T has probably happened only once before – a US President trying hard to cut defence procurement waste by redefining, from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the way the military views the real world. That was just over 48 years ago when the outgoing White House incumbent Dwight D Eisenhower spoke of the dangers inherent in a ‘military-industrial complex’. Now Barack Obama is redefining the way the Pentagon will defend the US, prepare for future wars, structure its armed forces and work with Europe. Announced on April 6, the day some refer to as ‘Black Monday’, defence secretary Robert Gates began to build a list of changes that most agree are long overdue. And that is no bad thing, plus, it may work out well for transatlantic co-operation and the European aerospace industry. The net result may be gain rather than loss but in the clearout to effect major changes, a lot of sacred cows will be sacrificed.
With a 4% increase in the fiscal 2010 defence budget (the US financial year beginning October 1, 2009) and spending up $10bn on the draft budget from the outgoing Bush administration, President Obama is determined to redefine the defence structure of the United States.
Under plans now being firmed up, Lockheed Martin will close production of the F-22 at 187 aircraft, Gates citing a consensus view that there is simply no requirement for more. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II gets a big boost with funding up from $6.8bn in 2009 to $11.2bn in 2010, buying 30 more test aircraft for a better evaluation of technical issues. Over the five years ahead, procurement of the F-35 would increase from 355 aircraft to 513 with total procurement now standing at 2,443 aircraft. At risk in this plan is parallel test and production triggering costly retrofit if bugs emerge late in development.
Underpinning the rationale, the strategy is to downsize the tactical combat aircraft inventory by a significant amount, the defence secretary claiming that the force is too big and must be reduced. About 250 tactical aircraft will be struck off during 2010, most of them F-16s and F-15s and not all will be replaced. Moreover, it is hoped the effectiveness of the tactical air force will become more efficient through inter-linking manned aircraft and UAVs. For the first time the MQ-9 Reaper will be integrated with F-22 and F-35 as a functional fighting element directly bearing on the number of manned aircraft in the inventory. Within the existing force, all F-22, F-35 and
B-2A bombers are each to receive a data-bridge and a communication link, expanding the intra-link of the F-22 force to embrace the other two aircraft types as well. Originally designed for autonomous operation behind Soviet borders, the intra-link for the F-22 will now be the model for communication between all tactical aircraft types.
Above: The cancelled CSAR-X combat support helicopter would have been used in a variety of roles including an offensive commando-style operation to blast a path through to downed airmen and isolated platoons. (Photo, Boeing)
To pay for this, cuts are universal across several aerospace activities. Out goes the C-17, with production cut at 205 aircraft, and the HH-47 CSAR-X combat, search and rescue helicopter. Contracted from Boeing in 2006, the
HH-47 was to have been built up on the MH-47G Chinook as an army special operations aircraft. Overall, aviation fares better than land or sea warfare procurement but there are some big losers – Boeing being top of the list with a halt to C-17 production and a halt to F-22 wing production for Lockheed Martin, cancellation of the CSAR-X helicopter and a reduction from 40 to 31 in the number of F/A-18s built in 2010. Boeing’s Long Beach facility will be hit especially hard since its only job is C-17 production but the company sweetens the pill with a drive to sell the aircraft to customers in the Middle East and Asia hopefully keeping the line alive for at least two more years.
Still on track for a potential deal with European industry, the cancelled $35bn tanker replacement contract that saw bid winner EADS/Northrop Grumman lose out in 2008 is to be re-instated by the end of this calendar year and there are indications that it will be a fair fight between that Airbus derivative or a Boeing contender. The US Air Force plans to restructure the specification and to request new submissions. The Obama administration is keen to encourage US-European collaboration and politics may yet play a forceful part in deciding the winning bid. Looking to the future, the next-generation stealth bomber to replace the B-2A is still in the budget but could be delayed beyond 2018 as the strategic mix is re-evaluated. Far out, work is still funded for hypersonic trans-atmospheric vehicles with Blackjack dispersed under other names.