Pentagon leaders underscored their commitment to buying unmanned aircraft before a Senate panel reently, with the top uniformed officer saying the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) could be among the last manned aircraft of its kind.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Michael Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) during a fiscal year 2010 budget hearing that “we’re in a real time of transition here in terms of future aviation.”
“The whole issue of what’s going to be manned, and what’s going to be unmanned, what’s going to be stealthy, what isn’t, how do we address these threats… (is) changing, even from 2006,” Mullen said. “From a warfighting perspective, I think this is at the heart of what we need to look at for the future, whether it’s fighters or bombers, quite frankly.”
Testifying with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mullen spoke up after two Republicans questioned Pentagon FY ’10 budget proposals to cancel a classified next-generation bomber program, and to end production of Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-22 stealth fighters after 187 are purchased.
The Department of Defense, Mullen said, “is very much focused on” and “in the beginning of” this change in thinking regarding aircraft.
“There are those that see JSF as the last manned fighter,…bomber, or jet,” Mullen said. “I’m one that’s inclined to believe that. I don’t know if that’s exactly right. But this all speaks to the change that goes out…obviously decades, including how much unmanned we’re going to have and how it’s going to be resourced.”
Lockheed Martin is developing the multi-service F-35 JSF.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) quizzed Gates on why he wants to cancel planning for a follow-on bomber, considering the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) directed the Air Force to build one by 2018.
Gates said more analysis for the bomber is needed in the new QDR and the Nuclear Posture Review, adding: “One of the things I think we need to think about is whether, for example, the follow-on bomber needs to have a pilot in it.”
“The reality is that we have a lot more experience in the last two to three years with unmanned aerial vehicles than they had at the time that the last QDR was put together,” Gates said.
The defense secretary noted buying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) including the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems-built Predator and Reaper is “one of the significant growth areas in the budget” proposal, which calls for ramping up to build 48 Reapers a year and maxing out the Predator line.
“They have played such a vital role in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have such application in so many other places,” Gates said about the UAVs.
The congressional budget hearing was Gates and Mullen’s second in two days on President Obama’s FY ’10 proposals for a $533.8 billion base defense budget and $130 billion in separate war-related funding. Gates unveiled most of his proposed programmatic changes last month, before the budget’s official transmission to Congress last week.
Lawmakers beyond Thune lamented Gates’ recommendations on programs they support: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) decried ending F-22 production after 187 jets are bought; Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) critiqued axing the manned-ground vehicle of the Army’s Future Combat Systems program; Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) criticized cutting longer-range missile defense programs; and Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) questioned scaling back the L-3 Communications [LLL] Joint Cargo Aircraft and shifting it to Air Force oversight. Martinez also noted shipbuilding concerns, including the proposed production delay for the 11th LPD amphibious ship. And Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) made a pitch for a multiyear buy of Boeing [BA] F-18 jets, an arrangement the Pentagon did not propose in the FY ’10 budget.
The SASC also unanimously approved by voice vote President Obama’s nominations of six civilian Pentagon nominees including Raymond Mabus to be Navy secretary, Robert Work to be Navy under secretary, and Paul Stockton to be assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and America’s security affairs.