Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3

by Tom Clancy

  Air supremacy is air superiority writ large. It exists when the opposing air defense force (not merely its aircraft) is wholly suppressed in its own area as well as ours. The opposition may still inflict occasional losses, but far too few to affect the outcome of the conflict. Air supremacy existed over Normandy, over Japan, throughout most of Southeast Asia, and was quickly gained in Desert Storm. In fact, Coalition supremacy was never in doubt in "the sandbox." Nor was it even contested during Operation Iraqi Freedom, when, for the first time in history, more allied jet losses were attributed to friendly fire than enemy action.

  Since the 1990s there has also been reference to "air dominance," which extends beyond supremacy. Air dominance involves joint operations which rule the enemy's ground territory as well as his airspace. The conclusion of the 2003 Iraq War is a classic example: We finally did it right and parked the Bradleys in downtown Baghdad.

  In its simplest form, air supremacy exists when enemy tank drivers run over their own people while operating with their eyes on the sky instead of on the road.

  Whatever the definitions, the 366th Fighter Wing is thoroughly familiar with air superiority and air supremacy.

  A WING IN TRANSITION

  The 366th has a long history of aerial combat. In World War II it ranked eighth among twenty fighter and recon groups in the Ninth Air Force, with 103 German planes shot down. In Vietnam the Danang Gunfighters notched twenty MiG kills. But by far the greatest contribution the 366th has provided in nearly sixty years has been in the air-to-ground role. "Mud movers" seldom make much press, but they are beloved of infantrymen.

  Since 1943 the wing has flown an awesome variety of aircraft: at least nine fighters (both P and F), two bombers, and its own tankers. From Thunderbolts to Phantoms to Stratofortresses and Stratotankers, the 366th has adapted itself to changing equipment and missions. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that the 366th eventually will operate F/A-22s and F-35s.

  For ten years the 366th was the flagship of the Air Force's expeditionary concept. In 1991 it was redesignated the 366th Wing (no longer specifically Fighter) with a variety of attached units, including the 34th Bomb Squadron with B-1Bs, 22nd Air Refueling Squadron KC-135Rs, and EF-111A Ravens. The Air Force's battle laboratory focused on Mountain Home in 1997, laying extra emphasis on the quick deployment of a composite wing containing its own fighters, bombers, tankers, and support units.

  But the force structure began changing: the Ravens left service in 1993, leaving the wing dependent on Navy and Marine jammers when deployed. Eventually the Lancers and Stratotankers were removed in 2002. The 389th Fighter Squadron's F-16Cs also departed. In September 2002, the 366th once again was a Tactical Fighter Wing, no longer in the expeditionary business but still highly capable with F-15Cs and — Ds in the 390th Wild Boars and Strike Eagles in the 391st Bold Tigers.

  If the 366th's history proves anything, it is the constant change in force structure and mission emphasis. Therefore, we wonder where the next decade will take us. How will those developments affect the aircrews, maintainers, and planners of the 366th in the 21st century?

  MILLENNIUM PLANNING

  The Air Force began planning for the post-millennium era with a doctrinal study titled Global Reach-Global Power. But it became dated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, forcing the service to begin a year-and-a-half survey to determine the force structure through 2025.

  The result was Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force. Like previous studies, it focused on the best means of achieving and maintaining the ability to deter, fight, and win future conflicts in air and space. Global Engagement was linked to the Joint Chiefs of Staff document titled Joint Vision 2010. While all services acknowledge the increasing reliance on mutual support and joint war fighting, the Air Force insists, "it embodies our belief that in the 21st Century, the strategic instrument of choice will be air and space power."

  The Pentagon loves buzzwords and key phrases, and Global Engagement is no exception. Nor was Joint Vision 2010. The latter stressed a range of military operations under the umbrella of "full spectrum dominance." It includes joint operations featuring concepts such as Dominant Maneuver, Precision Engagement, Full Dimensional Protection, and Focused Logistics. It also realizes the increasing importance of superior intelligence in the information age: "the ability to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate information while denying an adversary's ability to do the same." While probably few aircrews of the Wild Boars or Bold Tigers are thinking of such things when they tuck their gear in the well, the concepts govern tactical missions and capabilities.

