Air Power: The Navy Needs More Super Hornets.

Air Power: The Navy Needs More Super Hornets.

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Air Power: The Navy Needs More Super Hornets
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Issue Brief
Nov 18, 2008
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During the recent presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Barack
Obama stressed in his principle defense position paper the need to
preserve our military's "unparalleled air power" and capacity for
"power projection at sea." Mr. Obama cited a few of the programs he
was inclined to support, such as the C-17 cargo plane and the Littoral
Combat Ship, but he was silent on fighter modernization -- the one
category of aircraft where air power and sea power intersect.

Perhaps he felt no need to state the obvious: the future of America's
fighter fleet is the F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike
Fighter. F-35 was created by the Clinton Administration to provide a
low-cost, highly survivable fighter for three of America's military
services and at least eight overseas allies. The price-tag for
building 3,000 aircraft looks huge -- about $300 billion over 30 years
-- but any alternative approach that can meet the diverse needs of so
many different users is likely to cost much more. With cold war
fighters aging fast, F-35 must be kept on track.

Since F-35 appears to be progressing smoothly, the main question
tactical-aircraft planners need to ask themselves today is how to
maintain fighter fleets until the new plane becomes available. And
there, the Navy has a problem. Its cold-war inventory of F/A-18
Hornets is beginning to experience all the age-related problems you
would expect from planes that are catapulted off aircraft carriers on
a daily basis and then must use arresting cables to stop when they
bounce back onto the deck a few hours later. Twenty years of
absorbing such stresses would wear out any plane.

The F-35 is expected to begin replacing Marine Hornets in 2012 and
Navy Hornets in 2015, but by the latter year the sea services will be
suffering a shortage of over a hundred fighters on carrier decks. And
that's the optimistic scenario. If plans to extend the service life
of Hornets from 6,000 flight hours to 10,000 hours don't work out, the
shortfall will be greater. If F-35 joins the fleet later than
expected, or is bought at a slower rate than planned, the shortfall
will be greater still. And if all of these problems occur in an
environment where there is attrition due to combat, the Navy could be
short well over 200 fighters.

The sea services could just cross their fingers and hope nothing much
will be demanded of them over the next two decades. But if a major
conflict arises, they will be unprepared. So the best option the
services seem to have is to buy more of the planes they already
operate -- not the Hornet, but the vastly improved Super Hornet, 340
of which have already been built on budget and on schedule. Although
legacy Hornets and the newer Super Hornet both share the F/A-18
designation, the latter plane is far more capable. It flies further,
carries more ordnance, has some stealth features and is equipped with
a state-of-the-art radar.

The cheapest way to buy more Super Hornets is using a multiyear
production contract, rather than ordering small batches each year.
Under a multiyear contract, the government commits in advance to
purchasing aircraft for several years, in return for which it is
charged a lower price on each plane. All of the Super Hornets to date
have been bought that way, saving taxpayers over a billion dollars. A
side benefit is that by committing to a multiyear buy, it becomes
economical to introduce improvements into the plane that would be too
costly if it were ordered in small lots. With Super Hornets likely to
remain in the fleet for 25 years, any upgrades that bolster
reliability or maintainability will pay for themselves.