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Subject: FYI: Replace F-15s with F-35...
DarthAmerica    2/14/2008 4:17:41 PM
By John T. Bennett - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Feb 14, 2008 13:22:09 EST

Gordon England, U.S. deputy defense secretary, clashed with Democrats on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Wednesday over which fifth-generation fighter the Air Force should purchase to replace aging F-15 strike fighters.

The pointed exchange between the panel?s vice chairman, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and England was the latest development this week in a string of comments that spotlights a growing schism between the Bush administration?s Pentagon team and key lawmakers about whether the Air Force should buy more F-22 Raptors or F-35 Lightning IIs to replace worn-out F-15s.

On one side are top Pentagon officials, led by England, who remain soundly opposed to buying more than about 190 F-22s. This group would favor replacing grounded F-15s with F-35s, also known as Joint Strike Fighters, which are expected to have a lower per-plane price tag.

On the other side are lawmakers like Dicks and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee chairman, who are leaning toward buying more Raptors, mainly because its production line already is humming. U.S. defense behemoth Lockheed Martin makes both warplanes.

The exchange began during a hearing on the White House?s 2009 defense budget plan, when Dicks questioned the administration?s decision to essentially take no definitive action on the F-22 program other than not paying to shutter the production line.

As the 2009 defense spending request was being polished inside the Pentagon, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) opted to hand the decision on whether to buy more F-22s ? or close the production line ? to the next administration. With more than 100 of the service?s older F-15s grounded because of structural problems, OSD allowed the Air Force to divert about $400 million initially budgeted for Raptor line-closure costs toward operations and maintenance accounts ?to address the F-15 situation,? said England, sitting in at the session for injured Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Dicks, however, did not appear satisfied with that explanation. ?Shouldn?t you have done one or other,? he asked England, referring to either buying more Raptors or closing the production line.

?To be blunt, the Air Force has spent $65 billion [on the Raptor program] and you have 183 planes,? England shot back. ?Look, at some point, we have to buy? the cheaper fighter, the F-35, he said.

But after the hearing, Murtha told reporters England?s figure for how much the air service has spent to purchase its 183 Raptors is a bit misleading. That?s because, Murtha said, when major defense platforms are bought in larger quantities, their per-unit costs typically come down significantly. He said the Air Force has told him that if it is allowed to purchase the 381 Raptors it wants, the per-jet price could shrink by as much as ?10 or 12 percent.?

Murtha made it clear, however, that he would only support buying more Raptors if the Air Force ?is convincing? in describing to the subcommittee the kinds of threats the additional F-22s would be used to combat.

?The department believes [the service] has enough? F-22s, Murtha told reporters after the hearing. ?The Air Force is trying to prove to the committee ? and we?ll have hearings later on ? to tell us, ?These are the threats.??

The back-and-forth between Dicks and England marked the second consecutive day England and a member of the subcommittee had traded opinions on the simmering F-35 vs. F-22 debate.

England told the Senate budget committee Tuesday that he does not consider the F-22 a suitable replacement for the F-15.

?So I would expect instead we would try to accelerate the Joint Strike Fighter, which is more the class of the F-15,? he said, according to Reuters. ?So the Air Force would move into Joint Strike Fighter and not into the much more expensive F-22 airplane.?

Hours later, Murtha, during a lunchtime presentation at an Aviation Week-sponsored conference across town, made it clear his subcommittee would favor buying more F-22s. He told an industry audience his panel already has begun deliberations with Air Force officials about adding billions of dollars to buy more Raptors because he believes the service is wasting too much money to keep older fighters in the air.

After Murtha?s conference comments on Tuesday, an aide said these jets would be beyond the four included in the 2009 budget request.

?Four doesn?t get you anywhere? ? meaning four planes would not keep the production line open beyond the current contract, the Murtha aide said.

Asked how many more would be needed to keep the line open, the aide said, ?Twenty a year is where we?ve been for a while.?

*********************************************************************

Should give a pretty good Idea of what the DoD thinks the F-35 is capable of if you think about it.


