an interoperability. That is an example of how you vet the problems that you have with that.
As you know, one of the real issues that we struggle with all the time is our technology changes very fast. You find out 6 months later you could have done it a certain way. There is a real challenge to that. But there is a certain I would call it a disciplined focus inside the Services on getting and maintaining and achieving a very high level of interoperability.
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General KENNE. Sir, I would add to that, on joint strike fighter one of our focuses is that joint strike fighter will be a system of systems. And as our war fighters have done their cost of operational performance trades, they have considered that as part of their deliberations. We are the first program to have a major C–4 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance plan put together that puts joint fighter in that context this early in the program as we develop it.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, I appreciate that. I think that is essential. Admiral, we have had testimony just last week on how some of these experiments have gone, some of the advantage to be gained from that, but the key is they have got to be there when you buy the system because we won't ever go back and retrofit or look for ways to go back.
General MARTIN. Mr. Congressman, one point that I agree with fully with Admiral Nathman, the need of the Services for information is somewhat different. I think you would find in a digitized battlefield in the Army a need for information at the soldier level that would be different than the need for that information at the airmen level. The challenge that we have is in developing systems that can interoperate but not saturate.
And that sounds easy, but the challenge that I address has caused the Department some consternation because we are migrating very, very strongly toward Link 16 as the standard datalink system, but there are some applications within each of the Services that need to be able to flow back and forth, but we don't necessarily need to have every function compatible, and that is a very difficult technical challenge that we sort through every day.
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Mr. THORNBERRY. I agree, General. As a matter of fact, ACOM had a display here yesterday that talked about—and one of their points was sorting through the information and getting survivable information out, other kinds of information for plans would be held back and used in another context. But you have got to have the hardware systems in there first to be able to talk to one another and then you can have these filtering systems which I think will be there.
General MARTIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our panel for sticking around this long.
General McCorkle, in reading your statement about the need for the V–22, I do not doubt anything that you have said. I am, however, very concerned about what the Marine Corps does between now and 2014 when the system is fully operational. And every day you have got young people flying around in some very old helicopters. I have got to believe the cost of maintaining those helicopters is extremely high, not to mention the threat to those young people's live.
Has the Marine Corps given any thought of using either the Apache, Comanche or the Blackhawk in the short term until the V–22 is operational?
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General MCCORKLE. As you know, sir, the one thing that the Marine Corps has tried to do, and particularly with our marine aviation campaign plan, is to neckdown