By Marina Malenic
The Air Force is further delaying the start of durability testing on its aging fighter aircraft fleet and buying fewer surveillance drones than it needs to increase delivery for troops in Afghanistan because Congress has not yet passed a fiscal 2011 budget bill, top Air Force officials said yesterday.
Congress has failed to take up President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget request, sent to Capitol Hill in February, and instead continues to fund the federal government at fiscal 2010 levels through continuing resolutions (CR). Under the CR, new-start programs and increased quantity purchases of existing programs are not allowed.
Examples of programs adversely affected by the logjam include the Air Force’s planned purchase of 48 MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft and structural testing of the its aging F-16 fleet, Jamie Morin, the assistant Air Force secretary for financial management, told Defense Daily in an interview at the Pentagon yesterday.
Under 2010 funding levels maintained by the CR, the Air Force was only able to ink a deal for 24 Reapers with prime contractor General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. An additional 24 aircraft are needed this year to meet the Pentagon’s goal of establishing 65 combat air patrols per day by 2013 for troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. Central Command chief Army Gen. David Petraeus and other top commanders “have made it clear that rapid fielding of [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] assets is a high priority due to the insatiable demand for more battlefield intelligence,” said Morin.
Also, full-scale durability tests of key F-16s cannot begin as planned this month, according to Maj. Gen. Alfred Flowers, deputy assistant Air Force secretary for budget. Top Air Force brass have said these tests will determine which aircraft are eligible for a service-life extension, made necessary due to the later-than-expected delivery of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (Defense Daily, June 22, 2010).
“We can’t start [durability] testing at all” under the CR, Flowers told Defense Daily.
In total, the Air Force is staring down an approximately $4 billion gap in spending needs due to being held to 2010 funding levels. In order to mitigate the shortfall, the service has requested reprogramming actions for three major acquisition programs since last fall–$63 million for a C-5 Galaxy modernization effort; $80 million for Global Positioning System modernization, or GPS III; and $90 million for the Joint Air-to-Surface Missile, which includes money for continued developed of an extended-range version of the projectile.
Under a reprogramming action, agency officials request permission from Congress to move money from one program to another.
According to Morin, additional Air Force reprogramming requests are likely unless a budget bill is passed in short order. He added, however, that service officials are rapidly exhausting sources for such funding transfers. To date, he said, the congressional defense committees whose approval of transfers is needed have been sympathetic to the requests because the Air Force was able to provide “a very clear explanation of impact.” But, going forward, moving money “will really start cutting into capability.”
“We are right now heavily dependent on [contractors’] good will” in maintaining price levels despite the inability to renew or initiate contracts, he said. And while the military has enjoyed “generally good support from industry,” according to Morin, he admitted that that good will has not been universal.
“Bottom line, this is a very tough management situation,” he added. “The third time you go into the couch cushions looking for change, you start coming up with pennies.”