By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said after refusing to sign off on plans for the Air Force’s next-generation bomber last year he is waiting to hear an independent assessment of the program as the service reexamines its requirements and he seeks to learn more.
Pentagon acquisition chief John Young said Tuesday that he “started looking at” the bomber program “pretty hard last fall.” He told reporters he wasn’t comfortable with a plan set forth for the bomber to debut in 2018–which is the date the Air Force uses.
“Initially the course was charted to 2018 with a certain set of requirements and a certain amount of money, and I, to be honest with you, didn’t think that was achievable, wasn’t prepared to sign that paper,” he said.
Young said after looking at the bomber plans last fall he concluded: “If you adjust the requirements you can make 2018. If you don’t adjust the requirements you can’t make 2018.”
Talking to reporters after testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Young said: “I just got to find a reasonable program that I can defend.”
He declined to share details about requirements of concern to him, because the bomber program is classified.
The Air Force is now hashing out the requirements for the next-generation bomber program, the details of which have been closely held.
Young told the SASC he has asked the Defense Science Board to “review this program and help advise me on the technology maturity, the achievability of the requirements.” The board has not reported back to him yet.
He also told the committee he is pleased the Air Force has laid out “a program that includes some level of prototyping in the things that I have insisted upon.”
In addition, he told the SASC he has “personally gone out in the last week and looked at the potential for this program.” (He declined to elaborate to reporters on just what he did in the past week.)
Young said such actions have been beneficial. The Air Force has concluded that plans previously laid out need to be adjusted, he said.
In terms of the path ahead, he told reporters: “I still want to hear what the Defense Science Board panel has to say, and I’m going to continue to bring my own judgment to this.”
He said since he raised concerns the Air Force “has done a lot of things” in addition to creating the prototyping ideas he supports.
“They’re looking harder at the requirements…the right set of requirements, the achievable set of requirements,” he said. “And it’s still a work in progress.”
Young told the SASC: “I cannot afford for the Department to embark on a new bomber and not do it accurately.” He said he is “determined to try to bring and present to the Congress an achievable program that’s properly resourced, properly scheduled, and has appropriate technology maturity in it.”
There is skepticism among some observers about the new bomber emerging in 2018.
A March 7 Congressional Research Service report says the Air Force’s current plan for an interim bomber around 2018, and a follow-on craft with advances such as hypersonic flight in 2037 “might not be problematic for the Air Force.”
“The major difficulty will probably be the fiscal tradeoffs that will have to take place to fit this acquisition program into a crowded field,” says the report written by Anthony Murch. “The past is replete with examples of budgetary constraints resulting in drawn out or severely curtailed programs. If history repeats with the 2018 bomber, the Air Force might field its interim fix in the mid to late 2020s with far fewer bombers than planned” (Defense Daily, March 31).