[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-21]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FULL COMMITTEE HEARING
ON
BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 28, 2007
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
38-264 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Tenth Congress
IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina DUNCAN HUNTER, California
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON,
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas California
ADAM SMITH, Washington MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California KEN CALVERT, California
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island JEFF MILLER, Florida
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia TOM COLE, Oklahoma
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam ROB BISHOP, Utah
MARK UDALL, Colorado MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
NANCY BOYDA, Kansas PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
PATRICK MURPHY, Pennsylvania MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire THELMA DRAKE, Virginia
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
KATHY CASTOR, Florida
Erin C. Conaton, Staff Director
John Sullivan, Professional Staff Member
Lynn Williams, Professional Staff Member
Benjamin Kohr, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2007
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, February 28 2007, Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense
Authorization Act--Budget Request from the Department of the
Air Force...................................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, February 28, 2007..................................... 55
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2007
FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Saxton, Hon. Jim, a Representative from New Jersey, Committee on
Armed Services................................................. 2
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Moseley, Gen. T. Michael, USAF, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force... 6
Wynne, Hon. Michael W., Secretary of the Air Force............... 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Wynne, Hon. Michael W., joint with Gen. T. Michael Moseley... 59
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
Mr. Abercrombie.............................................. 131
Ms. Castor................................................... 134
Mr. Everett.................................................. 136
Ms. Giffords................................................. 134
Dr. Gingrey.................................................. 142
Mr. Hayes.................................................... 138
Mr. Kline.................................................... 131
Mr. Marshall................................................. 133
Mr. Meehan................................................... 135
Mr. Miller................................................... 140
Mr. Ortiz.................................................... 131
Mr. Saxton................................................... 131
Dr. Snyder................................................... 131
FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 28, 2007.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. The gavel, now, will officially come down.
Ladies and gentlemen, the committee will come to order.
Today, the full committee continues its review of several
military services for the 2008 budget request. Today, the
United States Air Force is with us. And I am pleased to welcome
back the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, and Chief
of Staff Michael Moseley to testify on their fiscal 2008
request.
We thank you and all the Air Force for the wonderful job
that you do--active duty, Air Guard, Reservists and your
civilian counterparts.
There are more than 690,000 military and civilian
personnel. The Air Force has over 61,000 personnel forward
based in the Pacific and in Europe. An additional 25,000, and
more than 250 aircraft, are forward deployed in the Central
Command area.
In addition to the traditional combat role of providing air
support, 7,700 Air Force personnel have supplemented functions
on the ground with duties usually performed by the Army and by
the Marines. And we thank you for that.
We know the Air Force is very much a service at war and in
combat. It has flown over 430,000 sorties in support of the two
efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. And since 9/11, that number
represents 82 percent of all the operation of Iraq Freedom
sorties and 70 percent of the OEF sorties.
The pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and
elsewhere have stretched the ability of the Air Force to man,
to operate, to maintain and, particularly, to modernize its ten
expeditionary forces. And the Air Force fiscal year 2008 annual
budget request is $110.7 billion, an increase of $6.2 billion
from last year. It is a significant budget, but this is still a
force with challenges and an increased risk.
The budget request for 1.5 million in flying hours is a ten
percent reduction in hours to train our pilots since last year.
Depot-purchased equipment maintenance, which accomplishes
depot-level repairs on aircraft and engines, is funded at only
74 percent of the amount needed.
Recently, the Air Force informed this committee of its
unfunded requirements, which total $16.9 billion, a record
amount.
The committee notes that the Air Force has accepted risk in
readiness to provide for its top modernization priorities,
which include the KC-X tanker, the Combat Search and Rescue
CSAR-X combat search-and-rescue helicopter, the aging HH-60G
fleet and the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
The Next Generation Long Range Strike aircraft, a new
bomber, clearly remains a top priority, and we need to
eventually get there.
On the personnel side, while this budget makes improvements
to compensation with a 3 percent pay raise, it also includes
personnel reductions of 5,600 in the active duty, 7,400 in the
Air Force Reserve and 300 in the Air National Guard.
I am pleased to note that the Air Force's posture statement
includes a short discussion of professional military education,
or, as we call it, PME, for both officers and enlisted
personnel. That is terribly important.
And in some years, professional military education has been
overlooked, when in truth, in fact, it is the best way to
prepare for and to win in combat. And I compliment you on your
comments regarding professional military education.
And let me recognize, finally, September 18, 2007, will
mark the 60th anniversary of the creation of our independent
United States Air Force. Our very own Harry Truman, of course,
was president at that time. And this committee congratulates
the Air Force, its military and civilian members, past and
present, on their achievements and their progress.
I was asked by Mr. Hunter, who had an emergency--does the
gentleman from New Jersey have a comment at this time?
STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to start out by saying thank you to our
witnesses for being here with us today and thank you so much
for your service to the nation. We appreciate it very much and
I know the American people do as well.
Every year, we get together at this time to talk about the
budget requests and each of the service priorities and
constraints. We talk about goals, plans and programs. We talk
about budget shortfalls and acquisition strategies that aren't
working out so well.
Yet, it strikes me that we never seem to really change much
because, as we have heard before, we come here to talk about
more troubled programs, more fiscal challenges and an ever-
increasing need to field equipment to our men and women serving
the country.
These brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines continue
to perform their duties with extraordinary professionalism and
courage, despite all those over-cost acquisition programs, in
addition to budget shortfalls and anticipated mission
requirements. There are the folks that we should never fail to
praise and thank for their unwavering commitment to this
nation.
I would like to read you a piece of former Chairman
Hunter's opening statement from the last Air Force posture
hearing. He said, ``The DOD budget legacy is one of missed
procurement opportunities. This, as you point out in your
statement,'' he said, ``gives us the oldest fleet of aircraft
in the history of the Air Force, with the fleet having been
engaged in or supporting some level of combat for the last 15
years. The aircraft fleet has been operating at utilization
rates far beyond those planned. The consequences of age and
high operational tempo is reflected in reduced readiness rates.
It is to the Air Force's credit that the professional fleet
management has achieved the safety record it has at this
time.''
So, gentlemen, I ask you, as we sit here today, what is
different? What lessons learned have been applied to make this
nation's Air Force better?
I ask this because I look at the budget request and I see
operations and maintenance shortfalls. I see excessive cost
growth in acquisition programs like the C-130 and, especially--
one of my pet peeves--the C-5 modernization program and many of
your space acquisition programs.
Why is it that we cannot identify a requirement, develop a
solution and get it to the war-fighter in a reasonable period
of time? We have all heard the problems, everything from
requirement changes due to operational needs, to the contractor
who failed to perform.
The bottom line, gentlemen, is that we are a nation at war.
Our airmen have been flying combat missions over Iraq airspace
for at least 16 years. The need to recapitalize and modernize
our legacy system is clear. What is not clear, however, is how
we go about doing that successfully and responsibly.
You notified us last year that you were planning on
reducing your end strength by 40,000 in order to self-finance
many of the modernization efforts. Despite these planned
personnel reductions, you also tell us that we have nearly
10,000 airmen deployed to fill shortfalls in the Army and the
Marine Corps.
How do you plan to successfully accomplish your primary
mission, which now includes support for the airlift
requirements of a growing ground component, absorb a personnel
reduction of 40,000 airmen and continue to help the Army and
Marine Corps fill some of the ground-combat-support gaps? That
is quite an order.
While the conflicts of today deserve our utmost attention
and ample resources, we should not lose site of the strategic
challenges of tomorrow. The recent Chinese anti-satellite test
(ASAT) was a clear display of China's capability to hold our
satellites at risk. American military forces and the American
economy are dependent on space in everything from the
battlefield communications to intelligence to automatic teller
machine (ATM) transactions.
I hope that we can take some time today to talk about the
Air Force investments aimed at strengthening the protection,
redundancy and reconstitution of U.S. space assets.
I am glad you are here with us and I look forward to
hearing your thoughts on the state of our Air Force and the
fiscal year 2008 budget request. I also look forward to hearing
your thoughts on the difficulties we are having in developing
and acquiring the new systems Congress has authorized.
On a final note, I wonder if you would be facing a
reduction of 40,000 airmen if you weren't seeing so many
procurement programs over-cost and behind schedule.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to the
gentlemen's testimony.
The Chairman. Thank you so much.
Without objection, my statement and the statement from my
friend from New Jersey, as well as the statements from the
secretary and the general, will be placed in the record in
their entirety.
And we will now recognize Secretary Wynne.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL W. WYNNE, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE
Secretary Wynne. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and members, thank you for having General
Moseley and I here today to testify on behalf of America's Air
Force. We are extraordinarily grateful for your steadfast
support and the support of this committee of our nation's
airmen.
Leading the men and women of our United States Air Force is
a high honor. They are responsive, whether answering the call
for humanitarian relief or providing close air support to
troops in harm's way. They are agile, keeping America's
strategic shield in place. With the air bridge to southwest
Asia now in its 17th year, we are keeping steadfast watch in
space and in the skies and through cyberspace.
