Grounded by Economic Reality : U.S. may need flashy new fighter, but not 650 of them right now
For five years, a Lockheed Corp. consortium competed with Northrop Corp. to develop the fastest, stealthiest, dog-fightingest, most gee-whiz fighter plane in the world. Lockheed won, but in the five years of competition, the threat that the fighter was supposed to deter melted away with the collapse of communism.
Lockheed’s first prize was supposed to be a contract to build 650 of its prototype F-22 fighters at the bargain price of $95 billion. But, going into debt this year at an annual rate of $300 billion, the United States simply cannot afford them.
The F-22 is designed to establish air superiority in a combat zone by clearing the skies of enemy planes. But the Air Force’s existing F-15s and F-16s already are better than anything the Soviet Union could put into the air, even before it collapsed and was still a valid menace to peace.
There is no comparable air threat to Americans. Some analysts spoke highly of Iraq’s air force before the Gulf War, but the only Iraqi planes to survive that conflict either huddled on the ground or ran for cover in Iran.
Of course, time and technology march on. Defense alliances break up and reshape themselves. With the industrial countries’ history of selling advanced military equipment to anybody with cash, our former allies may be able to give even upgraded F-15s a run for it someday.
But, with some rude exceptions, friendships do not go sour overnight, nor does air power grow on trees. An economic miracle and another Josef Stalin may revive the Soviet threat someday. But even accepting that nightmare scenario as a real possibility, we would still have time to put the F-22 into production.
We see the F-22 as a prime candidate for an idea floated by Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) when the Cold War began winding down. America should keep its research and development budgets high and its production budgets low, he said.
That pattern seems to be taking hold with Northrop’s B-2 bomber, an $80-billion program. It may be, as Northrop says, that the B-2 can fly missions with fewer support systems, such as fighter escorts, than anything else on line. But the United States has little compelling need these days for big bombers. So Congress is pursuing research and testing, but limiting production. When all of the bugs are worked out, the bomber could go into production instantly, if needed. The F-22 seems to fit that pattern perfectly.
Much has been made of the advanced tactical fighter as the last big-ticket defense program of this century. Better that Congress consider it the first big-ticket project of the next century.
