Sustainment Challenge?

Sustainment Challenge?: Testifying before

the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the Air Force’s military acquisition deputy, raised questions about long-term sustainment of an F-22 fleet comprising only 187 aircraft. (The actual number, as of today, will be 186 F-22s, factoring the one Raptor lost in a crash. Smaller than the 243 military requirement number recently cited by Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, and much smaller than the original requirement for 381. Asked by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) about the decision to halt F-22 procurement at 187, Shackelford said he believes that that number is “sufficient” for the type of threats Defense Secretary Robert Gates anticipates the US will face in the near future. If the Air Force had a concern about the fleet, Shackelford said it would be in the area of sustainment. While 187 F-22s will provide excellent combat capability, keeping them flying and mission-capable could become more complicated at some point. “To sustain that fleet over a long period of time may become a challenge,” he told the panel, without elaborating. Last month Schwartz did shed some light on this issue, telling the full Senate Armed Services Committee May 16 that “small-fleet dynamics are a significant issue.” He said, for example, the Air Force “might have to use combat-coded airplanes to do training as well,” as opposed to dedicated Raptors. This, he noted, “is not as ideal as being able to rely on a constant throughput for training,” but it is one of “the realities of managing a smaller fleet.” At that same hearing, Schwartz characterized the projected Raptor fleet size as a moderate- to high-risk force.

—Marc V. Schanz

6/11/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.