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What will cause lower F-35 numbers within the US forces?

By Guest contributors for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:October 21, 2009

General budget constraints

The government of Reagan managed to spend just $4.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars to US military, during the eight years of his famous defense “spend-up” in the last decade of the Cold War. However the numbers of fighter jets purchased by US forces declined. In the FY 1986 the Pentagon purchased 387 combat aircraft, while the FY 1998 budget bought 28.

The government of George W. Bush, aided by Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, spent some $5.0 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars 2002 to 2009. The government of Obama planss to spend $5.1 trillion between 2010 and 2017, assuming Obama is elected to two terms. Obama plans to outspend Reagan by 20%. However this doesn’t mean that
important and necessary replacements of aircraft within the US Forces have been fielded.

All important replacements have been postponed to the future. The 1960s venerable B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers, the B1B Lancer bomber force: no real planning to replace or upgrade them. The higly aged tanker fleet of some 430 forty to fifty year old Boeing KC135 tankers: no decision about the replacement, but over US$ 100 billion will be needed. The heavily used transportation fleet of C-17s, old C-130s and C5s will need upgrades or replacement. The F-15 air superiority fleet isn’t replaced by the planned 780 F-22 Raptors, but by a small force of about 180 aircraft. Old F-16s and F-18s are at the end of their projected life now, without short term perspective for replacement. So grow in budget, didn’t bring new capacity.

And the money (hundreds of billions) to field all urgently necessary capacities has to be divided amongst many stakeholders within the US forces. And the financial crisis in the US with formidable budget deficits of the government and the money consuming war in Afghanistan will not make it more easy.

Like Thomas Ehrhardt, special assistant of the Chief of Staff ot the USAF in his latest CSBA Report “An Air Force Strategy fot the Long Haul” of September 2009 writes: “Accordingly, in addition to cutting back the procurement of F-35As, the Air Force should cut back its planned legacy fighter force structure some 35 percent by 2015, reaching about one thousand combat coded fighters and sustain this level through 2028.”

Conclusion: The need to replace the enormous fleet of decades old strategic bombers, tankers, transport aircraft and jet fighters after years of delay cannot be done at the same time and a balance has to be found between several operational needs. This will give a high pressure on the available budgets of the F-35 Lightning II.

Delays in development

The JSF would be developed as a complementary air-to-ground capability to the airsuperiority fighter F-22 Raptor. The 2001-plans envisaged a start to be made on quantity production of the F-35 in 2004, with procurement of first long-lead items for low-rate initial production series 1 (LRIP 1). The initial phase of full-rate production (FRP 1) had to be launched with procurement of long-lead items in 2007; coincidenting with the JSF attaining Initial Operational Capability.

In relationship to the 2001 planning the development is over 4 years late. The move of some essential capabilities (weapons, sensors) from early Blocks to later Blocks, to be operational in 2017-2020 makes the F-35 less attractive in relationship to other operational alternatives.

The in 2008 reported risk of additional slip in development may force, like Colonel Dr. Thomas Ehrhard, special advisor of USAF Chief of Staff recently wrote “to choose either to stay on its production schedule with insufficiently tested Block 3.0 versions that will likely need costly upgrades later, or to settle for a Block 2.0 derivative in the interim as incurs additional development costs” (and accept a less capable aircraft).

Conclusion: Each year of delay means a less competitive F35 and a negative impact on the operational capabilities in relationship to alternatives. Upgrading cost of early (less capable) Blocks to later Blocks will have negative budget effects. This means less F-35s.

F-35 as a post-Cold War concept, new wars need new concepts

In fact the JSF is a 1990s post-Cold War concept. There will be 16 years between the start of the program and the Initial Operational Capabilty. During the development stage the design has been frozen, but competitors are developing new technologies and tactics.

A delay of some years means that when the F-35 becomes operational is not on the leading edge as was promised in the late 1990s, but an obsolete aircraft. Within the US forces there not only is a need for alternatives to fill the fighter gaps in the US Air Force with rapidly aging F-15s and F16s, to fill the fighter gaps within the US Navy and US Marines with rapidly aging AV-8s and F/A-18s. No, operational concepts are changing. Alternatives that weren’t available in
2001 like Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles are available now.

The actual lessons learned from the (hybrid) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, changing balance of power around the world with a fast developing Asia, will have consequences. New operational concepts are born, more affordable alternatives are being developed. We may quote Colonel Dr. Thomas Ehrhard, special advisor of USAF Chief of Staff “The F-35 represents a classic “middleweight” capability – excessively sophisticated and expensive for persistent strike operations in the benign air environments of the developing world and most irregular warfare operations,
yet not capable enough to contribute effectively to a stressing campaign against a nation employing modern anti-acess/area-denial defenses.”.

Conclusion: the F-35 concept as a post-Cold War concept will be partly obsolete due to the many years of delay between (frozen) design and (late) operational introduction. This will effect the required quantity.

By Johan Boeder (The Netherlands) started publishing about aviation in 1977 as a freelance author and publicist working for several newspapers. Since 2007 he advices Members of Parliament in several European countries as an independent expert on the F-35 fighter program and business case.

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