A stealth vehicle traveling through hundreds of miles of heavily defended enemy territory to deliver a single weapon on a tactical target—the concept behind both the Joint Strike Fighter and the unmanned combat aerial vehicles—is a relic of the past. What naval aviation needs is to ensure the Super Hornet is funded to its original concept and equipped with the improvements our forces deserve.
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the Navy's unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV-N) offer revolutionary technology and capability and will provide the Navy and the nation security, but several issues surrounding their development and true performance in today's world of combat are misguided. Naval officers and Department of Defense civilians with little to no experience in tactical aviation, warfighting requirements, combat realities, or research and development are praising aspects of each system that would be of limited value in the operational theaters of Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and future scenarios. Deep-seated interest in removing the "man in the box" under the auspices of cost-efficiency and improved safety margins are unrealistic and focus on a first-day strike capability that does not match with actual warfighting mechanics.
The Joint Strike Fighter will be carried forth, and the reason is simple: money. The Defense Department does not have the research-and-development dollars or time to come up with something better to replace a force that literally will be falling apart by 2010. And with its sensor fusion and technological leap in stealth, the Joint Strike Fighter does make sense as an answer to the aging Air Force F-16 and Marine Corps AV-8. Its benefits to littoral warfare and the battle of the future, however, are far from evident, especially in light of recent combat experience. Operations in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan have proven that the days of a single stealth fighter penetrating heavy enemy defenses to deliver a single payload are gone.
The single-engine Joint Strike Fighter is not the answer for the Navy. We have proven time and again the benefits of having two power systems. Most naval aviators can tell stories of returning to the ship with only one engine operating. Theater commanders in Operation Northern Watch tell how they hold their breath each time a single-engine F-16 goes into Iraq, knowing that a prisoner of war is just a mechanical failure away. No matter how reliable an engine monitoring system is, it cannot keep debris from going down an intake or an engine from coming apart with some other unforeseen failure in the high demand environment of the carrier. There are no single-engine fighter/attack aircraft on board our nation's aircraft carriers today for good reasons.
The Joint Strike Fighter boasts a 14,000-pound external payload. It also advertises a radar cross section of a golf ball to present-day surface-to-air systems. But what happens to stealth when external fuel tanks and ordnance are loaded on pylons and wing stations? It just does not compute. You cannot have it all. When you strap on ordnance to the exterior of an aircraft, its performance, range, and radar cross section all suffer. Its either stealth or 14,000 pounds of bombs.
Where will the Joint Strike Fighter program be in five years? Take a look at the F/A-18E/F. During the budget squeeze of the mid to late 1990s, the F/A-18E/F was whittled away, leaving it far less capable than its F-14 predecessor. It does not have the range, payload, or performance of any of the aircraft it attempts to replace. It is all we have, but it could be so much more. We are deploying the first F/A-18E/F squadrons without a tactical reconnaissance capability, multiuse cockpits, advanced electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, advanced targeting forward-looking infrared (ATFLIR), or the helmet-mounted sight/AIM-9X Sidewinder missile combination (which will see its first operational deployment in 2003, but the sight and the missile will not go together in an effort to "spread the wealth").
What the F/A-18E/F does bring to the table is stealth capability never before seen in naval air. But what does stealth mean in today's world of potential foes? If you station an aircraft carrier within range to conduct strikes by the F/A-18E/F, it is not a secret we're coming. Afghanistan and Kosovo both have shown that enemy forward observers armed with cell phones and binoculars can do as much damage as the best early warning radar. Similarly, no theater or air wing commander would let his aircraft fly headlong into a surface-to-air barrage, a problem most targeteers would have you believe is our number one priority. If the surface-to-air threat were that great, it would be time to use Tomahawk cruise missiles. In today's combat environment, the number of weapons you can bring to bear makes you successful, not the deep-strike stealth capability to deliver a single payload.
So if not the Joint Strike Fighter, what?
The answer is not to try to match the capability of the U.S. Air Force. The B-52, B-1, B-2, F-117, and F-22 offer unparalleled benefits, but they are unsuitable for the carrier environment. The carrier's hazardous operational conditions wreak havoc on stealth material and low-observable coatings; foreign-object debris (FOD) damages even the most sensor-laden engines; and the sheer number of aircraft on a limited amount of real estate poses its own problems.
The answer is not the UCAV/UCAV-N. In Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, U.S. Navy combat operations were most successful in locating and destroying tactical targets in conjunction with U.S. Air Force Global Hawk and Predator UAV systems. Forward-looking, unmanned sensors provided nearly real-time imagery to battlefield commanders and on-scene combat aircraft. Such reconnaissance should be exploited and modernized to include delivery of imagery to all combat aircraft. But the benefits of the UAV stop there.