  CORE COMPETENCIES

  The Air Force deals in what it calls "core competencies," those features that distinguish the aerospace mission. They include Rapid Global Mobility, Precision Engagement, Global Attack, Air and Space Superiority, Information Superiority, and Agile Combat Support.

  Most of the core competencies are self-evident. Rapid Global Mobility refers to aviation's inherent advantage of speed and range. In addition to deploying tactical units almost anywhere on earth in a matter of days, the Air Force can also transport Army or Marine Corps forces to a war theater or trouble spot. The problem, of course, tends to be bases — as the Tailhook Navy likes to remind Congress during appropriation hearings. Aircraft carriers represent four and a half acres of sovereign territory that moves at 30 knots without needing to play "Mother, may I?" with wavering allies, as we saw in Turkey during "Iraqi Freedom." On the other hand, due to mismanagement in the first Bush Administration, the Navy found itself out of the deep strike mission unless Air Force tankers were available. Jointness came on forced wings, but it came regardless.

  Precision Engagement also speaks for itself. The "precision revolution" of the 1990s became standard television fare during Desert Storm, but since then the statistics have flip-flopped. During Desert Storm only about 10 % of the ordnance dropped were Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs). When America retaliated for 9/11 in Afghanistan, almost 90 % of aviation munitions were laser or GPS guided. In some instances, the published "miss distance" of certain weapons was smaller than a typical target.

  But precision has other components as well. Intelligence is part of the equation, with more and more "real time" targeting data from a variety of sources. Some aspects are technical, such as satellite coverage, unmanned drones, or radio intercepts. Others are the most basic, "Humint" in the trade, referring to human intelligence sources. One man (or woman) on the ground with an unobstructed view of the "subject" and a cell phone uplink can help put PGMs on target PDQ.

  Global Attack is exactly what it says: the ability to strike almost anywhere on the planet's surface. Whether it's true or not, the accusation has been made that some airpower zealots insist that the United States can rule the world from Omaha. Certainly the ability to deploy intercontinentally has been demonstrated more than once, since the limiting factor in today's Air Force is not aircraft or weapons, but aircrew fatigue. It's one response to the never-ending one-upmanship with the Navy: if it's politically inconvenient for an ally to permit USAF basing, then all the Air Force needs is ample tankers to support B-1s or B-2s from ConUS to reach the target. The problem is, of course, a twelve-hour cycle time, which tends to limit sorties. For the 366th and other fighter wings, such extreme reach is possible but impractical under most circumstances.

  Air and Space Superiority now go hand in glove. They are closely related to Information Superiority, since intelligence and targeting are inextricably mixed. In fact, it has been asserted that in reality America no longer has the U.S. Air Force but the U.S. Air and Space Force. Satellites for reconnaissance and communications have become invaluable, and their importance is in no danger of diminishing. Neither are recon drones such as the Predator, which may even take over part of the SEAD mission in suppressing enemy air defenses.

  Agile Combat Support addresses the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to specific goals. Joint operations with the Army, Navy, and allied fo
rces figure in the equation, employing varied assets to meet assigned tasks with responsiveness rather than massive logistics. "Reach back" is the operative buzzword, deploying from the continental United States more often than from overseas bases, which are expensive to maintain.

  So much for the doctrinal aspects. What about the hardware of the future?

  NEW TOOLS FOR OLD MISSIONS

  The phrase is "block obsolescence." In 2003, the U.S. Air Force's inventory was beginning to show its age. The average airframe was twenty-three years old: 1980 construction. Like all statistics, this is misleading — it reflects forty-year-old B-52s and last year's F-16s. Increasingly, success in air combat depends on aircraft systems — mainly electronics — rather than on the airplanes themselves, but, especially in the fighter world, high time airframes present problems. With increasing stress and its attendant reduction in remaining fatigue life, combat aircraft just plain wear out. Though the Air Force's "howgozit" monitoring of critical airframe parts (especially wing spars) can track the trends, aircrews deserve a break. The last F-15Cs were built in 1988, and if an Eagle has a theoretical service life of 1,800 hours remaining, a fudge factor is needed to afford some velvet. That aircraft may well go the full 1,800 hours with no serious trouble. Or it may come apart prematurely. The solution is to replace the critical components or buy a new airplane. Either way, the taxpayer gets tagged again for an airframe or systems upgrade.