Given the age of our air and space equipment, there is no
doubt our freedoms are balanced carefully on the courage,
skills and ingenuity of our total-force airmen. They superbly
perform our assigned ground force missions, although all
realize that the adage, ``Every airmen or rifleman sacrifices
the very leverage the Nation wants from its airmen in strategic
and tactical firepower.''
We look for the ground-force reset to begin to remedy this
tasking. Our battlefield airmen levy global power through
technology like the remotely operated video enhanced receiver
(ROVER), which gives a new level of communication (comm)
activity and situation awareness to ground troops and our
pilots, as well as first responders. And we are the only
service with the dedicated combat search-and-rescue forces for
all services to employ in the deep battle.
It truly is an interdependent fight, and we owe our ground
partners the very best we can muster in leveraging airspace and
cyberspace assets.
Your Air Force is in the fight in the global war on terror
(GWOT) by providing global vigilance through theater-based
aircraft, space systems and unmanned vehicles. Air Force assets
are surveying, tracking and identifying enemy positions, as
well as performing critical counter-Improvised Explosive
Devices (IED) missions.
Our C-130's and C-17s execute precision air drop and cargo
missions, which are saving countless lives by taking dangerous
convoys off the road. I believe 9,000 soldiers did not have to
drive convoys in the previous month.
Our aerial medical evaluation personnel are giving us our
highest survival rate in the history of warfare. We are fully
engaged in meeting our wartime requirements, but wear and tear,
combined with loss of buying power, translates into risk to
future readiness capacity and capability.
Last year, I laid out a very difficult strategy to address
our most pressing need: recapitalizing our aging fleet. The Air
Force is staying inbounds by trying to self-fund to the maximum
extent possible through force-shaping on a mission-first basis,
buying fewer but more capable platforms and implementing new
initiatives to try to become more efficient throughout our Air
Force.
When I was a young officer leaving the Air Force in 1973,
the average age of our equipment, including space assets, was
between eight and nine years old. Our fleet age now is triple
that, averaging 24 to 25 years of age. With this in mind, I
have advised our airmen that it is their duty to ensure that
the airmen of tomorrow are as confident and as capable against
tomorrow's threat as we are today.
We can only ensure this by intensely husbanding every
resource, people, flying hours and expenses and dedicating
freed resources to recapitalization. I ask your continued help
to allow the Air Force to manage our fleet without legislative
restrictions and assist us in this duty to our future.
From a space perspective, we are making the necessary steps
in the fiscal year 2008 budget to ensure uninterrupted,
continuous service in communications, early warning, position,
navigation and timing and environmental-sensing satellites.
We appreciate your support in the development, procurement
and fielding of these critical-space capabilities because our
military and the citizens of our great nation depend upon their
continuous service.
As in other domains, your Air Force is now engaged daily in
cyberspace. We have established within the Air Force a new
cyber-command to address how we can better train and present
our forces to U.S. strategic command, the combatant commanders
and other government agencies to prosecute engagements in this
domain.
These are a few of the daily realities confronting your Air
Force. Now, the strategic concerns us with the proliferation of
advanced technologies such as double-digit surface-to-air
missiles, the nuclear test in North Korea and the recent
Chinese ASAT test, proving that space is not a sanctuary.
We are responding with our prospective fielding of the Next
Generation Long Range Strike Bomber by 2018, as well as the
supporting satellite and tanker infrastructure. To keep our
total force ready, we must care for our airmen and their
families.
In the Air Force, our tenant has long been, ``We recruit
airmen, but we retain families,'' making the quality of life
and the standards we apply to that a key component. We are
providing our airmen access to safe, quality, affordable, well-
maintained housing in a community where they choose to live
through housing privatization. We appreciate your continued
support of this effort.
In summary, your Air Force is in the fight, not just in
Afghanistan and Iraq, but globally. Your airmen are the
nation's strategic edge. They are expeditionary, highly trained
warriors. And with your help, we will provide them with the
necessary training, equipment and quality of life to keep the
nation's asymmetric advantage of global vigilance, global reach
and global power. Recapitalizing our aging equipment
inventories is the absolute key to this.
Finally, I want to salute our airmen. They are amazing,
eager to serve and mindful of their mission all around the
world. I am proud to be their secretary, and look forward to
your questions.
Thank you, sir.
[The joint prepared statement of Secretary Wynne and
General Moseley can be found in the Appendix on page 57.]
Mr. Ortiz. Chief, whenever you are ready, sir.
STATEMENT OF GEN. T. MICHAEL MOSELEY, USAF, CHIEF OF STAFF,
U.S. AIR FORCE
General Moseley. Congressman Ortiz, if you would humor me,
instead of an oral statement, I would like to introduce a set
of great Americans here that I know the committee would like to
know better.
Let me start off by echoing what the secretary said. We are
a nation at war. We are an Air Force at war. And these airmen
are involved in combat operations (ops) on a daily basis,
fighting this long war on terrorism, defending the homeland,
participating in activities that provide strategic deterrence
and dissuasion, participating in activities that provide global
vigilance, reach and power.
These airmen are examples of that. And if you would humor
me, I would like to introduce them to you. As introduce you,
you all please stand up.
First one is Lieutenant Colonel Marty McBride. He is the
commander of the 81st Fighter Squadron at Spangdahlem Air Base,
Germany. It is an A-10 squadron. He has recently returned from
Afghanistan, where he led a total force of active guard and
reserve airmen through continuous, 24-hour-a-day operations
solid from May to September.
His squadron flew 2,000 combat missions, 7,000 combat
hours, delivered 102,000 rounds of 30 millimeter and over 300
bombs in support of special ops and land-component activities
in Afghanistan.
[Applause.]
Next, is Major Toby Duran. He is the chief of tactics at
Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
He has served as a space-weapons officer with the First Marine
Expeditionary Force forward from February to July 2006 in
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). His job was to ensure seamless
integration of Air Force systems, space systems and comm
systems with Marine-ground elements in Iraq's Al Anbar
province.
He, alone, ensured that the Marines had accurate systems
connectivity to provide accurate artillery and rocket fire for
combat operations, as well as providing all of the key
attributes of space to include weather, to include navigation,
to include comm. So this is one of our space experts that most
people don't know what they do because they do this so well
people think it is easy. They do it 24 hours a day, seven days
a week. He is a face on what we provide from space.
Toby, thanks.
[Applause.]
Next is Captain Andie McIlveen. She and I have a
relationship that goes back to when she was in pilot training.
We have known each other for a while. She is a combat pilot
from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. She is also a weapons-
school graduate and a weapons officer and Instructor Pilot
(IP), with 2,000 total flight hours, 360 combat hours and 25
missions. That averages out to 14.5 hours per mission, if you
think about it.
She has deployed to the Arabian Gulf for Operation Southern
Watch, two times for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), two
times to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, as part of U.S. Pacific
Command's continuous bomber presence. She is pretty young to
have done that. The airplane she flies is 45 years old.
So here is a face on our bomber crews and our bomber pilots
that are out there doing this--providing that global power and
that global reach and that deterrence and dissuasion. Andie
does this very, very well.
[Applause.]
Next is Tech Sergeant Ken Marshall. He is a PJ, pararescue
jumper. All of us that wear wings and all of us that fly know
that wherever we go, anywhere on the surface of the earth, if
we have to dismount from an airplane, the PJ will come get us.
And that is what Ken Marshall does.
He was deployed multiple times for a wide range of
contingency and combat ops: Southern Watch, Allied Force, non-
combatant evacuation operations in Liberia, Operation Iraqi
Freedom, major combat ops, and most recently, to Balad Air Base
in Iraq, where he conducted multiple recovery missions in real
combat settings.
Besides these contingency and combat ops, he has twice
provided medical evacuations to support the western White House
in Crawford, Texas and has been the PJ team leader for back-to-
back space-shuttle launches at NASA and at the alternate
landing sites at Zaragoza.
He is the face on our combat search and rescue and he is a
face on the moral and ethical imperative that we have to go
pick people up in this world. Anywhere on the surface of the
earth, under any contingency, the PJ will come get you. And
here is one of those PJs.
[Applause.]
Last is Staff Sergeant Christine Chavez. She is a boomer.
For all of us that wear wings, there is nothing like a tanker
and there is nothing like a boomer. She is an aerial-refueling
instructor boom operator at McConnell in Kansas.
She has numerous deployments also: Operation Southern
Watch, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom,
major combat ops during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She has flown
out of expeditionary bases at Diego Garcia, Shaikh Isa and
Bahrain, at Al Udeid in Qatar, at Al Dhafra in United Arab
Emirates. She has 163 combat missions totaled and over 1,000
combat hours.
She is the face on what provides global reach, global
vigilance and global power for this country. And that is the
tanker and the boomer in the back of that tanker that transfers
that fuel that provides all of this capability. She does this
and makes it look so easy. And the airplane she flies is also
45 years old.
Sergeant Chavez, thanks.
[Applause.]