-DA
 
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Phaid       2/14/2008 5:33:57 PM
Gives you a better idea of what an idiot Gordon England is, though.  I find myself shocked to agree with Murtha on anything, but he is right.  The F-35 is not a F-15C replacement, and talking about sunk development costs when considering future budgets is the height of either ignorance or deliberate lying.  England is from the Rumsfeld crowd, so it could be either or.
 
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eldnah       2/23/2008 10:00:09 AM
Since Guadalcanal US ground forces have almost always fought under the aegis of air superiority or dominance (weather allowing i.e. the begining of the Battle of the Bulge). Seems reasonable to spend the odd billion or two a year in procurement funds for the next decade or so to insure that condition. What the head games DoD and Congress are playing I don't know but I suspect they are politically motivated and not in the Country's best interest.
 
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kensohaski       2/24/2008 9:11:06 AM
Seeing as we will always need attack aircraft the F-35 would be a logical choice to replace both the F-15/16.  I say buy more of both.....
 
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DarthAmerica    Phaid   2/24/2008 9:41:49 AM

Gives you a better idea of what an idiot Gordon England is, though.  I find myself shocked to agree with Murtha on anything, but he is right.  The F-35 is not a F-15C replacement, and talking about sunk development costs when considering future budgets is the height of either ignorance or deliberate lying.  England is from the Rumsfeld crowd, so it could be either or.


To be honest, I didn't see anything wrong with the F-35 replacing F-15C's with the exception of the Golden Eagles of course. Can you enlighten me as to why this is a bad Idea? thx
 
-DA
 
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benellim4       2/24/2008 10:11:36 AM
Secretary England is not an idiot. He understands the bigger picture in light of the expense of these systems and the limits of our budget. As I said in the Australia forum yesterday:

The real politics come into play when we start discussing anything that might undermine the F-35. The problem is the legacy of the F-20 Tigershark. It was an absolute failure, partly because the USAF bought the F-16 and no one wanted the F-20. The F-35 could become the next F-20 if we, the US, start buying the F-22 over the F-35 for our air force and start exporting the F-22 to countries that were in the F-35 partnership. The feeling is that if we export the F-22 to one F-35 country it will be hard to say no to other F-35 countries, especially those in the top tier of the F-35 partnership.

And to be perfectly honest the F-35 is going to be the more strategically significant aircraft simply because of its numbers. The USN, the RN and the USMC are counting on this aircraft. If it is undermined than they will be "left in the lurch." Not to mention the question of what happens to all those countries who helped fund the development of the F-35. What happens to that money if the F-35 fails? Basically, we, the US, are in the position where failure of the F-35 program is not an option, so we will do nothing to jeopardize the program, including not exporting the F-22.
 
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Phaid       2/24/2008 3:33:12 PM
To be honest, I didn't see anything wrong with the F-35 replacing F-15C's with the exception of the Golden Eagles of course. Can you enlighten me as to why this is a bad Idea? thx

Because the F-35 is not a primarily air to air fighter.  The only advantage it has over the F-15C in air to air is its stealth; it is inferior in every other way to an APG-63(v)3 equipped F-15C.  It doesn't have the aerodynamic performance, the radar range, or the air to air loadout.

The idiotic idea people like England have, of keeping a bunch of ancient "golden eagles" around, is just a costly boondoggle.  Units that currently have both F-15s and F-22s already have skyrocketing expenses and excessively complicated logistics because of the requirement to support two different types.  Any cost savings realized by not procuring the F-22s disappear because of the logistics cost burden.

The only rational choice is to buy enough F-22s to replace the F-15s.   Arguing that we can't afford to buy both F-22s and F-35s is to myopically focus on procurement costs and totally ignore operational and maintenance costs.   Buying F-22s at an accelerated rate, say 30 aircraft a year, would allow us to replace the F-15A/C fleet in y6 years, which would save an enormous amount of money in maintenance and operational costs, and let us afford more F-35s.

