Air Force jet funding on the line with Senate vote

[USMCRET6391]

By DALE EISMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - When the Air Force brought a new and unconventional purchasing plan for the F-22 "Raptor" to Capitol Hill this spring, the reception was decidedly unenthusiastic.

In both the House and Senate, lawmakers fumed about the service's proposal to spend more than $1.5 billion in 2007 on Raptor components but not get any finished fighter jets.

"Wholly unacceptable," the House Armed Services Committee wrote of the Air Force plan in its annual report on defense spending. The service offered "no justification" for its strategy, the Senate Armed Services Committee complained.

But while rebuking the Air Force's management of the Raptor program, the committees still urged the addition of $1.4 billion to Raptor accounts - for a total of nearly $3 billion this fiscal year.

Senators could vote on the spending increase this week as part of a $518 billion defense authorization bill for 2007; the House agreed to it in May. Final approval will add 20 Raptors next year to the 70 already delivered, with 20 more expected to follow in 2008 and again in 2009. Currently, 24 Raptors are stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton.

The Congressional largesse illustrates the powerful appeal of the F-22, the first fighter to combine radar-evading "stealth" technologies with the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds.

Though critics say the Raptor is unneeded, overpriced and beset by cost overruns and mechanical glitches - crews at Langley recently had to cut open the canopy of one Raptor so the pilot could get out - there's been no serious bid to trim F-22 funding in years.

P O L L

Should Congress remain committed to the Air Force's F-22 Raptor program?

Yes
No
Perhaps, but at a lower level
Undecided

View results
See Thing Your Way.
Latest Videos!
For these fans, sand soccer kicks grass
Home built in a Blitz of your eye
Beach wheelchairs offer disabled better access
Wie Left Outside Looking In
Series of Deadly Bombings in Iraq
Dozens Injured when Trolleys Collide
Warnings Issued as Alberto Nears Florida


See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print
- View stories, photos and ads
- E-mail clippings
- Print copies
Log in or learn more

Instead, the Clinton and Bush administrations have reacted to the Raptor's increasing costs by imposing a series of cuts in the number of F-22s to be constructed. The Air Force originally wanted more than 700 of the planes and still says it needs about 380; the Pentagon plans to end production at 183.

The Air Force says it's paying about $130 million each for the planes, making the Raptor the most expensive fighter in history.

But congressional reviews, which include money invested in research and development before actual construction, put the real cost at about $360 million per plane.

Whichever figure is used, "it's a total waste of money," said Pierre Sprey, an weapons program analyst during the 1970s development of arguably the most successful U.S. fighter program ever, the Air Force F-16.

In briefings delivered to defense reporters and some congressional staffers this spring, Sprey and James Stevenson, author of several books on U.S. naval aviation, raised new but fundamental questions about the Raptor. The plane's impressive features and performance will be of limited value if it ever gets into a real war, they charged.

Sprey and Stevenson argue that the F-22's acceleration, maneuverability and persistence - the ability to remain on station and engage the enemy - are inferior to those of existing fighters.

The Raptor carries less fuel, relative to its overall weight, than some existing fighters, limiting its range, Stevenson said. And while the 35,000 pounds of thrust generated by each of its two engines is the most for any fighter, the Raptor's weight - about 50 percent more than an F-15 - means it accelerates more slowly, he added.

At Langley, where the first batch of operational Raptors is training for an expected overseas deployment next year, pilots tout the F-22 as the deadliest fighter ever and insist it's worth the expense.

Lt. Col. Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron, said the Air Force F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon and Navy F/A-18 Hornet, the current workhorses of American fighter aviation, are vulnerable to fighters such as Russia's Su-35 and the improved radars and surface-to-air missiles available to terrorist groups on the black market.

Matching an F-22 against any other fighter or ground-based defense "is like going to a bow-and-arrow fight and introducing a gun," Tolliver asserted.

Sprey countered that "the testing we do in peacetime is so falsified and so phony that peacetime tests don't work."

Besides questioning the Raptor's performance, Sprey and Stevenson are skeptical about the value of stealth. When the United States bombed targets in Serbia in 1999, the Yugoslavian government's aging air defense system was able to track and shoot down one stealthy F-117 Nighthawk and severely damage another, Sprey said.

Stevenson said the radar-evading coatings and design features of the F-22 will be negated when its pilots switch on their own radars to search for the enemy. He likened the Raptor's radar to a policeman's flashlight in a dark alley; it may illuminate hazards but it also gives the bad guys something to shoot at.

Stevenson argues that future aerial combat may be fought in silence, with pilots wary of using radar or radios because it may betray their location. In that case, it will be important to have planes that are small so they are harder to see and target with the naked eye. It also will be important to have cockpits that give the pilot a 360-degree view of the area and have fast and accurate machine guns for close-quarters fighting.

The F-22 falls short of existing fighters on those counts, Stevenson said; its rearward visibility is much less than an F-16's and its machine gun is essentially the same one mounted on U.S. fighters in the Cold War.

Sprey was an associate and Stevenson an admirer of the late John Boyd, a legendary Air Force pilot whose ideas about aircraft design are evident in the F-15 and particularly the F-16.

Boyd demanded designs that would produce relatively small, quick, and highly maneuverable fighters, believing those features would help U.S. pilots confuse and frustrate their adversaries. He spent much of his career in bureaucratic battles with Air Force generals and senior civilians who favored larger, heavier and more expensive planes.

Sprey and Stevenson complain that because the Raptor is so expensive, the Air Force will be unable to buy enough of the planes to defeat a well-equipped foe.

Particularly in a long war, numbers matter, Sprey said, because some planes will be lost and others will suffer mechanical breakdowns. He likened the F-22 to the Me-262 "Stormbird," a World War II fighter beloved by its German builders and pilots but so outnumbered by allied fighters that it was not a major factor in the conflict.

Tolliver, who has more than 2,000 flying hours in the F-16 and also flew the F-15 before coming to the Raptor 18 months ago, politely waves aside comparisons between the F-22 and earlier fighters.

"The battles we fight today, I feel they're a little bit different," he said.

In the Raptor, "I can outmaneuver an F-16, F-15, F-18. It doesn't matter," Tolliver said. And the F-22's radar works in a way that allows him to use it without revealing himself, he insisted.

Though its exact workings are classified, the F-22 is known to emit radar signals in extremely short bursts over multiple frequencies.

"Even if you detect me, you're not going to know where I am a second from now," said Joe Quimb, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, the Raptor's principal builder.

Tolliver said that radar and other sensors, along with information fed into the Raptor's computers from ground-based radars and other planes, gives F-22 pilots an unmatched view of potential threats and targets aloft and on the ground.

Raptor advocates contend that battlefield picture will allow the Raptor to fly around ground-based missiles that might detect it and penetrate deeply into enemy territory to conduct unexpected attacks on key targets.

"It's amazing the information you have at your fingertips," Tolliver said.

In no-holds-barred mock battles with F-15s, F-16s and the Navy's F/A-18 Hornets, he and other Raptor pilots generally "destroy" their adversaries before those foes even realize they're around, Tolliver said.

When someone happens to find them, "it's just not his day," Tolliver said, as the Raptor maneuvers and scores a quick kill.

"It's kind of tough when you've been the dominant fighter for so many years and you go up and fight an F-22," he said. "It's just unfair ... and you feel bad for the guys because they're the best fighter pilots in the world and they're flying some of the best machinery in the world."

[d'artangan]

Congress cuts funds thinking that the AF will figure out a way to get more from the contractor, then bitches when the AF can't, and finds a different way of doing business instead.