  Systems: aye, there's the rub. Many aircraft built in the 1970s and 1980s lack compatibility with current avionics. For instance, the A-10 "Warthog" was built with an electrical system incapable of handling state-of-the-art radar and computers. The problem is aggravated by the growing demands and diminishing assets of the post-Cold War military.

  ADVENT OF THE RAPTOR

  The FA-22 is bound to become a landmark aircraft, and not only for its technological sophistication. At this writing, the Raptor and its stablemate, the F-35, could well be the last manned fighters in Air Force history.

  As they say in Hollywood, lapse-dissolve. Fade to day. The Raptor, proposed in 1986 with a 1994 operational date, is now expected to enter service in 2005, for a nineteen-year development cycle. The Air Force Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35A, comes close at eighteen years between 1993 and the expected IOC of 2011.

  The second production Raptor fires an AIM-9 Sidewinder from its weapon bay. The door will close almost immediately to preserve the aircraft's stealth signature.

  Lockheed Martin

  Stealth does amazing things to development times, most of them bad. For instance, depending on how they're reckoned, the design to operational period for recent jet fighters has been seven to eight years. The landmark F-15 took longer, 1965 to 1976, but the F-16 and Navy FA-18 both ran around seven. Lockheed's storied Skunk Works produced the F-117 Nighthawk in eight (1975-83).

  With two Pratt & Whitney F-119s producing 35,000 pounds of thrust in a 30,000-pound airframe, the Raptor is an aerial drag racer, if necessary. The thrust-weight ratio combined with thrust vectoring nozzles presents an awesome package: fast, agile, stealthy, and lethal. Additionally, high angle of attack profiles enable the FA-22 pilot to point and shoot in almost any flight regime.

  The Raptor's talons are two Sidewinders, six AMRAAM, and a 20mm Gatling with 480 rounds. The FA-22 also will (eventually) deliver two precision bombs, though how often that option will be employed remains to be seen. For better or worse, the Air Force decided that the Raptor needed the capability in order to convince Congress to continue funding the program.

  The FA-22 and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter constitute two of the Pentagon's most expensive programs. The Raptor was the last American fighter designed during the Cold War, and consequently the cost was extraordinarily high. The 2004 budget allocated $226.5 billion to JSF and $69.7 billion for the FA-22; the Navy's Virginia Class submarine joins them in the top three. The funding represented 2,866 JSFs and 295 FA-22s, for an average program cost of $236 million per Raptor and $79 million per JSF, the latter including models for three services. Raptor flyaway cost (excluding program "start-up" plus R&D) is likely in the $90 million range. However, the numbers keep changing, sometimes almost monthly.

  RAPTOR ORIGINS

  In 1985 the Air Force issued a request for proposal for the next-generation Advanced Tactical Fighter. Pratt & Whitney's YF-119 already had been identified as the likely engine, and P&W began producing the first parts that year. Meanwhile, stealth requirements were firmed up with Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics signing a team memorandum.

  Two years later the original YF-22 was declared unacceptable for a variety of technical and engineering reasons, and a new design was selected, leading to the final configuration. From that point the new fighter progressed well, and it was unveiled at Palmdale, California, in August 1990. Christened Raptor, it was flown by test pilot Dave Ferguson the next month and demonstrated supersonic cruise in November. By year-end, thrust vectoring and Mach 2 performance had been demonstrated. Shortly thereafter, an extensive wind tunnel program of nearly 17,000 hours began.

  While technical progress met successive milestones, the Raptor's cost came under the budget axe. In early 1994 the "buy" was sliced from 648 to 422. Later reductions further chopped the type's acquisition process.

  An F-22 launches the advanced AIM-120 "fire and forget" missile.