Congressman Ortiz, thank you for the opportunity to
introduce these great Americans and these great airmen.
Alongside the Secretary, I look forward to your questions and
comments and discussions about this great Air Force and the
future.
Thank you, sir.
[The joint prepared statement of General Moseley and
Secretary Wynne can be found in the Appendix on page 57.]
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you so much. We are so proud of the work
that you all do in keeping America safe and strong and a leader
in this world. So we are very proud of what you do.
I have a question. As I was looking at the testimony, the
fiscal year 2008 budget request shows a 10 percent reduction in
flying hours, which I understand is budget-driven, as opposed
to a decrease in operations requirements. I am told the Air
Force will increase its use of simulators for training and
other efficiencies to reduce the impact of fewer flying hours.
How confident are you that similar training will be enough
to keep pilots proficient? I am not a pilot, so you might be
able to give us some input--how confident you feel that this
will do the job for those that fly.
Secretary Wynne. Let me try to start that, and I will turn
it over to my pilot chief as quickly as I can.
You are correct in assessing that we are searching for
recapitalization resources. You are correct in asserting that
we did not believe that we would be getting top-line increases,
especially as you see ground forces, with their requirements.
Therefore, we took a hard set of decisions.
One of the things we determined is we could find
deficiencies across our Air Force. And we challenged the
flying-hour program, just as you have suspected, to try to find
efficiencies in achieving the same level of quality with less
resources, just like we are doing across our Air Force.
We also determined that we were reducing people. And in the
reduction of people, we should, theoretically, be able to
reduce flying hours to some degree, just in that alone. With
that having been said, the chief has got his finger on the
pulse of the system. And while simulators are an interesting
substitute for some of the flying hours, I don't believe that
they do the complete job.
But now I will ask the chief because he is the pilot
amongst us.
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you, sir.
General Moseley. Congressman Ortiz, we have had to make
some hard decisions on depot maintenance and on flying hours
and the reductions in that to be able to protect the investment
accounts. That is the same thing that the secretary is talking
about, as we force-shape the end-strength to protect the
investment accounts. We have taken a 10 percent reduction in
the flying hours.
And I am at the verge of not being comfortable with this.
And I have asked our folks to look at, is there not some way to
begin to migrate money back, because the simulator business is
interesting. But at the end of the day, it is a simulator. You
have to actually be able to fly the airplane and you actually
have to be able to train the airplane in a combat setting.
We have a variety of simulators, some of them really,
really magnificent and some of them are just procedural
trainers. But the notion that you can substitute simulator time
for actual flying time--in my view, we have reached the limit.
We need to be looking at how to get the investment accounts
so we can get the newer equipment and be able to get into the
flying-hour programs because this Air Force is at war. And we
are having to prepare to go into a variety of different
locations and conduct combat operations that I--my desire is
for everyone that mounts up in an airplane--they have the best
training and they have the best capability possible.
So the 10 percent reduction in the flying-hour program--I
am on the verge of being uncomfortable with that. And we are
looking to get the money back.
Mr. Ortiz. For those of us who are not pilots, now--what is
a 10 percent reduction? What does it mean as far as hours? I
mean, how many hours do they--were training before? And the 10
percent means how many hours of reduction? And what are the
risks, if there is any risk involved when you do that?
General Moseley. Sir, that will take a long answer to a
question. Please let me get the numbers for you for the record.
But let me also say that because and airplanes are so old, we
are having problems generating the sorties and the squadrons,
which we call U-rates or utilization rates.
And so when a squadron ops officer defines how many hours
he or she needs for the squadron to be combat-ready, it is very
difficult now for the maintainers to generate those numbers of
sorties. So we have continued to dumb down the standard until
we have reached a point where we are not producing the sorties,
nor are we producing the total combat preparation that I am
comfortable with.
So the 10 percent is just another additive piece of the
notion of combat readiness in our operations and maintenance
(O&M) accounts.
Secretary Wynne. And so, sir, you have explored a scene
between the chief and I because I think the only answer to this
is to recapitalize and become a modern Air Force. And I agree
totally with him that we are at war and we cannot stop funding
the operations and maintenance.
And so he and I agreed that I would take the challenge and
he would keep his pulse on it. And, as he said, he is becoming
uncomfortable.
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you.
Mr. Saxton?
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And once again, thanks for being with us this morning,
gentlemen. We appreciate it very much.
I have two questions and the first one is actually a two-
part question. It has to do with acquisition programs.
As I look down this list of acquisition programs to replace
the old aircraft that you have both mentioned at least once
already this morning--I look at the issues that Chairman Neil
Abercrombie and his subcommittee are going to have to deal
with, which include F-22 and expenditures for F-35, KC-X, C-17,
Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA), the HH-47 program that made
headlines this week, C-130 modernization program, the C-5
modernization program; and then, in space, Tranformational
Satellite (TSAT), space radar, Global Positioning System (GPS),
Space Based Infrared Satellite System (SIBRS), and the Advanced
Extremely High Frequency Satellite System--that is a tall
order, finding the appropriate amount of funds for all of
those--for all of programs.
And at the same time, as I noted in my opening statement,
in order to self-finance these programs, the Air Force has made
a decision--apparently made a decision--at least, that was it
last year--to reduce the number of Air Force personnel by
40,000.
I guess the first part of my question is how is that
working, and will we be able to, as Chairman Abercrombie and I
begin our deliberations in subcommittee--will it become clear
to us that we are going to have resources to fund these
programs?
And the second part of my question is, sometimes Congress
does things that, I guess to be kind, in retrospect don't seem
to be well thought out. And one of those things is that we have
prohibited the Air Force from retiring old airplanes that can't
be used. I am thinking of, of course, C-5s, C-130's and KC-135s
and, maybe, some others.
Can you tell us, as a second part of this question, what
kind of an expenditure you are having to make on an annual
basis to keep those old airplanes around waiting to go to the
graveyard.
So, Mr. Secretary, that is my first two-part question.
Secretary Wynne. Thank you, sir. And I appreciate the
thrust of it. I know that we have provided you and Congressman
Abercrombie with a very difficult problem in your subcommittee.
I would say it this way: We are to the point where the
question is, ``Do we hold on to our airmen and provide them
with not as capable equipment as they deserve going into combat
or do we, essentially, ask our airmen to take on the duty to be
sure that the next generation is fully capable of fighting the
next-generation threat.
I offer you the following: In Baghdad, when we went to
downtown Baghdad, we only sent in two caliber of airplane--the
B-2 and the F-117. Between 2003 and now, Tehran has bought the
next generation of Russian equipment. Caracas is buying the
kind of equipment that Baghdad had. And I would say to you that
when reason fails, I think you need to rely on your Air Force
and we need to rely on the courage of our airmen and be sure to
give them the most capable equipment to fight that fight.
That having been said, we are taking a very strong back-to-
basics approach. Both in space and in air, we are fighting off
the requirements. It is one of the reasons we declared the F-
22A and we asked our contractors and our program managers to
put iron on the ramp. We want satellites in space and Dr. Sega
is working very hard and diligently to make sure the
requirements for the TSAT, for the AEHF, for the GPS-3 are
baseline and high technical maturity.
We believe through this, we can restrain the growth in our
acquisition programs, properly fund them using the technique we
have described and, perhaps, have a little bit of margin left
to fill in stressed areas such as the flying-hour program when
the day is done.
That having been said, this is a very difficult--and it is
very difficult to explain, by the way, to our airmen in the
field at the same time, who are, right now, as was pointed out,
performing ground-based taskings. And they are seeking a
question of, ``How far can you go?''
I have declared that 40,000 full-time equivalents is as far
as I am willing to go and risk. With the growth in land
components, it concerns me because I know that I have dedicated
airmen that go with every brigade combat team. I know that I
have dedicated airmen that go with every support function. I
know that if you increase the ground forces, you all of a
sudden increase the intra-theater lift, which is already
stressing my C-130Hs. So these things I know.
So what the chief and I have agreed to do is, over the
course of this summer, we will try to discern what exactly is
the ground-force plan, how does it impact our Air Force and
what does that mean? And did the increase in the ground forces
mean we have a relaxation in the ground-force tasking? These
are things that, right now, are a little bit unknown for us.
Chief.
General Moseley. Congressman Saxon, I think it is useful to
talk about the submission of the budget.
The Air Force spent 2.2 million man-hours putting this
program objective memorandum (POM) together to square these
programs, given our physical guidance. And that is to keep the
major programs alive--the C-130J, the Joint Cargo Aircraft and
the F22--but also, the priorities that we have established in
procurement, which is the tanker first, the combat-rescue
helicopter, our space systems, the Joint Strike Fighter and a
new bomber.
All of those are in this budget, and the budget is squared.
After 2.2 million man-hours of working this and submitting that
which became the Air Force piece of the president's budget--
everything that you have described is in that budget and
funded.