The UCAV and UCAV-N are jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none. Most UCAV-N specifications are drawing board "guesstimates" of technology that does not exist in any form. The UCAV/UCAV-N's design specification touts a "pea-sized" radar cross section and 12,000 pounds of external payload capability. Which is it? As with the Joint Strike Fighter, you cannot have both. The designers of the UCAV-N also would have you believe that the technology can be produced at $12-15 million per aircraft. Is that in today's dollars or 2015 dollars? What budgeting and cost overruns might occur? History says that systems usually cost double their initial predicted price by the time the technology hits the streets. At that rate, the cost would work out close to the price of a manned aircraft.
The most troubling aspect of the UCAV-N is that its primary advantage is touted as being its lack of a pilot. The most difficult portion of integration with the Global Hawk and Predator systems is situational awareness on location. The simple act of a pilot turning his head 180 deg from left to right (a detailed scan in roughly five seconds), with the situational awareness a human can acquire, has yet to be duplicated. And today's UAVs travel at speeds far less than those proposed by the UCAV/UCAV-N designers (100 knots or less compared to 500 knots or greater). Currently fielded UAVs have a single task: battlefield reconnaissance. Integrating a suite of mission-essential avionics and the situational awareness they require into the UAV concept is an expenditure not worth the result. Quite simply, nothing beats having a set of eyes in the target area to ensure that what is under the crosshairs is what should be there.
The best path is to further integrate the UAV with existing combat aircraft and allow it to continue to pursue its primary role of battlefield reconnaissance. The idea of low-altitude/high-speed reconnaissance provided by a UCAV-N being an advantage is almost laughable—the look angle and resolution provided by low altitude and high speed are the poorest possible conditions for target acquisition—but we do need detailed area study, starting from big to small, and the ability to locate a target based on features and ground resolution that make sense. One. pass by a UCAV/UCAV-N at 500 feet and 500 knots of a mobile target would result in the target's immediate departure.
Last, UAVs have been lauded as the answer to aircraft and aviator losses at a price DoD can afford. In reality, the annual mishap rates of existing UAVs are far greater than the combined mishap rates of all aircraft in every service. The difference is these UAVs cost a fraction of what manned aircraft cost and carry little to no ordnance that if captured could be exploited by the enemy. If the UCAV/UCAV-N concept becomes a reality, however, we would risk losing platforms that cost one-half or more the cost of their manned counterparts and carry weapons that are state of the art in capability and destructive power. In addition, it takes dollars from the real answers that could revolutionize the fleet and modernize equipment for years to come.
The future direction of naval aviation is simple—and it does not include any revolutionary idea or leap in technology that is beyond our capabilities.
First, we must ensure the F/A-18E/F is funded to its original concept. It is difficult for a naval aviator to admit the Air Force might do something better, but its contract and procurement departments top anything the Navy has. The F-22 Raptor, for example, was a revolution in technology from bow to stern, and it was developed, tested, and implemented as a single unit. If a technology was not ready, production on the aircraft was slowed until it was. The Raptor was not whittled away to nothing like the F/A- 18E/F. And because the Air Force remained steadfast through numerous budget cuts and program reviews, it is getting the aircraft it requested with the performance and capabilities inherent in the original concept and design. It will outclass anything flying the moment it reaches operational status. This is the model we should be following in the U.S. Navy. Give the F/A-18E/F a fighting chance. Put the money where it is needed to equip the aircraft with the improvements a new platform deserves in the numbers we require to sustain our forces. From day one, VFA-41 should be using AESA with decoupled cockpits, ATFLIR, AIM-9X, and helmet-- mounted sights. It is wrong to provide them with less.
Second, eliminate the procurement and acquisition stagnation and red tape that eat away our precious defense dollars. End the political interface and congressional battles for money by giving control back to the armed services to contract the best product at the most competitive price. Trust that our service men and women are better able to spell out their own requirements than someone detached from the military environment and concerned with their own political survival. Simple add-ons to existing systems should be ready for the war fighter in months, not years.
Third, adapt and improve on the Air Force UAV reconnaissance concept found in Global Hawk and Predator, and make output directly usable by all combat aircraft with little to no turnaround time. Develop a stealth Tomahawk with better capability to deliver a single point weapon to a heavily defended target autonomously, at significant range. Keep both UAV and cruise missile technology cheap, efficient, and lethal, and allow these outstanding platforms to deliver their capability without the burden of remotely piloted vehicles. Most important, the U.S. Navy must keep the "man in the box" and provide that person with the tools to be effective. Fund and procure a multiengine, stealth-based follow-on aircraft tailored exclusively for Navy use with the capabilities required to fight the battles of today and make the naval history of tomorrow.
Commander Harrison, a 1999 graduate of Top Gun, flew 43 combat missions in Kosovo and Iraq as a strike lead and forward air controller (airborne). He is on the F-14 Fighter Wing Staff at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, and previously served as an instructor at Strike Fighter Weapons and Tactics School.