  Lockheed Martin

  The Raptor also drew close attention abroad. In January 1999 the MiG consortium announced its new design, tentatively called Project 1.42. The Russians claimed that Project 1.42 would outperform the FA-22, when part of the Raptor's sales appeal was its technological superiority over anything flying. The Russian project, which became the MiG-35, featured many Raptor capabilities, including stealth and thrust vectoring, but was never built: it was unaffordable. Nevertheless, the Raptor must contend with its potential opponents as well as those currently flying around the world.

  In-flight refueling extends the F-22's range almost to infinity. In this evolution the tenth Raptor is plugged in to a KC-135 tanker during operational testing at the Edwards complex in southern California.

  Lockheed Martin

  As with any advanced aircraft, the Raptor program has experienced its full share of embarrassments.

  In the summer of 2002 another reduction was proposed, from 295 to 180 aircraft in comparison to the 750 previously planned. By then, some $26 billion of a budgeted $69 billion had already been spent. Yearly acquisition was ten Raptors in 2002 and twenty-three more (costing $4.6 billion) in 2003. In November 2002 the Air Force conceded an overrun of up to $690 million in engineering, manufacturing, and development costs, adding that neither technology nor performance figured in the equation. The overruns led to "replacement" of three senior overseers (people are not "fired" anymore) and the T&E folks were reprimanded for indulging in tactics development before the test program was completed.

  As of 2003, Lockheed Martin had $43 billion to produce some 276 Raptors through 2013. However, the Air Force wants 381 for a minimum of ten air expeditionary squadrons with twenty-four planes each, with 105 attrition and force expansion airframes. Full-rate production is expected to reach thirty-six per year, with a goal of $75 million per Raptor. With a purchase of 760 or so FA-22s, the Air Force could field two squadrons per wing. First delivery is still expected in 2004, with the first squadron operational in 2005.

  Later-production FA-22s are expected to carry small diameter bombs (SDBs) from 2007, a relatively simple process of moving some internal plumbing.

  Discussion of the FB-22 fighter-bomber version continues, but much remains speculative. Structural changes over the FA version would include a larger wing, bigger bomb bay, and two-seat cockpit. Foreign sales appear to be authorized, and at least one nation has expressed serious interest. With its multiple sensors, additional possible uses of the FB include reconnaissance and ELINT gathering as well as defense suppression.

  JSF TO F-35

  The entire issue of force reduction—"downsiz
ing" or "right sizing" became the buzzwords — is a separate issue, but clearly the first Bush and both Clinton administrations got it wrong. The professional optimists in Washington committed an old error: They made the wrong assumption. They assumed that with the demise of the Soviet Union, the need for a large military establishment would vanish. Quite the contrary: In the decade following Desert Storm, the Air Force was tasked with 450 % more missions with less than half of its previous assets. Few people anticipated the eruption of brush fires all over the planet: Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq.

  For obvious reasons, Boeing's 757–200 test bed is called the Catfish. It is fitted with an F- 22A radar nose and swept wing section above the flight deck containing conformal antennas for advanced radar trials. The configuration was first tested in 1999.

  Lockheed Martin

  Consequently, bean counters and analysts began casting about for another option. They found it in the Joint Strike Fighter: a sort of one-size-fits-all warplane equipped to perform a variety of seemingly contradictory missions. JSFs became a growth industry.

  The JSF X-35B (STOVL) descends to a vertical landing following a supersonic flight at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in July 2001.

  Lockheed Martin

  The concept was not new. In the early 1960s the Kennedy administration pushed the multi-service TFX, the experimental fighter that would simultaneously serve the Air Force and Navy. It became the signature program of Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert Strange McNamara, previously a Ford executive. The F-111 struggled through an extraordinarily difficult gestation, earning the sobriquet "The Flying Edsel." From the Navy viewpoint, it was indeed a lemon: The B model proved too difficult to operate from aircraft carriers, with marginal landing characteristics. The Navy's top flying admiral, Tom Connolly, risked his career by undertaking a dangerous enterprise: he told Congress the truth, stating "There isn't enough thrust in Christendom to make that airplane into a fighter." The denizens of Camelot were furious. The Navy was grateful. A decade later it named the F-14 the Tomcat.