Now, is it funded at the economic order, quantities and
delivery rates that makes each of them most efficient and
reduces the cost on each of the items? No, it is not. But to do
the things that you have asked, we spent 2.2 million man-hours
working this to make sure those programs are alive. And again,
that is the tanker, the combat-rescue helicopter, the space
systems, the Joint Strike Fighter and the new bomber.
Mr. Saxton. And the retirement program?
General Moseley. Great question, sir. But before I get to
that, the programs that we are talking about here, as the
secretary said--our stress is or our focus is on building an A
model of those new aircraft so that we don't to spiral the
system in the early phases of it like some of us have done in
the past.
So if we can fill the KC-blank-A model and get it in
production and get it in squadron service, the boomers of the
Air Force will have something younger than 45 years that they
go to combat in--same with the F-22A, same with the F-35A, same
with the combat rescue helicopter, et cetera. So our focus is
building the A-model first and then, when it is time for a B-
model or a C-model, we will work that.
And sir, the restrictions on being able to manage our
inventory keeps us in the business of keeping the C-130E
around, the KC-135E around, versions of the C-5, the B-52, the
F-117 and the U-2. It is about 15 percent of our inventory, as
the secretary said.
Our desire would be to be able to manage our inventory and
be able to flow the new systems in relative to the divestiture
of the old systems; the congressional restrictions, our staff
tells us, that is costing us--beginning in 2008, that
restrictive language will cost us a little over $1.7 billion a
year to maintain those old airplanes. If you do that math, that
is about $4.5 million a day to maintain those old airplanes.
So our desire is to be able to work our way through
divestiture of the old iron, bring the new systems on board,
roll that money into acquisition and procurement to ensure that
the 21st century Air Force is what you want it to be.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to pass on
my second question. But I just want to emphasize this point--
that we, because of restrictive language in last year's
authorization bill and years before that--on retiring old
airplanes, airplanes that have to be maintained to a certain
state, have to be manned to a certain state, sitting on the
ground, unable to be used for their old mission because the
airplanes are worn-out, unsafe and too expensive to maintain in
flying condition--we are spending $1.7 billion a year to keep
them sitting on the ground for no reason.
We passed a bill out of this committee last year with
language lifting that restrictive language and our bill
language fell out in conference. And I hope that we can push
that issue this year because we are wasting $1.7 billion of
taxpayers' money, monies that could be used for these
modernization programs. This is a big deal.
Thank you.
Mr. Ortiz. I think the gentleman brings up a very, very
good point.
Now, I yield to my good friend from Hawaii, Mr.
Abercrombie.
Mr. Abercrombie. Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, aloha to you.
General, aloha.
Following up on the line of questioning so far--Mr.
Secretary, you and I have had an opportunity to discuss
questions concerning recapitalization in the context of capital
budgeting. And other members of the Air Force hierarchy both in
uniform and civilian--we have had these discussions as well.
If you will look back on page 41 of your testimony, under
``Recapitalization and Modernizing the Air Force''--4.0 is the
reference point--before the ``Comprehensive Plan.'' Really, the
``Recapitalizing and Modernizing the Air Force,'' the whole
paragraph there is a masterpiece of what my old journalism
professor would call glittering generalities.
I can't figure out what recapitalization means from what
you say: ``Aggressively recapitalizing and modernizing our
inventories of aircraft, space systems, equipment, operational
infrastructure.'' So I read with great interest through the
rest of it to try and figure out how we were going to do that.
And I can't figure it out.
As far as I can tell, ``reinvesting'' means, simply,
buying. When the word ``reinvest'' is used in here, it just
means purchase. With reference to what Mr. Saxton said about
the aging infrastructure, the aging inventory and legislative
restrictions, that is all outlined very clearly here. The $1.74
billion figure is on page 43 of the testimony.
And you cite as reasons for the difficulty--when I say
``you,'' I mean both of you, because your testimony is joint--
``the detrimental effects of high-tempo operations and age''--
again, very clearly enunciated in here. And then you go to your
top acquisition priorities, General, and you mention what they
were.
Now, if I understood you correctly--I made note quickly--
you make clear what your top priorities are. But then, in
answer to Mr. Saxton's question, did I hear you correctly that,
with regard to funding and expected delivery rates, the budget
is not adequate?
I believe you made the statement in the form of a question
and then you answered your own question with, ``No, it is
not,'' in other words, ``No, it is not funded in terms of
expected delivery rates.'' Did I understand you correctly?
General Moseley. Correct, sir. As we submitted our budget
and we squared our budget and we signed up to this--for
instance, in the case of the tanker, instead of taking the
deliveries of the new tanker like the Air Force did when the
jet tanker was new, when you bought 100 of them a year, we are
not going to be able to buy 100 of those new airplanes a year.
We are going to be down in the notion of 12 or 13 or 14 a year.
That is going to take 35 to 40 years to buy that program out.
Mr. Abercrombie. Right.
Now, you were very kind, Mr. Secretary, to mention the
privatization of housing. And that is probably incorrect--to
have a partnership between the services and the private sector
in building housing, taking it out of the MILCON project kind
of thing--in other words, cash financing of housing--and we
have moved to actually bringing in private capital to help
build, maintain and sustain and manage the housing, right? And
that has worked very well.
Is it correct--I am just drawing a parallel, not an
analogy, General--is it correct, then, to say that if we had
gone through cash financing of housing, it would have been a
similar kind of thing? We never would have had housing for the
Air Force sufficient. It would have taken us 10, 20, 30, 40
years to keep up. But we just did it project by project, right?
Secretary Wynne. That is, in a sense, what we believe. Yes,
sir.
Mr. Abercrombie. Yes.
Okay. Now, are you facing the same kind of problem now? If
you say 13 a year, is that because that is the only
manufacturing capability, 13 a year, or is it the financing
part of it or both?
General Moseley. Sir, I think it is part of both----
Mr. Abercrombie. Okay.
General Moseley [continuing]. Because we have not been able
to incentivize industries to be able to get those production
levels.
Mr. Abercrombie. The reason you can't incentivize industry
to do it is they are not sure that they are going to have the
money the next year or the year after to be able to do the
building, right? It is difficult for a corporation to make a--
you know, and I am not going to cry tears now for these defense
corporations that are out there, but their sheer size also
carries specific difficulties that they have in terms of their
capitalization, right, what they commit themselves to in terms
of production lines.
They need certainty. They need certainty over a period of
time. And wouldn't delivery rates--if a corporation knew that
it was going to build the tankers--oh, just give me two seconds
here because I have got to get through this to get it done
right.
You have got to get financing. You have got to have a
financing system that meets this recapitalization structure.
And this testimony doesn't get to it, Mr. Secretary. That is my
point.
I will have to yield now, but you see where I am going on
this? We have to find a way to get beyond cash financing the
defense in the United States. And I tell you right now, the Air
Force will not be able to do what you say you want it to do in
2008 if we continue to cash-finance defense.
Secretary Wynne. I could say one thing, sir.
And, Congressman Ortiz, I will be brief.
It is a partnership between the requirements people, i.e.,
the buyers, the industry and the financial. If we were to go to
an aspect of capital budgeting like you are thinking about--and
I think it would be marvelous--that partnership would have to
hold together.
You witnessed last year, in the F-22--with the sudden rush
to a multi-year--that we were actually doing the multi-year to
save a rate reduction from 28 airplanes a year to 20 airplanes
a year, and trying very hard to make that all square. We did
not save ``any money,'' because we spent the money reducing the
rate of production. And, in fact, I think at the end of the
time, we probably cost ourselves some money, as we always do
when we stretch a program out.
Mr. Abercrombie. Bottom line of the point is, Mr.
Secretary, we have got to start getting creative about
financing.
Secretary Wynne. Right. Capital budgeting might have helped
that.
Mr. Ortiz. We want to be sure--we have a lot of members
here--to give them a chance to ask a question. And then, if
necessary, we can have a second round.
Mr. Jeff Miller, from Florida.
Mr. Miller of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary and General Moseley, for both
coming.
General, thank you for bringing those outstanding
individuals with you. I am still in awe of the information that
you provided.
A couple of things--and I will submit the bulk of my
questions for the record. But you know I have a continued
interest at Eglin in regards to the RAND study that is supposed
to be coming out the end of March. And I still have a concern
that it is not going to address the 2005 Base Realignment and
Closure (BRAC) findings whereby Eglin is identified as a
research, development, test, evaluation center of excellence.
So, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like to
submit the DOD and BRAC commission comments on Eglin Air Force
Base's military value into the record. I will not read it, but
I will enter----
Mr. Ortiz. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Miller of Florida. The other thing is I would just like
you to touch on, if you would, the center wing-box issue on the
C-130's and find out if you think that the budget request this
year was enough to handle the current situation, because every
one of us that goes and visits anywhere that there is a C-130
continues to hear about that issue.
Could you answer that question, sir?
Secretary Wynne. Yes, sir. I believe we have done a kind of
a risk-based funding there because there are some C-130Es that
we feel like, if it has cracked in such a significant place, if
you fix that place, it is very likely to crack somewhere else
that you haven't figured out. I mean, this is really geriatric
airplane management.
