Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

by Tom Clancy

  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—“downsizing” 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.

  Eventually, the Air Force took a hard look at the F-111A. It was reworked and committed to combat in Vietnam with some success. Though technically a fighter bomber (FB-111), it was dedicated to a strike role and eventually became a countermeasures platform in the EF-111A “Raven” configuration. Australia became the only foreign user, with -C and -G models.

  MEANWHILE, the best example of a joint-service aircraft had already proven itself: McDonnell Douglas’s long-lived, enormously versatile F-4 Phantom. Originally a Navy design, it was also flown by the Marine Corps and became an Air Force icon. Nearly a dozen other nations also became “Phantom Pflyers.”

  Therefore, the JSF concept had some appeal, especially its multi-mission capability and lower cost. Two industry teams were awarded development contracts: Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It was touted as a head-to-head shootout; a financial dogfight with the winner taking home the biggest defense contract yet. Boeing’s X-32 and LM’s X-35 both had to meet design specifications, but were free to interpret the best approach.

  It was a daunting task: meeting the needs not only of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, but of the British Royal Navy as well. The latter two organizations required a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) capability to replace the aging Harrier and Sea Harrier. Consequently, the design teams opted for a modular approach in three iterations: a strictly land-based (Air Force) version, a conventional carrier aircraft (Navy), and the STOVL machine (Marines and Brits). The program called for at least 70% commonality of airframe parts with the same basic engine. Both teams succeeded: Lockheed Martin’s design was selected.

  The USAF version is the F-35A. And, incidentally, don’t ask why the American fighter series jumped from FA-18 to F-35, even discounting Northrop’s dead-end F-20 Tigershark (a sad story, deserving the thanks of every taxpayer for Northrop’s venture capital effort). Purists were justifiably upset, just as they were when the F-117 designation was chosen. The “stealth fighter” is no fighter at all—it cannot carry air-to-air weapons, but there is no requirement for consistency or logic in the U.S. government.

  The JSF X-35C (CV) cruises over open country on a flight from Edwards Air Force Base, California, to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, in February 2001. Lockheed Martin

  The best explanation available is from an industry source: “During the JSF down-select announcement on October 26, 2001, Air Force Secretary Roche referred to the JSF as the ‘F-35’ . . . and sort of looked around the room for confirmation. A few months later the government made F-35 the official designator!”

  Beltway insiders compare the F-35 moniker with Lyndon Johnson’s transposition of the designators in the RS-71 Blackbird. After Johnson referred to it as the SR-71 in a speech, the designation was changed in order to prevent a minor embarrassment to the commander in chief.

  Meanwhile, students of aircraft nomenclature note that the JSF has a pure fighter designator (F-35), while the original Raptors (FA-22s) have no strike capability. “Go figure” is an oft-heard phrase.

  Anyway, the Air Force wanted to streamline its tactical air wings, replacing existing types with JSFs. Consequently, the F-35A is slated to take the slots on the ramp currently occupied by A-10s and F-16s, beginning in 2011. The long-range goal was for “migration” (another Pentagon buzzword) to an all stealth fighter force around 2025.

  ONE SIZE FITS ALL?

  The Joint Strike Fighter became the closest thing to a one-size-fits-all warplane. In addition to the Air Force variant, the Marine version is an F-35B with 600 some aircraft to replace Harriers, as well as F/A-18C and -D Hornets. The Bravo model JSF will have the vertical and short takeoff capability of the Harrier, which also suits the British Royal Navy requirement.

  The U.S. Navy F-35C differs in having catapult fittings and a tailhook plus larger wing and horizontal tail surfaces. The airframe is beefier to withstand the high sink-rate shock of carrier landings. The Navy buy is expected to run to 480 to relieve the early model Hornets. F/A-18E and -F (two-seat) Super Hornets are a growth industry and will be around well into this century. The naval JSF variants are expected to reach squadrons beginning in 2011.

  Thus, the JSF is intended to replace most of a generation of current tactical jets: Warthogs, Falcons, Harriers, and the older Hornets.

  Simply building the most efficient aircraft was not the be-all and end-all of the JSF contract. Maintainability figured heavily in the equation, as sortie generation rates were an important part of the concept. So were survivability and lethality, though the required stealth element was a given, as was the variety of ordnance required. Both competitors were capable of a “first look, first pass” kill of a variety of targets with current and planned ordnance. Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) were going to be a factor in JSF regardless of the version chosen.

  According to industry reports, some 250 officials were involved in making the selection. That’s a committee by any standard, and everybody knows what committees are like. Many of them tend to analyze, cuss, and discuss a subject to tears. But JSF was different. Rather than the traditional fly-off, the Boeing and Lockheed Martin prototypes were evaluated not head to head, but side by side. At a 2002 briefing a manager said, “They were evaluated not against each other but in comparison to how well they fit the requirement.”

  Experienced test pilots in the audience shifted in their seats, muttered to themselves, and essentially said, “Batguano.” The explanation sounded like doublespeak, and in a sense it was. Whether the X-32 and X-35 flew against each other or were rated separately, it was still a competition. The winner was the one that looked most promising in the context of the criteria.

  At least that was the official view. Some insiders postulated that there wasn’t enough technical or operational difference between the two designs, so the contract went to the company with greater need. If so, that was LM, since Boeing had sold the Super Hornet and was doing well in other areas, including its acquisition of McDonnell Douglas (nee Hughes) Helicopters.

  Or perhaps there was another factor at work. Two military pilots known to the author have stated, “Man, I’m not gonna fly anything as ugly as the Boeing JSF!”

  WANTED: ONE BOMB TRUCK

  One phrase often heard in JSF briefings during the 90s was “bomb truck.” The services began sorely missing aircraft such as the Phantom and Grumman’s veteran A-6 Intruder which could carry significant payloads long distances. The Navy was especially hurt by the first Bush administration’s mismanaged A-12 Avenger II, intended to replace the A-6 in carrier air wings. The Intruder could carry up to twenty-eight 500-pound bombs with an unrefueled tactical radius of 200 miles. However, with one-fifth the external drag, the same Intruder could take four half ton Mk-84s some 450 miles from the carrier. But that wasn’t all. Because KA-6Ds had provided most of the carriers’ tankers, Navy battle groups became dependent upon the Air Force for tanking, and radius was limited to the Hornet’s 300 miles. The capability tail was wagging the mission dog.

  Therefore, nearly everybody in the TacAir business was interested in a next-generation bomb truck.

  The problem with merely counting bomb racks is that it ignores the technological revolution of the 1990s. During Desert Storm, precision-guided munitions received a hugely disproportionate share of the ink, as PGMs accounted for barely 10% of the tonnage dropped in Kuwait and Iraq. A decade later the n
umbers had nearly reversed: reportedly PGMs accounted for as much as 70% of the ordnance used against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan during 2001-02, and the trend continued during the invasion of Iraq.

  As one Air Force officer explained, “We used to talk about the number of aircraft needed to destroy a target. Now we talk about the number of targets per aircraft.” One “fighter jet” with four PGMs aboard could strike four targets with an awesome probability of a hit, and an excellent chance of destruction. Restrikes remained important, but the ordnance millennium had arrived.

  Meanwhile, the number of F-35s available to conduct those missions remained negotiable. In 2002 the Air Force’s JSF buy was reduced from 2,036 to 1,763 at a flyaway price of $37 million to $48 million. Meanwhile, another 1,239 JSFs are on order for U.S. and British naval models. Further changes undoubtedly will occur in the Byzantine labyrinth of the American weapons acquisition process.