As far as the F-35 becoming "the next F-20", that doesn't even make sense.  The F-20 was a private venture that tried to take advantage of the ADF requirement and the increasing cost of the F-16, and it failed because the market never developed and due to its marked inferiority to its competition.  The F-35 is a completely different situation: it is vastly superior to every other competing aircraft in the roles for which it is intended, and the U.S. and the other F-35 partners have already committed to buying it in large numbers.  And nobody wants to buy F-22s "instead" of F-35s, nor do we want to export it.  We need F-22s because we need to recapitalize our air superiority fighter fleet.  The two aircraft are not equivalent, they are not competing, and the idea that buying more F-22s threatens the F-35 program is just lunacy.
 
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benellim4       2/24/2008 3:54:54 PM
As far as the F-35 becoming "the next F-20", that doesn't even make sense.  The F-20 was a private venture that tried to take advantage of the ADF requirement and the increasing cost of the F-16, and it failed because the market never developed and due to its marked inferiority to its competition.  The F-35 is a completely different situation: it is vastly superior to every other competing aircraft in the roles for which it is intended, and the U.S. and the other F-35 partners have already committed to buying it in large numbers.  And nobody wants to buy F-22s "instead" of F-35s, nor do we want to export it.  
 
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Phaid       2/24/2008 4:43:30 PM
The superiority of the APG-63(V)3 over the APG-81 is debatable as well.

Not really.  The APG-63(V)3 has a bigger aperture and more T/R modules.  For air to air purposes, which is what we're talking about here, the APG-63(V)3 is simply superior.

The simple fact of the matter is the F-35 is designed to be as maneuverable as the F-16, which is more maneuverable then the F-15. The F-35 will also provide the pilot with superior SA than does any current platform, including the F-22.

Sorry, I should have said "the F-35 is inferior in every other relevant way to an APG-63(v)3 equipped F-15C."  Being marginally superior in close-in combat (likely a better sustained turn rate but worse t/w ratio) and having better close in SA is useful if you want to fight like it's the 1980s.  F-22s dominate every other type precisely because they have no need to do that.  They have the performance to contempt or dictate engagements at will, the sensors to know where to engage, and the long range missile loadout to effectively prosecute those engagements.  The F-35 can't supercruise -- heck it doesn't even have as much authority over engagements that the F-15C has -- and loses its stealth if it carries a comparable missile loadout to the F-22.  Meanwhile, the F-22 has already demonstrated that it is amply capable in close in combat, even though that is not its primary focus.

Yeah, but the F-22 export argument is just a straw man.  Your premise is that if the USAF buys more F-22s, we will automatically export F-22s as well?  That doesn't follow at all.  This isn't about what Australia or Japan or Israel want, this is about what the USAF needs.  We can build all the F-22s we need to entirely replace the F-15 fleet in about six years, well before the F-35 program gets

On the other hand, yes, the US easily can afford both the F-35 and the F-22, even in light of other requirements.  There is some kind of bizarre myth that the F-22 costs some astronomical, unaffordable amount.  The flyaway cost of the F-22 drops below $120 million if it is bought in greater quantities than the 183 the DoD kee ps insisting the AF can make do with.  This is barely 10% more than the flyaway cost of a new build F-15E, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the F-35 will be significantly cheaper than that.  The current estimate, according to Robert Gates, is $77 million apiece, but the UK figures it's more like 110 million or more.  At that point, the cost advantage of the F-35 is entirely gone, and it's basically throwing money away when you consider the F-35 is less capable in the air superiority mission.
 
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Phaid       2/24/2008 4:50:27 PM
I tried pasting this in my previous post, but the editor kept hosing it up.  Here is a reality check on the true flyaway cost of the F-35.  $115 million apiece over the entire production run is not cheap.

The F-22's development is paid for, buying more just costs what the airframes cost.  Constantly quoting these sunk development costs to justify ending its production, like England stupidly insists on doing, is either ignorant or disingenuous.

