Delays on Stealth Could Create a Bomber Gap

The unusually tight development and testing schedule being followed for the super-secret stealth bomber could saddle the plane with debilitating technical problems once it is deployed, a team of RAND Corp. analysts has warned Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

The Air Force has so little time to make major decisions about the advanced bomber, the RAND study suggests, that any delays in the development and test phases could leave the United States without a dependable manned penetrating bomber for a critical period in the 1990s. Air Force officials have said Soviet defenses will become capable of stopping the B-1B bomber in the mid-1990s.

Prototypes of the stealth are now being built for testing, and the Air Force’s ambitious timetable calls for the first bombers to be added to the force in the early 1990s. Air Force officials have said the B-1B will be unable to breach Soviet defenses beyond the mid-1990s.

Closed-Door Briefing

That leaves little room for slippage in the stealth’s timetable, RAND specialists suggested in a closed-door briefing for Weinberger this week. To avoid a strategic bomber gap, they said, the Air Force could be forced to compromise the stealth’s quality and reliability.

Sources familiar with RAND’s study said it warned that the result could be a futuristic bomber plagued by the kinds of equipment snafus that have bedeviled the B-1B bomber.

The Strategic Air Command on Tuesday grounded all of its 66 B-1B bombers to inspect the emergency escape system in the wake of a Sept. 28 crash of one of the aircraft. By Thursday, the Air Force said, 20 of the planes were operational again.

It was the second time the Air Force has grounded at least part of its fleet of B-1B bombers since the first of them came into the force a year ago. About a year ago, some of the aircraft were grounded because of fuel leaks.

Troubled by Problems

The B-1B program has been troubled by a series of technical problems, including not only fuel leaks but also unreliable electronic jamming equipment and faults in its terrain-following guidance system. The Air Force says sensitive electronic systems that help protect the B-1B as it flies into enemy airspace will not be operational until 1991, five years later than planned.

Many critics, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), attribute the troubles with the B-1B bombers to the problems cited by RAND in connection with the stealth aircraft--the program’s overlapping schedule of development, test and production.

In recent years, congressional experts have sharply criticized the Pentagon’s practice of testing weapons before they are fully developed and producing them before all the tests are completed. In many programs, they argue, concurrent testing and production has led the services to go ahead with weapons systems before key technical puzzles have been solved.

Wants ‘Orderly Approach’

“Too much concurrency increases risk,” conceded Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Larry D. Welch in congressional testimony earlier this year. “One of the reasons the B-1B was built in the first instance was to ensure that we could have a more orderly approach to building the ATB”--the advanced technology bomber, or the stealth.

The Air Force might ensure against such risks by stretching out the schedule on which the stealthy intercontinental bomber is to be developed, tested and produced, the RAND analysts concluded.

But that would mean the bomber might not enter the U.S. nuclear arsenal before the mid to late 1990s, years after the Air Force had hoped to put the first of the planned 132 craft on vigil at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

While warning of the risks associated with the program’s timetable, the RAND study advised continued support of the advanced bomber.

Opposes Competitive Bidding

The study also raised concerns about cost growth in the program. But it concluded that the Pentagon would not save money by opening the production of the aircraft, now under contract to the Northrop Corp., to competitive bidding.