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Document created: 1 March 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Spring 2008

The Key to Future War-Fighter Capabilities

Both the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force candidly addressed their strategic concerns to the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives on 24 October 2007, highlighting the need to refocus on our asymmetric advantages in order to prepare for the global threats of future warfare. The Air Force must look across the spectrum of future capabilities and determine where those advantages could exist, given the proper emphasis on planning and fiscal considerations. Identifying such advantages and ensuring that we acquire our asymmetric capabilities on time depend upon a robust developmental planning (DP) function, a critical step that we currently lack. Early DP lays the foundation for identifying materiel solutions for acquiring weapon systems by investigating future threats; recognizing capability gaps and requirements; capturing needed system-performance characteristics; and understanding technology gaps, risks, and needs. Without this planning, the Air Force could find itself tactically focused, inadequately prepared to meet future threats, and postured to react only to forecasted or unanticipated advances of the enemy.

In today’s air domain, we see evidence of our delinquency in DP. Protected by a highly integrated joint force, our nation depends on the Air Force to deliver air superiority today, tomorrow, and into the foreseeable future. Our service has maintained this asymmetric advantage for over half a century, due in large part to our past efforts in early planning and research. We began DP on the F-X aircraft, which became the F-15, a year before the first flight of the F-4D. We initiated DP on the Advanced Tactical Fighter, which became the F-22, three years before the first flight of the F-15. The first flight of the F-22 took place over six years ago; however, we have not begun any serious consideration of options for its replacement. We have not taken the first steps necessary to sustain our asymmetric and unparalleled advantage in the air.

The F-22 and F-35 represent the Air Force’s newest generation of fighter aircraft. Although incredibly capable, these platforms do not—nor did we intend them to—guarantee air superiority indefinitely. In fact, we must begin exploring follow-on capabilities today if we wish to stay ahead of rapidly advancing threats across the globe. We cannot afford to forfeit our military advantage of air superiority to the enemy, thus giving him an equal footing, forcing the United States to fight on a level playing field, and relegating us to attrition-based warfare. Given the proper national emphasis, we can avoid having to fight this way. We have no intention of relinquishing control of this war-fighting domain to an ever-growing and challenging threat that our nation will face in years to come.

The Air Force must initiate and support dedicated DP activities to deliver the next generation of capabilities that we will need to fly, fight, and win. Although similar shortfalls exist in other areas, this article focuses on the air domain to capture the interactions among domain trends, organic planning capability, and the current political environment, thereby highlighting the expanding gap in the development of future weapon systems. Our current national leadership has the responsibility for correcting this shortfall and addressing DP across the air, space, and cyberspace domains.

The early 1900s gave birth to aviation, but even as late as the 1930s, only a few Americans understood (and even fewer appreciated) the importance of airpower in military warfare. Only because of the courageous leadership of a handful of individuals, airpower came of age during World War II and single-handedly provided this nation with the sovereign options that led to victory in the Cold War. Even as we realized the importance of airpower’s dominance, the aircraft-development cycle changed dramatically over the last 75 years, particularly within the military environment. Three key trends, specific to fighters and bombers, represent the overall direction of military aviation and indicate the growing pressures that aircraft procurement will face in the future. Figure 1 depicts the number of new-aircraft starts for fighters and bombers by decade.

Figure 1. Number of new-aircraft starts per decade

In the past, rapid advances in aviation benefited greatly from a high number of new-program starts. At the same time, many industrial partners built their own aircraft to sell to the Department of Defense or to use in “fly-off” competitions. We gained an incredible amount of knowledge, experience, and technological maturity even when the programs were cancelled and not taken into full production. Soon after the end of World War II, new starts declined dramatically and have continued this downward trend, significantly affecting aviation dedicated to America’s defense. Today, the rarity of new starts places tremendous pressure on early DP activities to support successful program execution. Figure 2 captures the troubling increase in the average number of years necessary to develop those fighter and bomber aircraft that will continue into full production.

Figure 2. Average number of years in development (from technology-development request for proposal until delivery of the first production aircraft)

As aircraft become more complex, the lead time necessary before starting a formal acquisition program also increases—a fact that emphasizes the importance of early exploratory research. Although not addressed here, one finds that the same trend applies to mobility and air-refueling aircraft. Because of budget pressures, long lead-time requirements, and the urgency of developing and producing sophisticated aircraft at first fielding, we do not have the luxury of retiring aircraft and replacing them with newer platforms. Figure 3 illustrates this trend toward sustaining aircraft that must remain in service for longer periods of time.

