Top Pilot: Air Force Should Put Brakes on All-Stealth Arsenal

[Crypto]

The latest critic of the U.S. Air Force’s ambitious — and pricey — plan for an all-stealth fighter fleet is one of the flying branch’s top stealth pilots.

Writing in the Air Force Research Institute’s Air & Space Power Journal, Lt. Col. Christopher Niemi, a former F-22 test pilot who later commanded a frontline squadron of the radar-evading jets, says the Air Force is making a big mistake by buying only the most expensive stealth fighters — namely, the F-22 and the newer F-35.

“An all-stealth Air Force fighter fleet deserves reconsideration,” Niemi asserts (.pdf). ”Stealth technology demands significant trade-offs in range, security, weapons carriage, sortie generation, and adaptability. Stealth provides no advantage in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq (since 2003), and (despite its obvious utility) it cannot guarantee success in future struggles with a near-peer adversary.”

“Most importantly,” Niemi adds, “the cost of F-22s and F-35s threatens to reduce the size of the Air Force’s fielded fighter fleet to dangerously small numbers, particularly in the current fiscal environment.”

The test-pilot-turned-commander is in good company. Three years ago Gen. Harry Wyatt, head of the Air National Guard, said the Pentagon should consider acquiring cheap, upgraded versions of older warplanes to keep his squadrons at full strength.

More recently, the editors of the influential trade publication Aviation Week, a once-stalwart defender of the F-22 and F-35 programs, reversed its pro-stealth position and called on the Pentagon to consider new purchases of old-model planes. “There must be a hedge against further problems.”

But for a decade it’s been the Air Force’s policy not to purchase any non-stealth fighters. The flying branch has bought only so-called “fifth-generation” F-22s and F-35s from Lockheed Martin even as the cost of those fighters steadily increased.


The 187 F-22s cost $377 million a pop. The total bill to develop, buy and operate nearly 2,500 F-35s — 1,763 of them for the Air Force — tops $1 trillion. Rising costs have driven down the total number of jets the flying branch can afford.

The result: fewer than planned new planes to replace the fleet of nearly 2,000 fourth-generation F-15s, F-16s and A-10s acquired in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. As a consequence older planes have had to stay in service far longer than intended. “The Air Force’s fighter fleet is wearing out,” Niemi warns.

But even the inexorable aging of the current arsenal hasn’t swayed the Air Force brass from its all-stealth position, even though upgraded F-15s and F-16s are still available from Boeing and Lockheed, respectively. Senior officials have “viewed additional fourth-generation fighter acquisition as a direct threat to fifth-generation fighter programs,” Niemi explains.

Air Force leadership maintains the older designs simply won’t be effective much longer. “Sinking money into brand-new fourth generation [fighters] is just dumb,” said Gen. Mike Hostage, the head of Air Combat Command.

Niemi disagrees. He praises the F-22 for its high speed, altitude and stealth but points out its lack of range and ground-attack prowess compared to older jets. “The F-22 remains inferior to older fourth-generation fighters in some scenarios.”

The F-35 is a better bomber than the F-22 but is still too expensive to fully replace older planes, Niemi adds. The flying branch “could have acquired additional fourth-generation aircraft to mitigate developmental risk with the F-35.”

It’s not too late to reverse the policy, the former F-22 squadron command argues. “The Air Force should reconsider its long-standing position that fifth-generation fighters are the only option.”

When a man who spent his career flying stealth fighters begins lobbying against them, maybe it’s time the Air Force pays attention.

Top Pilot: Air Force Should Put Brakes on All-Stealth Arsenal | Danger Room | Wired.com

 

[drunken-monke]

The concerns raised by Pilots are obvious.. These expendive goodies require intensive maintenance if am not wrong and due to high cost the numbers also would be shrunked to dangerous level. Hence in the multiple war senario, these FA would not be able to generate more sorties..

May be the role of these fighter jets would be initial where neutralizing SAM and bombarding the runways would be primary... Then the non stealth jets would follow....

Senior members please put light on my assumption...

 

[rahul_rao]

The concerns raised by Pilots are obvious.. These expendive goodies require intensive maintenance if am not wrong and due to high cost the numbers also would be shrunked to dangerous level. Hence in the multiple war senario, these FA would not be able to generate more sorties..

May be the role of these fighter jets would be initial where neutralizing SAM and bombarding the runways would be primary... Then the non stealth jets would follow....

Senior members please put light on my assumption...

absolutely wrong

 

[gambit]

The concerns raised by Pilots are obvious.. These expendive goodies require intensive maintenance if am not wrong and due to high cost the numbers also would be shrunked to dangerous level. Hence in the multiple war senario, these FA would not be able to generate more sorties..

May be the role of these fighter jets would be initial where neutralizing SAM and bombarding the runways would be primary... Then the non stealth jets would follow....

Senior members please put light on my assumption...

Try to analyze this on your own...

With low radar observable, aka 'stealth', we have a technological, not merely technical, advantage and one that will last for at least one decade, but probably more like two because one decade is the usual time it take for an aircraft to go from concept to deployment.

With buying and/or upgrades to the current 'non-stealth' fleet, we would be trying to maintain numerical and technical advantages when potential adversaries are working to achieve at least technical parity, if not numerical. And as the current fleet ages, the older aircrafts will have to be retired anyway with the fate of being cannibalized for parts to support the remainders. Right now, to start up the production line for the F-16A (analog) will have the cost of the new A models at least twice of when it first came out. Of course, we will not produce the A model but the newer C latest block, which will cost even more.

Decisions like these have long term consequences and it is easy to criticize when you do not have to make them and face the court when things do not pan out as you supposed.

Stealth provides no advantage in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq (since 2003),...

This is an odd criticism. Low radar observable is only one aspect of the aircraft. If an adversary and/or situation have no defenses against it, does that mean the other capabilities of the aircraft are no good? Afghanistan is landlocked, so does that mean the US is wasting money on ships?

...it cannot guarantee success in future struggles with a near-peer adversary.”

If a near-peer adversary is stupid enough to engage US when it know it is inferior, especially in the 'stealth' department, then this adversary deserve to lose and he will lose. But if we do not have advantages, then he is not near-peer but a peer, and when he realize he is a peer, then all deterrence factors are lost.

 

[killerx]

looking at the new version of the F15 and 18 and don't think that's true pilots my be concerned but the USAF may not completely relay on f22 and F35