By Marina Malenic
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that he is authorizing the Air Force to re-launch a next-generation bomber aircraft development effort in the president’s FY ’12 budget request.
A new optionally piloted, nuclear-capable bomber is a “high priority for future investment given the anti-access challenges the department faces,” Gates told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.
He announced the new start while unveiling a set of budget proposals designed to redirect funding from “overhead and unneeded programs” to higher defense priorities. He added that these “efficiencies initiatives” made it possible for the Air Force to buy more of the most advanced MQ-9 Reaper drones built by General Atomics and move its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs from the temporary war budget to the permanent base budget.
“Going forward, advanced unmanned strike and reconnaissance capabilities must become an integrated part of the service’s regular institutional force structure,” Gates said.
The Air Force will also be able to increase procurement of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) with cost savings from the budget drill, Gates said. EELV is produced by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT]. He also said the service will modernize radars on its aging F-15 Eagles “to keep this key fighter viable well into the future” and buy more simulators for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter air crew training.
To offset the cost of the new priorities, the Air Force is cutting some $34 billion from overhead over five years. Key plans include:
- Consolidating two air operations centers in the United States and two in Europe;
- Consolidating three numbered Air Force staffs;
- Saving $500 million by reducing fuel and energy consumption within the Air Mobility Command;
- Improving depot and supply chain business processes to sustain weapons systems; and
- Reducing the cost of communications infrastructure by 25 percent.
The Air Force leadership applauded Gates’ announcement. In a joint statement, service Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said “these efforts will enable the reallocation of resources into warfighting capabilities, such as the development of a new long-range, penetrating bomber.
“Leveraging proven technologies and streamlining program management during development, the Air Force will ensure the new bomber can be delivered before our current fleet goes out of service,” they said.
Gates suspended the Air Force’s next-generation bomber development plans over a year ago, asking service officials to better flesh out ideas before proceeding. The president’s FY ’11 defense spending request included a small amount of money for industrial base sustainment, but the FY ’12 request will now have substantial seed money for a full-scale development effort.
Ever since Gates sent the Air Force back to the drawing board, Pentagon officials have said they envision development of several new weapons capable of everything from long- range and prompt global strike to electronic attack and persistent surveillance. They have all emphasized that cost will be a major driver of the program to develop a new “family of systems.”
Donley has previously said any new bomber fleet ought to be larger than the 21-aircraft B- 2 Spirit production numbers “but not so large that we cannot afford it.” The secretary has said the Air Force is looking to “avoid the mistakes of previous bomber programs” (Defense Daily, Sept. 14).
In the mean time, the Air Force is upgrading and maintaining its B-1, B-2 and B-52 fleets.
According to a study released in September by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, any new bomber aircraft should be stealthy, nuclear hardened, able to carry at least 20,000 pounds of ordnance, optionally manned, with a 4,000 nautical-mile range (Defense Daily, Sept. 17).
The CSBA analysis estimates that a 100,000-pound airplane able to carry 20,000 pounds of ordnance would cost $36 billion for 50 aircraft or $46 billion for 100, inclusive of development costs. A126,000-pound airplane capable of hauling 40,000 pounds of bombs would cost $44 billion for a fleet of 50 or $56 billion for 100.