Figure 3. Average number of years flown (from first production until retirement; lighter-shaded areas based on projected retirement)

These trends drive the need to consider additional design factors to provide for maintainability and long-term sustainment concerns—another reason to make provisions for DP. These issues will motivate our future practices in aircraft development and acquisition.

The overall trends for fighters and bombers are representative of defense aviation as a whole and portray a challenging future for aircraft production. Aircraft starts will be few and far between. We will develop platforms one at a time, with all our “acquisition eggs” in one basket. The time allotted to aircraft development will increase, and we will expect aircraft to last longer. Each program that we launch must succeed, a fact that underscores the need to conduct DP well in advance of predicted capability shortfalls.

DP is fundamental to the continued success of aircraft acquisition. The F-22 and F-35 both benefited from years of planning prior to an acknowledged program start. This early research enabled the Air Force to assess risk and refine technology, more fully understand the anticipated threat, and establish solid requirements for systems. The results of these activities proved invaluable as the programs progressed and were critical to attaining the performance we see today. Recently though, the Air Force has recognized a decreasing capability to conduct this type of early planning activity. Much like the trends in aircraft development, the trend in DP capability gives us cause for concern as the Air Force strives to maintain its advantage in air superiority.

The Air Force possessed a robust organic DP capability from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Acquisition organizations enjoyed a substantial number of personnel with unique DP skill sets and expertise. These personnel were responsible for supporting the definition of future capability needs, evaluating alternative concepts, assessing technology maturity and risk factors, defining sustainment and life-cycle cost issues, and forming executable acquisition strategies. Given today’s realities, future aircraft-acquisition programs will not succeed without comprehensive DP as the critical first step in the acquisition cycle.

Our organic capability for DP began deteriorating in the 1990s and is now all but eliminated. Many factors contributed to this decline: reduced number of aircraft programs, decreased budgets, fewer trained personnel, higher-priority needs, and, most importantly, loss of dedicated funding to support DP activities. The net result is that our organic capabilities in this area have atrophied and face extinction. We simply cannot allow this to happen. DP is an essential function in translating capability and/or threat-based requirements into future combat capabilities for the Air Force and our nation. We must work to ensure that DP and the proper personnel remain in place, despite a very challenging fiscal environment.

Our nation, both inside and outside the military, finds itself overwhelmed with near-term priorities that consume most of our time, effort, and energy. We focus on the issues at hand: the global war on terror; the economy, with its associated constrained resources; and the upcoming political elections. Consequently, we devote little thought to establishing a long-term vision and conceptualizing the capabilities required to meet an increasingly dangerous world. Burdened with the immediate challenges at hand, we have confined ourselves to these thoughts, giving little attention to what comes next.

The economy will continue to evolve. The elections will come and go. The war on terror, whose successful resolution is pivotal to our way of life and the liberties we enjoy, will not be our last conflict. Therefore, those of us in uniform—those of us responsible for protecting this nation and preserving our safety, security, and freedom for generations to come—must focus at least a portion of our attention on the questions left unanswered: Who will be the enemy of the next war, and the one after that? What war-fighting capabilities do we need to give our nation the sovereign options to employ military force that no other country possesses? What should we do today to ensure that those capabilities remain in place tomorrow?

Doing nothing is not an option. We must begin to prepare today for challenges the future surely holds. It is our responsibility to devote the appropriate resources and effort to preparing for the unknown. We must invest in DP capabilities across all domains: air, space, and cyberspace. DP is the first step down every path to acquiring future war-fighting capabilities. The F-22, our newest air-superiority fighter, will not give us the final solution to air superiority. We must begin planning now in order to better understand and quantify the future threat environment, postulate capability shortfalls, and identify technological challenges of the future air domain. Today, we must begin to extend our capabilities beyond these aircraft, beyond our current understanding of air superiority, and into the complicated threat picture of future warfare. We are responsible for ensuring that future Airmen can fly, fight, and win in our next great conflict. The decisions we make today will affect our role in providing war-winning capabilities to America’s integrated, joint warfare team as well as determine our nation’s ability to protect our way of life and secure the freedoms that our children deserve.

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