Is Fighter Jet Heading for Budget Bind? : Defense: The Air Force has already cut the production run to 648 and Congress may seek to scale back the program as costs begin to escalate.
The companies chosen to build the Air Force’s new Advanced Tactical Fighter are still toasting their good fortune but budget analysts and some lawmakers warned Wednesday that the ATF program could wind up in the same budgetary bind that has plagued the B-2 bomber.
On the eve of its announcement Tuesday that Lockheed Corp. would lead the contractor team building the plane, the Air Force conceded that planned budget cuts had forced it to scale back the $72-billion program to 648 aircraft from the original 750.
Even at that level, the Congressional Budget Office and other outside military analysts cautioned that the Air Force’s ambitious program to modernize its front-line fighter jets may not mesh with Pentagon budget plans--much less deeper budget-cutting inclinations by Congress.
Moreover, the announcement of the winner sparked new debate over the need for a new generation of fighters at a time when the United States’ leading military competitor, the Soviet Union, has significantly slowed its development of new fighter jets.
In closed-door hearings before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, the Air Force has contended that the next-best alternative, an upgraded version of the F-15 Eagle, could not maintain a performance edge against potential foes and would not be that much cheaper.
In the end, that argument is expected to sway lawmakers to allow the ATF program to move to its next key phase of development as early as July. But as the cost of building the planes begins to sink in, lawmakers--who just a year ago got their first glimpse of the once-secret program and its huge price tag--may try to scale it back still further.
That, in turn, could place the Advanced Tactical Fighter in the same dilemma that has dogged the Air Force’s other big-ticket aircraft program, the B-2: As fewer are built, the price of each aircraft would go up, creating further doubt about the wisdom of the investment.
Just as lawmakers complained of “sticker shock” soon after the secret Stealth bomber was unveiled, some congressional aides said that the cost of the ATF is sure to cause congressional jitters.
“No one was opposed to the B-2 until six months before the vote, either,” said one Democratic aide on Capitol Hill. “The ATF was a black program until a year ago. Its cost is just now starting to hit people.”
Indeed, the Air Force’s decision to shorten the production run of the ATF may have emboldened lawmakers to make further budget cuts, arguing that the Air Force arbitrarily decided that it needs 648 fighters.
“They’re on the slippery slope,” one key defense industry executive said. “The number 650 is not going to hold.”
The result will be a “hot and heavy debate” that will increase the cost of the planes and cause a cycle of anxiety on Capitol Hill. “The unit cost will go up and Congress will hit the roof because Congress doesn’t understand in their heart of hearts that when you cut the costs, the price goes up, just as the B-2 did. You get into a tail-chasing maneuver and you buy nothing, which is not in the long-term interests of the nation,” the executive said.
Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that the numbers debate already had begun Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
“The scuttlebutt I hear from colleagues is, ‘I’m not opposed to the program, it’s just the number’ ” of planes, said Kasich, a staunch proponent of the ATF. “They’re saying maybe the buy’s too big. But while costs are big on this plane, I think you’re going to see a lot of support for it.”
At the same time, Kasich said that--if estimates by the Congressional Budget Office are right and the Pentagon disputes them--”we’ve got some very serious problems here trying to pay all these programs off.”
On Monday, anticipating debates over the need for the new fighter, Air Force officials marched to Capitol Hill armed with briefing slides and intelligence reports. The Soviets are modernizing their own first-line fighters, the MIG-29 and the Su-27, Air Force officials told lawmakers, and have been exporting air defense weaponry throughout the Third World. The United States’ long-held technological edge in air superiority fighters, they added, could slip to a narrow margin unless the service proceeds with the ATF and replaces the multirole F-16 Falcon with a new generation of fighter bomber early in the next century.
Gen. Mike Loh, the Air Force’s director of weapons acquisition, said that the design of the F-15, which will be 25 years old by the time the first ATF is deployed, makes it difficult to incorporate improvements in stealthiness and speed that would allow it to deal with future Soviet technology.
But the financially strapped Soviets do not appear to be developing new generations of aircraft, knowledgeable analysts said. Nevertheless, the Air Force has projected potentially major improvements in the performance of modernized versions of existing Soviet aircraft, said government officials familiar with the Air Force presentation.