And to some extent--I mean, at some point in time, you
actually have to replace the aircraft and not just continue to
patch it. So what we have done is tried to take the most likely
that will have a service-life extension, and that is what we
have funded here. And I think it is reasonably prudent.
Chief?
General Moseley. Congressman, the other side of that is the
H-models, which are newer. We are now burning them up at a
higher rate because we are lifting so much work off of the
roads the avoid the IEDs. This is the right way to do business
and use intra-theater lifts.
The secretary mentioned that we take at least 8,500 to
9,000 people off the roads every month. So that is 8,000 or
9,000 less people to be impacted by an IED attack. We also,
since September, every month--September, October, November,
December, January and now, up to February--we have moved 100
percent of the Marine Corps' road convoy items by air. So this
comes down on the C-130 fleet.
The E-models, we try not to deploy into combat because the
center wing boxes are cracked, the wings are cracked and you
can't lift the weight nor put the fuel on the airplane. So that
takes you to the H-models. And we are burning the H-models up
now at the rate that we did the E-models. So the center wing-
box issue that you are talking about is not just about E-
models. It is an emerging issue with the Hs.
And sir, that takes us to the procurement of the C-130J and
it takes us to be able to retire the C-130Es, which were
prohibited by language and be able to get on with the new
intra-theater lift fleet that is much more reliable.
Sir, I was out at Ramstein about a week or so ago, talking
to the wing commander. He has five airplanes there, five C-
130's. One of them is so hard broke that he can't do anything
with it. Four others are so restricted because of the center
wing-box cracks in the wings that he can only lift the crew. So
it kind of violates the notion of having a cargo-carrying
airplane if you can only lift the crew.
So sir, we are seeing this the same way and we are working
this very hard to be able to divest ourselves of the old
aircraft, fix the ones that we can keep and get on with the C-
130J.
Mr. Miller of Florida. And the budget constraints--now, do
you think we have the dollars necessary to fix those that we
can?
General Moseley. Sir, I think it is a start.
We are having to make tough decisions and balance this
budget. Like I said, we spent over $2 million man-hours trying
to balance this budget and get at all of the things that matter
to us as a global Air Force. And so there have had to be
compromises made, but it is a start. And if we can retire the
E-models, that will accelerate us into being able to spend that
money on those H-models and make sure those are okay.
Mr. Miller of Florida. Thank you, General. I will submit
the rest of my questions for the record.
But I do want to also add, I get to do something exciting
this weekend--we all do. On Saturday, I will be attending a
ceremony at Duke Field--speaking of lifting with C-130's--the
919th Operations group, a Reserve unit, will receive the
Gallant Unit Citation--the first reserve unit ever to receive
that. And I know that both the Secretary and the Chief send
their regards, and this committee will as well, to these
outstanding airmen and women.
Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Mr. Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
General Moseley, I want to continue this C-130 discussion.
When that very dramatic and tragic footage of the service plane
from several years ago, where the wings came off--it was an A-
model, I believe--was that a wing-box problem?
General Moseley. Sir, I am not sure. I think it was an A-
model, and I don't know if it was a center wing-box problem or
just metal fatigue that the owners of it hadn't been watching.
Dr. Snyder. That is the kind of thing that you--the most
apprehensive about when you are dealing with old metal fatigue?
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Dr. Snyder. Recently, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)
suggested the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which we all believe in--
thought that it ought to be changed or reformed to put the
service chiefs--you, General Moseley--more directly into the
acquisition process so that there would be more direct
responsibility that you all would have. What do you think of
that?
General Moseley. Sir, I agree with that.
I think Goldwater-Nichols has done some great things. I
think there is some opportunity to have a Goldwater-Nichols for
the inter-agency that does the same thing for the inter-agency
that is done for the Department of Defense and the services.
But I also think it might be time to ask that question about,
``Where do the uninformed leadership live inside the
acquisition system?''
Dr. Snyder. I don't think there is anyone in the military,
out of the military or in the Congress or out of Congress that
is satisfied with the acquisition process. And Goldwater-
Nichols took years to come about. And I am not sure we are
going to take the years to make those kinds of changes. So we
may need to pick at some of those things. And that may be one
we can look at.
I guess about four weeks ago, you all did the formal
notification that the C-130 avionics modernization program
(AMP) had run into some cost problems--a cost breach. General
Moseley, would you describe that for us and where that is going
to lead us and how that is going to get us to where we need to
go in terms of the amount of lift capacity you need for intra-
theater lift.
General Moseley. Sir, we did have some challenges with that
program. And remember, the original program was for an avionics
modernization program for every single C-130, and we have close
to 600 of them. As we have looked at this over time, we believe
it is probably better to do the H-models and then configure the
airplanes so that they are compatible with the J and, perhaps,
not spend that money on the C-130E because those are the ones
the congressman referenced that have the center wing-box
cracks, the wing cracks, et cetera.
So we are in a little bit of flux over that AMP program
right now, looking at the best way to proceed. But I think you
would be----
Dr. Snyder. What was the specific cost-breach notification
that you gave us? That was not just a reevaluation of the
program, there was problems----
General Moseley. No, sir, there were--that is right, sir.
If you will allow me to take that for the record, I will get
the exact details for you.
Dr. Snyder. Okay.
You and Mr. Saxton, with his good discussion that you all
had about the legislative restrictive language that we had
tried to remove in the House bill--as I looked over you all's
formal presentation to us, I didn't see a whole lot in there of
specific legislative suggestions that you are making to us
beyond--you know, we have had that that we will pursue in terms
of removing that restrictive language.
But for both of you, what other legislative, specific
things do we need to look at in this year's defense bill?
Secretary Wynne. I think, sir, we have asked for a little
bit of relief on the use of the National Guard and the chain of
command, because one of the things the Air Force is doing with
its total force--and I am very proud of those folks in
Florida--but we are actually now moving our National Guard to
where they are training our people. And they train our people,
if you will, because they are more mature, they have more time
on that device and we don't have that many of some things.
Dr. Snyder. We have that same going on at the Little Rock
Air Force Base.
Secretary Wynne. Yes, sir. And we are right now working our
way through this in as best a way we can, trying to comply with
the law. But it would be much easier for us if there was some
legislation in that area.
Dr. Snyder. Have you all provided us with some----
Secretary Wynne. I believe we have provided some thoughts
on that to you.
By the way, we are on our own here. I think the DOD is not
quite aligned in this regard. They do not reach back as much as
we do and they are not as reliant, if you will, on the National
Guard, as we find ourselves reliant. So we are, in fact,
working our way through as best we can on a one-off basis.
We also are talking to you about some energy concerns that
we have, trying to figure out a way to spark America in their
energy programs in a different way to allow us to, essentially,
be a long-term buyer of alternative fuels. So those are two
things we are working on.
Dr. Snyder. General Moseley?
General Moseley. Congressman, there is another piece of
this that we have got some proposed language for you all to
consider on our Air University and our ability to continue the
accreditation there so we can help our enlisted folks get
bachelor's degrees quicker. We can do distributed learning
quicker. I mean, there are some wonderful opportunities here in
this deployed Air Force that we can do much better at Air
University.
Sir, back to the Guard and Reserve--we are a big believer
in total force. You have known us all very well, and when you
walk around Little Rock, you can't tell the difference between
a guardsman, a reservist or an active-duty airman. Right now,
commanding the unit up at Kirkuk in northern Iraq is a
Guardsmen and his senior enlisted command chief is also a
guardsman. And they are from St. Louis. He is the wing
commander of the Guard unit at St. Louis.
We have no issues, and encourage the ability to have a
guardsman or reservist out commanding those units. And so this
total force, this seamless approach for us is a big deal. And
the ability for us to operate seamlessly in the future for
homeland security, homeland defense or outside the United
States, that is a big deal for us.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Kline.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here and for everything
that you do. Those terrific airmen behind you, officer and
enlisted, make us proud every day. So thanks for your
leadership and your presence.
A couple of comments--I am very, very concerned, and I have
expressed these concerns with the other service chiefs and
secretaries, that we are trying to modernize a force and reset
it or reconstitute it and fight it all at the same time. And on
the one hand, we are doing a fabulous job at that. On the
other, I am worried that we are getting increasingly behind.
General, I am looking at you because you talked about the
C-130H. You have got Es that have cracked boxes, so you can't
fly anything but the crew or you can't fly them at all, you are
putting more and more work on the 130Hs. You are now flying
them. I would like to have the answer for the record, what
percent of utilization you are flying those 130Hs at.
But the point is you are flying, I hope no literally, the
wings off of them. And we see the same thing in the Navy; for
example, the P-3s. Those P-3s, they are getting tremendous use
and they are really pouring utilization on them.
So I am very concerned that we are not keeping track with
that. And the budget is not accounting for that extraordinary
overuse, if you will, of the assets. And I am using the C-130
because we have already talked about it. But across the board,
this is just more a plea to you to please make sure that we are
looking at this equipment and we are not slipping further and
further behind in resetting that force.