Also, I should finis my sencence above: We can build all the F-22s we need to entirely replace the F-15 fleet in about six years, well before the F-35 program gets significantly underway.  By 2015, a total of 230 of the 3173 total F-35s are scheduled to be delivered.  And that is almost certainly going to slip.  Keeping the F-22 production line open that long, even if it has a minor impact on the US purchases of the F-35, will do absolutely nothing to derail the program.
 
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benellim4       2/24/2008 5:07:04 PM
Not really.  The APG-63(V)3 has a bigger aperture and more T/R modules.  For air to air purposes, which is what we're talking about here, the APG-63(V)3 is simply superior.
That doesn't take into account performance parameters like signal to noise ratios, processing algorithms, and processing power. In fact, depending on the source, they give the -81 the same range as the -63(V)3 based on this factors. If you want to be over-simplistic an rely on physical characteristics, go right ahead.

Sorry, I should have said "the F-35 is inferior in every other relevant way to an APG-63(v)3 equipped F-15C."  Being marginally superior in close-in combat (likely a better sustained turn rate but worse t/w ratio) and having better close in SA is useful if you want to fight like it's the 1980s.  F-22s dominate every other type precisely because they have no need to do that.  They have the performance to contempt or dictate engagements at will, the sensors to know where to engage, and the long range missile loadout to effectively prosecute those engagements.  The F-35 can't supercruise -- heck it doesn't even have as much authority over engagements that the F-15C has -- and loses its stealth if it carries a comparable missile loadout to the F-22.  Meanwhile, the F-22 has already demonstrated that it is amply capable in close in combat, even though that is not its primary focus.
Better SA is a 1980s thing? I don't think so. SA is the first step in your OODA loop, which can be applied to BVR as well as WVR fights. The F-15 cannot supercruise either. The F-22 is better A2A than the F-35 no doubt(the F-35 will likely be superior to the F-22 in every other way, however), but replacing the F-15C with the F-35 would not be a step down in capability. Indeed it would be an upgrade in capability.

Yeah, but the F-22 export argument is just a straw man.  Your premise is that if the USAF buys more F-22s, we will automatically export F-22s as well?  That doesn't follow at all.  This isn't about what Australia or Japan or Israel want, this is about what the USAF needs.  We can build all the F-22s we need to entirely replace the F-15 fleet in about six years, well before the F-35 program gets

On the other hand, yes, the US easily can afford both the F-35 and the F-22, even in light of other requirements.  There is some kind of bizarre myth that the F-22 costs some astronomical, unaffordable amount.  The flyaway cost of the F-22 drops below $120 million if it is bought in greater quantities than the 183 the DoD kee ps insisting the AF can make do with.  This is barely 10% more than the flyaway cost of a new build F-15E, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the F-35 will be significantly cheaper than that.  The current estimate, according to Robert Gates, is $77 million apiece, but the UK figures it's more like 110 million or more.  At that point, the cost advantage of the F-35 is entirely gone, and it's basically throwing money away when you consider the F-35 is less capable in the air superiority mission.
If the USAF buys more F-22s it CANNOT afford the F-35 in the number it requires. Our defense budget has peaked and will only decrease in the coming years. That's a cold hard fact. Once people start accepting that, we can start having meaningful discussions. What is going to go on over the next several months to a year is a program competition. Some programs will die. If the USAF makes the case for the F-22 I believe it very likely that the F-16 replacement will have to be the F-16 Block 60 because that's all they can afford. The USAF needs new transports and new tankers. I foresee the regional bomber dying on the vine as well. 

The simple fact of the matter is the USAF is to be the biggest buyer of the F-35. If they cannot afford it, the whole program is in doubt. Our international partners who have already expressed an interest in the F-22 will lobby harder for it. They USMC and USN won't be able to afford the F-35 on their own. So the USMC will probably have to give up the STOLV capability, the RN will buy the SuperHornet, the USN will probably develop the SuperHornet further, i.e. the Block III. 

You simply cannot view the export sales and the USAF sales in a vacuum. 
 
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