Here We Go Again - 2021 Edition

Fifty years ago, the United States Airforce had a problem: its premiere fighter, the F-4 Phantom II, while exceptionally fast and capable, was also big, heavy, and expensive. For the new generation of aircraft, the service requested a high-performance air-superiority fighter to replace the Phantom in that role, and a simple, light-weight, and relatively inexpensive aircraft capable of flying both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The results were the F-15 Eagle, arguably the best pure fighter of its generation, and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, one of the most capable and widely-used fighter-bomber types ever built. Critics complained that the F-16 was still too expensive, and crammed with too much equipment, but it is hard to deny that the plane was very successful, given its combat record…

Thirty years later the United States was looking for a new generation of aircraft to replace the F-15 and F-16 – not unreasonably, considering the technological development during those years. Consider, for example, that in 1971 some of the most capable computers in the world still required most of a small room and were less powerful than the phone in your pocket. The new F-22 Raptor fulfills the air-superiority requirement quite well, and both the manufacturer and the Department of Defense insist that it has never lost an air-to-air combat to a peer competitor. The problem came when the Air Force decided to buy the F-35 Lightning II to replace the now 44 year-old F-16. Intended to be lightweight, inexpensive, and reliable, the F-35 has proven to be none of the above – and now it seems as though even the top brass are admitting that…

An article on the Forbes website this week discusses the request from the Chief of the Air Force for a new lightweight and inexpensive multi-role aircraft to supplement the F-35. The general compares the F-35 to a Ferrari, explaining that you don’t drive your Ferrari to and from work every day; you drive it on Sundays and special occasions. This is true, of course – exotic sports cars generally have a lifespan of 25,000 miles or less, and you’d have to be out of your mind to drive one every day – but it doesn’t speak well for the F-35, which was intended to be a replacement for the F-16 but has instead suffered from massive cost overruns, lengthy teething problems, and the installation of far too much exotic, temperamental, and heavy equipment…

I’ve written in this space before about the problems with government budgets in general, and the Air Force’s problems with vehicles that are insufficiently sleek, thrilling, and pointy to suit their image in particular. In this case, no one doubts that the USAF needs a multi-role fighter, or that it would be possible to develop a more advanced and capable aircraft for this purpose than the venerable F-16. The problem is that with the Air Force’s perennial battle to get a bigger share of the defense budget than the other services, and the U.S. Congress’ tendency to allocate funding based on getting its members re-elected (as opposed to spending money on things we actually need), there is a very real chance that any future attempts to acquire a light, cheap, and reliable multi-role warplane will end up exactly the way the F-35 did…

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that anything about this situation is simple, or easily solved. All kidding aside, it really does take years to develop a new airplane, and getting the balance between offensive capability, defensive capability, and maneuverability just right in any piece of military equipment is a challenge that predates both the airplane and the United States of America. But unless we want to continue throwing money down a rat hole (or a pork barrel), somebody needs to sort out this situation before the next piece of light, cheap, and reliable war gear turns into a gold-plated waste of time – and the whole thing starts all over again…