And I don't know what I can say, but, please--we can't
always see that. We need you to tell us what you really, really
need to make sure that we are resetting the force properly
because of this extraordinary and unprogrammed for utilization
of our assets.
And then, I was surprised and shouldn't have been when you
said 2.2 million man-hours in POM-slant-budget preparation. I
know it takes an enormous amount of work. And yet, at the end
of that, in your testimony and in responses to Mr. Abercrombie,
there are some shortfalls. You squared the budget, but at some
considerable cost.
The 10 percent reduction in flight hours, I find that
frightening because, to me, it is a harbinger of things to
come. And I can flash back--sort of a nauseating look back--to
the past in the bad, old 1970's, when we were all out of
flight-hour program in all of the services and we were parking
aircraft and waiting until the end of the fiscal year before we
could fly again simply because we couldn't do it.
So please look at that 10 percent reduction. Don't let it
be the start of a 15 percent reduction, of a getting to the
second of September and have to park them and not fly them.
And then just finally, I am very concerned that the budget,
frankly, doesn't tell us everything that you need. I know you
are fiscally constrained. ``You have a top line,'' DOD is
telling you. But clearly, if you are looking at things like a
10 percent reduction, if you are flying the wings off the 130-
Hs and we are not replacing them fast enough, the budget ought
to have a--there ought to be--their unfunded-requirements list
ought to be pretty big. And I haven't seen that.
And I would like to see the unfunded-requirements list,
Secretary.
Secretary Wynne. Mr. Kline, interestingly enough, I heard a
stat this morning that sort of stood me up. And it was that the
United States Air Force is buying fewer airplanes than any
other service--and we are the United States Air Force--and most
of those are unmanned predators.
Mr. Kline. Well, we have a pretty--I am very proud of the
Air Guard in the Minnesota, where we have got F-16s we are
operating, C-130's. And I look at those C-130's--Air Reserve as
well--C-130's. And I am just very, very concerned. I know this
sort of repeats itself as we come through budget cycles. What
are we doing with these 130's?
Well, we know what we are doing with them. We are flying
them. Your terrific men and women are flying those 130's and
they are flying them an awful lot. And I am just not real
comfortable that we have accounted for this domino effect with
the 130Es. We can't fly them because of problems, so we are
overflying the 130Hs. I am not sure we have got the Js coming
in.
I guess I don't have a question here except whatever I
spoke for the record.
But thanks for the great work that you are doing and be as
forthcoming as you can with what you really need.
General Moseley. Congressman, the other challenge, which I
know you will appreciate, is while we are an Air Force at war
and we are a nation at war, we are flying those 130's to take
people off the road so we don't have to deal with IED attacks.
So if we can take 8,500 or 9,000 Americans off the road--or
coalition people off the road----
Mr. Kline. Right.
General Moseley [continuing]. That you don't have to face a
loss of limb in blast and frag and burns, that is a good thing.
Mr. Kline. Yes, it is.
General Moseley. The challenge that we have got is while we
are fighting this global war on terrorism, we are at the bottom
of a procurement holiday that has lasted decades. And so the
Air Force's mission is a global mission. We live in the world
of strategic deterrents and dissuasion. We live in the world of
space. We live in the world, now, of cyberspace. We live in the
world of having to have a jet tanker to be able to enable
everything that we do in this country.
So while we are fighting in Al Anbar province, we are also
dealing in a very uncertain world with a very uncertain
strategic setting. So the 2.2 million man-hours is an attempt
to square every single program that we have got to keep the
major programs alive, live within the physical guidance, live
within the law that Congressman Abercrombie is talking about,
and still progress on those procurement programs to be able to
field these new systems----
Mr. Kline. No, I understand that. And, clearly, there is
not enough money in this budget to do what the Air Force needs
to do.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
General Moseley. And, Congressman, no one has come to
either one of us lately and said, ``You can stop doing
something'': ``You can stop doing something on a global scale.
You can stop doing something in space. You can stop doing
something with bombers or tankers. You can stop doing something
with C-17s or C-130's.'' I haven't seen it.
Mr. Kline. And not likely to today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary and General Moseley, thank you both for being
here. I am very proud to meet the airmen behind you.
I am also proud that at Travis Air Force Base in my
district, Senior Airman Eric Pena was selected to be one of the
12 outstanding airmen of 2006. Not surprising--I think they are
all outstanding.
I am trying to get to the bottom--and you and I, both of
us, had a conversation in the anteroom a few minutes ago before
the hearing started. I take some responsibility for advocating
for more C-17s in the last cycle. I am proud to say that I am
very interested in keeping that production line warm or, at
least, if not hot, warm.
My problem is that I don't understand why we are trying to
make the C-17 and the C-5 fungible. They are not the same
aircraft. They are not the same airframe. They don't have the
same mission and they don't have the same capabilities. And I
find myself frustrated. I think a lot of members find
themselves frustrated in that, apparently, we have got to pick
one. And I feel a little like ``Sophie's Choice.'' I don't want
to have to pick one.
And I think that what is confusing to me, General Moseley,
is in your testimony on page 57, you basically go on to talk
about how the AMP program and that--and for the C-5. You know,
we are going to keep doing that. But I know that you are
basically telling everybody you want to ditch the C-5As.
Now, the C-5A, as far as I understand, has a lower rating
when it comes to its operational capabilities and its
readiness. But it is really the guard and reserve plane and I
am not sure that it gets online as quickly as others to get the
best equipment, the best O&M and all the other things.
So help me deal with the fact that they are not fungible
planes, they don't have the same airframe, they don't have the
same mission, they don't have the same capabilities. We still
need C-5s because we are leasing Russian planes because we
don't have enough C-5s.
So I don't know why I should have to be Meryl Streep in the
movie, where I have to pick one kid or the other. I know we
need both. I think you know we need both. I know that we have
budget constraints that are forcing us to pick one or the
other. That is not good policy for the American people. It is
not good for our Air Force.
Help me understand why we cannot have a blended portfolio
that includes C-5s that are being retrofitted and maintained
properly and are extending their life and still have new C-17s.
General Moseley. Ma'am, they do have the same mission. They
are strat airlifters. They have different cube sizes. You can
get different things inside each of them. But they do have the
same mission, and that is to be able to move strategic
materials anywhere on the surface of the earth.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, they may have the same mission, but
they don't have the same capabilities.
General Moseley. The C-5 is a little bit bigger. There are
things that will fit in a C-5 currently that won't fit in the
C-17. But again, the C-17, you can land it on a riverbed. You
cannot land the C-5 on dirt. So the balance of these two
airplanes is the critical piece. You are asking the right
question.
In a perfect world, we would like to be able to manage that
inventory and divest ourselves of the bad-acting tail numbers,
and some of them are bad actors. They are broke. A lot of the
C-5As have low flight hours on them because they are broke and
you can't fly them.
Ms. Tauscher. With all due respect, are they broke because
they haven't been maintained because they were, basically,
detailed to the guard and reserve and didn't have the right
maintenance?
General Moseley. Well, ma'am, remember, the guard and
reserve has probably the best maintenance in the world, but
they work one shift. And so the ability to keep the airplanes
flying--an F-16 or a reliable C-5 or the C-17s at Jackson or
the C-130's that are in the Guard or the Reserve are the best-
maintained airplanes in the world, even with one shift.
But the C-5 is a complicated airplane to operate. So in the
perfect world, I would like to have the authority to be able to
retire the ones out that we want to retire. That is not all of
them. If you lined up the 59 A-models, the two C-models and the
49 B-models--if you lined them up from best airplane to worst
and began to work your way from the worst airplanes forward,
retire those old airplanes out and back-fill that with
something else, I would be happy.
And I would still like to progress with the AMP program on
them and I would like to progress beyond the work program to
see where we really go with this. And that is where we are
right now.
But right now, we are restricted from any divestiture of
those airplanes. And so, when you conduct any study at any
strategic level, and when one of your premises is that you
don't impact the CRAF, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, then there
is a number of strat airlifters that is a sweet spot. And we
are about there with 300 or so.
So if you can get rid of the oldest, worst actors, and
replace those with something newer and still maintain about 300
airplanes and hold on to whatever A-models that are good, I
think that is the perfect world, regardless of whether it is
Guard, Reserve or active. But right now, we can't do that.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, General, I am more persuaded than I
have been and I am willing to talk to you some more about this.
But I just worry that some of these decisions that we are
making are purely financial decisions and that the strategic
decisions that we need to be making are--I believe you are
advocating them, but I think that we are being forced, because
we have the war in Iraq sucking all the money away--that we are
making decisions that, perhaps, are not going to be in our
long-term strategic interest.
General Moseley. Well, ma'am, you know your Air Force works
every day to try to maintain that strategic setting and to not
make decisions in a preemptive measure that then closes doors.
For instance, the Fleet Viability Board Study on the C-5
says even after you AMP and rep the A-model, you have only got
a 25-year airplane left. We are lead time away from what
happens to those squadrons and those units when that airplane
goes away.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, General Moseley.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Our good friend from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey, is
next.
