Aircraft Programs

Schwartz wants a new bomber. In recent statements, he has shied away from referring to a “family of long-range strategic systems” preferring instead to make it clear that a bomber is what he wants and needs. Preliminary studies done a couple of years ago on what was then called the next-generation bomber (NGB) will be helpful, but the current view is that a new bomber needs to be straightforward and simple.

“He is looking at the B-52 Stratofortress, which has been in service almost forever,” said retired Col. Charles Vasiliadis, who teaches Air Force doctrine. “He is asking himself, ‘If I wanted to build a B-52 today, what technologies would I be seeking?’” Air Force spokesman Maj. Chad Steffey said a new bomber would employ radar-evading stealth, would be nuclear capable, and would be optionally manned, i.e., available for both manned and unmanned missions.

The nation’s two largest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are expected to bid for a bomber contract. They may have quietly performed some work already in “black” programs not announced in public or disclosed in budgeting documents.

The bomber fits nicely into what until recently was called the AirSea Battle Concept, the partnership between the Air Force and the blue-water Navy for operations over much of the world’s surface. Analyst Bill Sweetman pointed out that “the acronym for Air Sea Battle Office is the same as the court order they slap in you in the United Kingdom if you get drunk, key cars, and break windows.” Now, as disclosed by the Pentagon on Dec. 8, 2011, it’s the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC), and it has senior airmen and naval officers meeting and planning regularly.

The JOAC “acknowledges the new, yet ancient, reality that external powers may encounter resistance from strong local powers that boast sizable advantages when fighting in their own backyards,” wrote James R. Holmes in The Diplomat. The basic idea is that dominating the “global commons” – international waters and open skies – isn’t enough. Now, joint operations must overcome an adversary’s anti-access and area-denial efforts areas in sovereign locations. Not exactly a strategy, not exactly a doctrine, the JOAC prescribes a new readiness to encounter new barriers to theater entry and operations in the event of major hostilities.

The new bomber, crucial to JOAC, is also part of a trio of priorities mentioned regularly by Donley and Schwartz. The other two legs of the stool are the KC-46A air refueling tanker and the F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Taken together, these three systems are the only programs the Air Force leadership will resist giving up, no matter what.

 

Tanker Tale

After a decade of failed earlier efforts to acquire a tanker, the KC-46 appears to be on course. However, planemaker Boeing stunned observers when it announced on Jan 4, 2012, that it would be shuttering its Wichita, Kan., facility, which has been in operation for 80 years and was expected to have a big chunk of KC-46A work. Boeing’s rationale for closing its Wichita defense plant was that many of the programs it served were shrinking, while the tanker-completion work to be performed there would be too costly if it stood alone. Still, the move was a dramatic example of the decline of the U.S. industrial base, an essential component of air power. And on the ground, it was emotional. “It’s taken a lot of work for us to control our outrage,” said Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, a former Boeing employee. About a third of the plant’s 2,160 workers will be laid off; the others will see their jobs moved to other locations.

The KC-46A is a military derivative of the Boeing 767-200 jetliner, with an improved version of the refueling boom used on the KC-10A Extender and digital cockpit features in common with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner commercial aircraft. The Air Force is committed to a program of record that calls for 179 KC-46As, with 18 operational aircraft to be delivered by 2017.

Shortly before the Wichita decision, Boeing warned that it will exceed by as much as $500 million the cost ceiling on the KC-46A contract. Under the terms of its fixed-price contract, the planemaker may be required to absorb costs that exceed the program’s $4.8 billion ceiling. The higher price estimate was inadvertently made public in a 37-page Selected Acquisition Report, the Pentagon’s first review of costs in the program.

Air refueling remains essential to warfare. The Air Force has 424 KC-135R Stratotankers (182 on active duty, 173 in the Air National Guard, and 64 in the Air Force Reserve) plus 50 KC-10As. In identifying the oldest KC-135Rs to be retired first as the KC-46A enters service, officials found that most of these airframes have more years ahead in their structural airframe lives. Both are well liked and some airmen take an almost perverse pride in operating dependable aircraft that are as old as their parents.