USAF Space, Bomber Programs Move Forward
The U.S. Air Force is sacrificing part of its Global Hawk unmanned aerial system program while proceeding with a more aggressive buy of satellites and rockets, and moving forward with a bomber program.
The Air Force is proposing in its fiscal 2012-16 budget to cut $428 million from its Global Hawk Block 40 program, which aims to put an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar on the high-flying unmanned aerial system (UAS) to collect data on moving targets on the ground and in the air. The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon radar also is capable of taking highly accurate synthetic aperture radar images through weather and dust.
Service officials originally planned to buy 22 of the Block 40 aircraft; the Air Force now plans to buy 11, says USAF budget deputy Marilyn Thomas. This cut will undoubtedly drive up the per-unit cost of the aircraft. It is unclear whether this will trigger yet another breach of program cost limits in the Nunn-McCurdy statute.
Meanwhile, the service is requesting $166.3 billion in fiscal 2012. Of that the so-called blue top line — excluding defense health and contingency spending — is about $119 billion, according to Maj. Gen. Alfred Flowers, deputy assistant Air Force secretary for budget. Roughly 16% of that is dedicated to research and development with 19% for procurement.
Some day-to-day expenses, such as fuel, have gone up. The Air Force paid for this in part with nearly $33.3 billion shaved from the projected budget through fiscal 2016. The fiscal 2012 budget requests three Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft at $485 million and continues Air Force research at $423.5 million, with another $549 million requested for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance version.
“Efficiencies have certainly been used to enhance warfighting and readiness in this budget,” Flowers says.
After a two-year hiatus as an official program, USAF is dedicating $3.7 billion for the so-called Long-Range Strike family of systems, the bulk of which will be dedicated to a penetrating, nuclear-capable bomber. This includes about $200 million in fiscal 2012, roughly the same amount as last year, to keep technology developing until a proper program is restarted. Defense Secretary Robert Gates put the brakes on the project two years ago to review requirements and assess options; some in the Pentagon were concerned USAF would craft an unrealistically ambitious program that would crater from overreaching for technology. However, details on the requirements, forthcoming request for proposals and schedule are unlikely to be publicly discussed.
Gates said last month he would like for the bomber to be “optionally manned,” meaning it can be flown remotely when needed. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are likely to be competitors for this work.
The fiscal 2012 proposal also increases production of Reaper UAS at General Atomics to 48 per year, the maximum rate the factory can handle for Air Force purchases, and 36 Gray Eagle variants per year for the Army. USAF plans to buy 396 aircraft, and the fiscal 2012 request is for nearly $1.1 billion. The Army request is $806 million.
USAF’s plans to buy a new high-performance trainer appear to be on the back burner in the fiscal 2012 request. Flowers says $307 million is outlined across the future years’ defense plan (FYDP). Though funding begins in fiscal 2012 based on the request, there are no procurement quantities listed. Alenia, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin/Korea Aerospace Industries are all readying existing designs in anticipation of a competition.
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