Dr. Gingrey. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you. I wasn't quite
ready, but I guess it is time. And I will proceed. I missed----
The Chairman. I will bring that clock back 10 seconds,
then.
Dr. Gingrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This issue about the C-5 and what we do with it--I think,
General Moseley, I wanted to address that. And it is probably--
maybe to what Ms. Tauscher was--her line of questioning. I wish
my good friend--and, maybe, Representative Marshall will be
here before the hearing--my colleague from Georgia. I know he
is very, very knowledgeable about this subject. He has looked
in it very closely with the work that is being done with the C-
5 modernization program, both at Warner Robins in Macon,
Georgia, just below Macon, and also in my district in Marietta.
So, you know, the test results have been gathered and
assessed. Can I assume, then, that you support that requirement
to test and assess before making any decisions to retire any
aircraft?
You know, I guess it all gets down to the question of
lifespan. I mean, if you increase it 25 years, it seems to me
25 years is, you know, a pretty good amount of life that you
would not want to just turn to the scrapyard. So, I mean, I
have some concerns about this. And I realize that there are
some competing resources and opinions in regard to airlift and
what the balance needs to be.
But I wouldn't be too quick to get rid of A, B, C-models. I
mean, you know, depending on what the life expectancy is, what
we can do with the modernization of the avionics program and
the engine itself. So, you know, maybe there is a little
parochialism here in regard to my concern, but please take this
discussion a little bit further for my benefit. I appreciate
it.
Secretary Wynne. Well, sir, we intend to comply with the
law. And the law currently is that we conduct that test and
that we do not retire any airplanes until we have that done.
And the law further goes that we cannot retire any airplanes no
matter what the outcome of the test is. We intend to comply
with the law.
That having been said, the cost of compliance is rising
rapidly. And it is basically eating our ability to recapitalize
other air fleets. And right now, we are, in fact, evaluating a
Nunn-McCurdy breach on the C-130--on the C-5A re-engining
program--because we just can't get the engines anymore. I mean,
some of our suppliers are not available. The airplane is
getting to that point where we actually have obsolescence costs
that are fairly high.
So one of the things that you are asking us to do--and I
think, fairly so--is try to figure out--and we will do this
over the course of the summer--what is the right thing to do
here. And we will be back to you. And right now--just an
assessment--it looks to us like doing the B-models and the C-
models is the right thing to do. In fact, keeping some of the
A-models appears to be the right thing to do.
I think Congressman Tauscher hit it about right. There are
some that are really bad actors. And I think if you gave us the
right to manage the fleet, you would find that we would manage
it in a way that would actually retain the best mission
profiles across the thing. I think having these restrictions
and causing it was an outcropping, frankly, of a BRAC process
that is behind us.
Dr. Gingrey. Right. Mr. Secretary, thank you. And I think
exactly what you said is what we want to do. I mean, that is
our goal in regard to this particular platform.
General Moseley.
General Moseley. Sir, just like I told Congresswoman
Tauscher, if I could line up the best B-model or the best A-
model at the head of the line of 59, two and 49, and go to the
back end of the line and begin to kill off the bad actors and
replace them with something new, I would be very happy. That
doesn't mean all of them. It doesn't mean that we class or
block, retire airplanes. It just means, ``Let us get at the
tail numbers that are bad actors. Let us go through the AMP
program and the rep program because we will comply with the
law.''
But sir, I will tell you, the A-model is 35 years old--35
years old. And we buy 25 more years on it, we are lead-time
away from what comes after that. Hanging on to old airplanes
for 35 or 40 or 45 or 50 years gets to be problematic. In
January 1937, the Army Air Force took the delivery of the first
B-17. That was 70 years ago. We will fly the KC-135 probably
that long. I don't know what I would do in combat with a B-17
right now.
Dr. Gingrey. Thank you, Chief Moseley----
General Moseley. Sure.
Dr. Gingrey [continuing]. And Mr. Secretary.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Doctor.
Next would be Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Mr. Secretary, Chief, thanks for being here.
I have three broad issues. I am not looking for an answer
on that, but I do want to--or, actually, four--and I just want
to quickly highlight them for you so you know they are not
being ignored, basically.
One is on the China ASAT test. I have already submitted
questions for the record when the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF)
and Chairman Pace were here. I assume those questions will get
to your folks working in the Air Force, along with some other
folks, to get answers back.
I just do want to emphasize that I would ask for answers to
those before we move to markup. So there is some time, but I do
want to emphasize that we do want to get some answers because
it may have some impacts on where we move in the future.
Second issue is satellites. I am meeting with Dr. Sega this
afternoon, so I won't ask any questions about satellites, but I
do imagine that I will be discussing past challenges and
changes to meet those challenges to some of the satellite
programs. I am absolutely sure Dr. Sega anticipates those
comments from you as well. But we have a good working
relationship with him, and so--just to headline that.
The third issue is, in your testimony, the energy-
conservation--some of the efforts the Air Force is doing in
that. Again, I just want to underline that for you. So, just to
kind of highlight that, that is a good thing to keep in mind,
keep moving towards. In case you don't hear from anyone else, I
think it is good that you highlighted it in your testimony and
I think you will find support from the committee to move
forward on it.
Fourth--of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention
the word tanker. But by the same token, I am glad to see you
are moving forward on that. We will see how the process works
out over the next several months about the choice the Air Force
makes.
But then, the fifth thing--and this is more directly for
Chief Moseley--the Washington State Delegation did send a
letter to you--this is with regards to the Fairchild Air Force
Base KC-135 tanker contingent, 141st, sent a letter February
16, 2007, to you regarding the movement of the 148 of the 135s
assigned to 141st to another Air Force base, and then,
proposing a solution to that as well, to get eight back to
Fairchild.
And first question I just want to ask is--I am sure you
have seen the letter because you get so many important letters.
And this one is the most important, I am sure, on top of your
list. And second, do you have any comments? You have had it for
12 days, presumably. Have you taken a look at it yet? When do
you plan to take a look at this letter and, perhaps, move
forward on it?
My understanding is that it is tied to what some governors
are doing with litigation. So I want to appreciate that caveat.
General Moseley. Sir, we have seen it and there is an
answer headed back to you. The challenge we have got still
revolves around the divestiture of the KC-135Es.
Mr. Larsen. Okay.
General Moseley. We would like to be able to retire the KC-
135Es and be able to move the crews into the KC-135Rs so we can
generate more sorties with the R, which is a much more reliable
airplane. The base at Fairchild, the base at Grand Forks, the
base at McConnell, the base at MacDill and a variety of guard
and reserve Bases have those Rs.
So our challenge is to be able to get the R-model into the
sortie-generation place that we need to protect the airspace
over the country, as well as our air bridge that is 24 hours a
day, seven days a week across the Pacific and the Atlantic and
our combat operations that our boomer has been involved in all
so often in deployed locations.
So sir, we have got the answer headed back to you.
Mr. Larsen. Do you have a timeline on that?
General Moseley. Sir, I will ask the guys here. I mean, I
don't know that. Yes, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Okay, all right. Well, I would appreciate that
if you could get back to my office on this timeline.
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Larsen. I appreciate that.
Thank you. And that is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Next, our good friend from Arizona, Mr. Franks, will be
heard.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, General Moseley. Thank you, Secretary
Wynne--all of the people with you. We are always grateful for
your courage and for your commitment to what you do and how you
help all of us.
General Moseley, if it is all right, I would like to start
with you. I am sure you are familiar with Luke Air Force Base,
where the largest fighter wing in the world, about 185 F-16
aircraft--trains more F-16 fighters than anyone else in the
world and has a special relationship with the Goldwater Range,
which is one of the premier ranges of the world.
With that said, I just have to suggest to you that this
just happens to be in my district. But I wondered if--related
to the JSF--the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter--if you have been
able to compose any criteria or timelines related to what
facility might be the best training and operational base for
that aircraft, and if Luke has a possibility of fitting into
that scenario.
General Moseley. Sir, Luke is critical for us on so many
levels. That is why you see us get fairly agitated about issues
of encroachment around Luke, because the Goldwater Range is a
national treasure like the Nevada Test and Training Range and
the Utah Test and Training Range. Anything that limits our
access to those ranges then begins to limit the effectiveness
of the base.
So that is why we wave our arms and get fairly agitated if
we think we are being encroached. Sir, Luke is important, as is
Tucson International for F-16 training on the international
side, as well as on the domestic side. We will have F-16s for a
long time, so the ability for training command to operate at
Luke is critical for us.
For the F-35, the first training base will be at Eglin.
After that, we have released some environmental-assessment
notifications on follow-on bases, and we are just working our
way through that. We will need to get the coalition partners
and the international partners, as well as the department of
the Navy with the Marines and the Navy on board with us at
Eglin and get that started up. Out of that, then, we will begin
to go into unique Air Force Bases. But you know we will have to
have a base close to a range.
