Officials explain growth in fighter gap totalsBy Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jun 11, 2009 10:23:15 EDT
The aging fleet of F/A-18 Hornets is in worse shape than Navy experts previously thought, two admirals told Congress on Tuesday.
The analysis comes after dozens of fighter jets have begun to reach their 8,000th flight hour and gone into the depot for a “high flight-hour” inspection.
Some 38 Hornets have started that inspection process. So far, nine have finished and been approved to fly an additional 600 hours to reach a total of 8,600 total lifetime flight hours, said Rear Adm. Allen Myers, the Navy’s director of warfare integration.
Inspectors have found about 60 new “hot spots” — or areas of concern that need close inspection — in addition to the 159 they had originally planned for, Myers told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Air-Land subcommittee.
Those inspections are taking much longer than expected, Myers said.
Initially estimated to take less than six months, the inspections are taking upwards of 11 months. And instead of the anticipated 1,100 man-hours per aircraft, they need closer to 2,400 man-hours for the complete inspection process, Myers said.
That helps explain why the Navy has revised estimates of the “fighter gap,” which refers the Navy’s projected shortfall as the older F/A-18 Hornets wear out faster than new, next-generation F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters will start arriving to replace them in 2015.
The Navy’s estimate last year put the shortfall at about 125 Navy and Marine Corps fighters — or about 10 percent of the fighter fleet — peaking around 2017. Now Navy officials suggest that gap could reach 243 — or more than 20 percent of the fleet – and come several years earlier.
Myers said the gap will materialize sooner — possibly as early as 2013 — because the Hornets will have to spend more time in the depot for the 8,000th flight hour inspection.
The numbers that underpin the fighter gap are hotly contested. A report from the Congressional Research Service said the Navy is currently facing a small shortfall in fighter jets, which will grow to about 50 planes by next year and peak at 243 about 2018.
The Navy received its first F/A-18A model in 1978. The Boeing-made Hornets were initially designed to have a life span of 6,000 flight hours.
Last year’s lower fighter gap estimates assumed that about 95 percent of the Hornets would be able to reach 10,000 flight hours, said Vice Adm. David Architzel, the Navy’s principal military deputy for research development and acquisition, who also testified at the hearing.
The higher estimates assume that none of the Hornets will be able to reach 10,000 flight hours, Myers said.
A new Navy plan aims to extend slightly more than half of the Hornets — or 295 aircraft — out to 10,000 flight hours, Myers said. That will require a rehabilitation program after the planes reach 8,600 flight hours; the Navy has not budgeted for that process, known as a service life extension program.
If the Navy can extend those 295 Hornets to 10,000 flight hours, the fighter gap will be reduced to a manageable size, Myers said
Some lawmakers, including Sen. Clair McCaskill, D-Mo., are pushing the Navy to buy more Boeing-made Super Hornets rather than wait for the F-35, which is made by Lockheed Martin.
“We know we’re going to have a shortfall. We know we’re going to have to fill in. Why not do it in the most cost-effective way?” McCaskill asked. She has urged the Navy to enter into a new multi-year contract with Boeing, which could reduce the cost for each aircraft.
McCaskill pointed out that if Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet production line goes inactive, the United States will have only one domestic fighter jet manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
Myers agreed that having that “hot line” at Boeing “is important to us.”
“We have to do everything we can to mitigate the risk” of the Navy’s transition to the F-35C, Myers told the legislators.
Source
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/06/navy_fighter_gap_061009w/
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