Forum: General

To the extent that emphasis shifts to irregular warfare at the expense of traditional tactical aircraft, virtually
all aspects of the U.S. tactical air industrial base would be adversely affected. Such a reorientation in policy
would generate new and different requirements for air vehicles and thus alter the existing structure, scale
and robustness of the tactical air industrial base.
Modern tactical aircraft have demonstrated their applicability and utility in supporting irregular warfare
operations, providing survivable, quick-response support for ground forces. They also provide the air
dominance necessary for other types of aircraft to operate in theater. Vehicles optimized for irregular
warfare, though, would differ in design and operation from today’s tactical force. These multirole aircraft —
both rotary and fixed-wing — would likely be smaller, less expensive and less technically sophisticated with
increased emphasis on C4ISR, sensors, counter-insurgency/close air support (CAS), net-centric operations,
precision strike and visual and acoustic stealth. Technology-intensive areas such as agile air-to-air combat,
long-range strike, full-spectrum stealth and speed and maneuverability at medium and higher altitudes would
all be superfluous to irregular operations. These vehicles would also require higher levels of field reliability
at elevated operational tempos and in dispersed and rugged environments and would need to be sustainable
for prolonged periods in areas with limited infrastructure.
These less complex airframe requirements would alter the underlying business case for a significant portion
of the existing tactical air industrial base. Decreasing direct procurement and RDT&E funding for today’s
tactical aircraft programs would deprive the base of revenue and lead to higher unit costs for the remaining
aircraft procured through these programs. These rising costs and declining procurement volumes would
narrow U.S. manufacturers’ historical cost advantage and make them less competitive in export markets
versus foreign competitors.

The relatively simple manufacturing processes required to produce counterinsurgency (COIN) aircraft would lower the barriers to entry for competitors in this market space, and given the comparatively small potential size of this market compared with traditional tactical aircraft, profitability would deteriorate for existing OEMs. Further, air vehicle designs with less intricate maintenance demands could harm OEMs’ value proposition for offering comprehensive sustainment solutions, further eroding their potential revenue stream.

Even with replacement production of smaller, lighter information warfare (IW)-centric aircraft, declining
procurement for existing “elite” tactical aircraft programs could lead to a drop in required facility capacity
by perhaps one third or more. This base of fewer and/or smaller facilities could hamper future efforts by
the defense industrial base to rapidly respond to the evolving needs of the U.S. military as threats change
over time (e.g., emergence of a near-peer or existential threat). Once production facilities and tooling are
shuttered, reactivating them would be expensive and time-consuming, especially considering that those
facilities and tooling would not have benefited from years of continual maintenance, investment and
improvement.

Check out what they have to say about the effect on tactical aviation of changing our strategic priorities:

This is a slap at SecDef Robert Gate's plan to replace Gen 5 airplanes with MQ-9 Reapers (or other bomb-dropping remotely-piloted Cessnas). Now that he has killed F-22, expect him to start his attack on F-35. "Death by a thousand cuts" is the age old politician's trick where the yearly budget is cut (to counter real or manufactured crises), throwing the program into a costly and time-consuming re-plan. The contractor has to cut staff and production rate which increases the unit cost. The next year, the budget is cut once again with the same effect of re-plan, schedule stretch and unit cost increase. The 3rd year the budget is cut again...and the 4th year too...and so forth. This "death by a thousand cuts" tactic was used five times by Clinton to mortally wound the F-22 program. As unit costs increased beyond what Congress could stomach, a cost cap was enforced with only 184 jets built under that cap. That's what F-35 has to look forward to.

The following, however, I don't quite understand. If someone could explain it using layman's english I'd appreciate it very much.

Bomb-dropping, remote-controlled Cessnas don't require sophisticated design or manufacturing techniques of a Gen 5 jet. In fact, they are so unsophisticated that any country that pays their COIN factory personnel $3/day will beat the pants off the domestic aerospace industry in price. And USG bean counters (who are unconcerned with the technical capabilities of a product) will most always go for the cheaper price. Once the US contractor loses a competition, he may have to lay off his personnel and closes his facilities to preserve his stock price. That loss of capability will be nearly impossible to re-create at some distant future date under the current USG business climate.


And this sounds a bit anti-F-35:


If US industry is only required to build unsophisticated, cheap aircraft in small numbers, the industry will divest of its expensive high tech personnel, equipment and facilities. Once the people, equipment and facilities are gone, it will be nearly impossible to re-generate that capability without huge investment of time and money.

What do you guys think?