Mr. Franks. So, there is a possibility, General, that Luke
might be a candidate for sort of a post-graduate follow-on for
some of these pilots from Eglin at some point?
General Moseley. Well, sir, I think, perhaps, a different
way to say that--well, the F-16s will eventually go away. And
the ability to be able to continue to train on the Goldwater
Range makes Luke so critical for us.
Mr. Franks. Well, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I
would like to submit just a few questions for the record that
we could follow up on later. And maybe I could shift gears here
just for a moment. Thank you, sir.
Secretary Wynne, you know, there is a little debate going
around here related to the reinforcements going into Iraq and a
lot of different perspectives on how to ``manage'' that. And I
think, personally, one of the worst things that we could do as
a Congress is to try to micromanage something that the
president has the constitutional power and the best opportunity
to manage in the best way related to the reinforcements in
Iraq.
But a part of that debate has centered around maybe turning
some of the armed forces guidelines for equipment training, for
some--taking some of your guidelines and turning them into
regulation. And some of the military experts have said that
forcing us to--whether it is bringing people in or out of the
theater on certain timelines or making them train with certain
equipment--some of those guidelines, at this point, might not
be realistic.
And I guess I would like to--you know, it harkens back to
what was said earlier about the C-17 and the C-5. When you can
manage things on the ground without being micromanaged from
people who really don't know what is happening, I think there
is a tremendous advantage there.
Can you speak to that related to some of the training and
equipment guidelines related to the surge or the reinforcements
going into Iraq?
General Moseley. I am going to reach way back into my West
Point and say that if we codify the infantry tactics, we would
be fighting that style of war right now because we would be
trying very hard to get laws passed, if you will, to uncodify
some of the badder infantry tactics that we lost people with
before.
If we codify infantry tactics now, we would lose the
perspective of the ROVER, which is the Remotely Operated Visual
Enhancement Receiver, which is the little laptop computer that
people are using. So I would say that our training is morphing
every day. And to take away the ability of our soldiers to be
ingenious in their approach to warfare would be extraordinarily
detrimental to essentially the American way of war.
We always think that when we turn an F-22, for example,
over to the pilots to fly up in Alaska and over to Hawaii--we
would lose their ingenuity in using that if we ended up having
to come to you with a flight manual and codifying it that this
is the way we do it because we don't know what they know. And
we, as a nation, I think, have benefited extraordinarily by
letting the people on the ground, if you will, manage the
ground.
And a long time ago, I realized that you cannot manage with
a long screwdriver on operation.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Marshall.
Mr. Marshall. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you all hear me okay?
Thank you both for your service. You are doing a great job
leading our Air Force. I appreciate it very much. I am pleased
to co-chair the Air Force Caucus this go around and anything I
can do to help, just let me know.
General issues, then a few parochial issues.
Where the tanker is concerned, one of the things that you
have heard me say time and again is that this is an opportunity
for us to develop a model that we might be able to use DOD-wide
with regard to sustainment, modernization, maintenance over the
lifetime of the platform.
And it is because Airbus is bidding and Airbus is going to
come in and say, ``Look, we want to assure you that you are
going to be in complete control of this. We are not going to
hold you hostage. France isn't going to hold you hostage,'' et
cetera.
And since Airbus is going to have to do that, it seems to
me that that is an opportunity to get Boeing to do the same
kind of thing--you know, apples to apples in comparison--and
then to use that as a model to avoid the C-17 fiasco that we
basically have right now with trying to figure out how we are
going to be cost-effective in our long-term maintenance.
And could somebody--I know you all have been working on
this. Could I get a briefing, maybe in my office, on this
subject? We don't need to go into it right now, but where are
we exactly? And can we apply that same model to the JCA--
similar kind of concept to JCA? I think the Army is willing to
do it. I know we have gone back and forth on CLS where Army is
concerned. That is their business model--suggest that is the
appropriate thing. We know it is not. And so I am willing to
help with that as well--and if I could get a briefing on both
those things.
Mobility-capability study--are we going to revisit that? I
mean, I think the general consensus here is that we think that
is a pretty fundamental law because assumptions were imposed
upon those doing the study, and those assumptions that had to
be taken into account were assumptions that you can look at and
conclude aren't all going to come true. And then, there was the
tail end, in which those doing the study said, ``Oh, by the
way, we have got some other things we need to look at before we
finally make up our mind about this.''
Are we revisiting the mobility-capability study?
General Moseley. Sir, a different way to answer that is,
now with the growth in land-component activities and with the
surge on the horizon, there is an opportunity to go back and
see what that really means. And that work is ongoing.
Mr. Marshall. Well, I think that is real important to us.
You know, I think that what we did was we pegged our future
fleet at the bottom end of the range set by this mobility-
capability study. And if that mobility-capability study is off,
we have left ourselves--I mean, if it is too low, we have left
ourselves no margin at all for error.
General Moseley. But Congressman, we have had this
discussion before, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate
your help in all this. But the balancing of the portfolios is
also very important to us--about our new bomber, about our
space systems, about the tactical systems, about our UAVs and
our new sensors, the JSTARS, the AWACS, the rivet joint--all
also ride on a 707 airframe.
And so this tanker decision is a huge decision for us
because it takes us down the path of an airplane that we can
probably use, then, to recap somewhere later those aging ISR
systems. So sir, the mobility portfolio is a big deal, but so
is the global strike and so is the global ISR portfolio. That
is our challenge.
Mr. Marshall. Well, but we have got to have a handle on
this mobility-capability study. That is a key part of the deal.
All these others are as well.
General Moseley. Sure.
Mr. Marshall. But we don't need to be fooling ourselves
about what our real needs are.
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Marshall. And then, if we have got to come up with
resources, we have to come up with resources. That is our job.
But we need to understand what those needs are.
Chief, is there any chance that, on the record here, you
can comment on things we have talked about with regard to the
software support facility and personnel system?
General Moseley. Sir, we are working that within our
personnel world to make sure we do not disadvantage anybody in
those big civilian centers of excellence. The notion of
centralizing the personnel world is a good notion because you
save lots of time, lots of money. You save lots of manpower
that you can apply to this PBD-720 loss of 40,000 people.
Mr. Marshall. Right.
General Moseley. And I don't believe there is going to be a
whole lot of money that shows up on trees somewhere. So we have
to look at a better way to spend the money and a more efficient
way.
Having said that, though, if we have taken a step that
disadvantages the management of that great workforce and that
intellectual capital, then we need to make sure we don't do
that. And the notion of having the ability at those locations
to manage that civilian workforce makes perfect sense.
Secretary Wynne. Mr. Marshall, if I could comment once on
the loss of industrial base in the aerospace industry--you
commented on it a little bit differently by--we worry about the
closing of the C-17 line because it is the only line that we
have. We worry about the closing of an F-22 line because it is
the only line we have there. And, you know, we are starting to
get down to where we are signaling up on so many things in
America----
Mr. Marshall. Right.
Secretary Wynne [continuing]. That it worries me.
Mr. Marshall. Right. And I am totally with you.
Secretary Wynne. Sir, the other part of that--let me
parallel with my boss. When you look at the lines on the West
Coast--that is Long Beach and Everett--when you look at the
lines in the central part of the country--that is Wichita, St.
Louis and Fort Worth--and when you look at the lines on the
East Coast--that is Marietta--and so, depending on what systems
go away, you could end up with only Marietta and Fort Worth.
So you have no depth. You have no capacity. In the
strategic airlifter world, that is Long Beach. And in the
fighter world, that is Marietta and Fort Worth.
So we are very, very sensitive to the aerospace industry.
We spend a lot of time watching people worry about
shipbuilding, but I see less people worried about the American
aerospace industry, which is equally fragile.
Mr. Marshall. I see my time has expired. I guess I will
wait until the next round, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
The Chairman. And, General, I appreciate the comment about
shipbuilding.
Speaking for one of those champions of shipbuilding, the
young lady from Tidewater, Virginia, Ms. Drake?
Mrs. Drake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, General, thank you for being here.
And, General, I would like to thank you for introducing the
Air Force personnel seated behind you and telling us a little
bit of their stories.
And I know that this committee joins me in thanking you for
your service. It truly does put a face on the war. And I know a
lot of us would like to hear more of what you have done. And we
know that is just a little bit that he said about you. So thank
you for being here today and letting us thank you in person.
My question deals with China's recent Anti-Satellite
Missile Test. And my question is, how is the United States
postured to reconstitute those vital space-based capabilities
in the event either of on-orbit failures or attack by another
country? And my concern is, do we really possess the necessary
ground infrastructure to accommodate that reconstitution?
Secretary Wynne. I think I can say to your question, ma'am,
that the industrial base in space is fragile, as well as it is
in aerospace. When I say ``aero'' and ``space,'' I really meant
the fragility of both of those entities.
That having been said, we are--and are putting into the
budget--you will see it in the budget and you will see a little
bit more on the unfunded requirement--that we are trying to
figure out operational response of space. We are using four
operationally responsive space--all the available launch
facilities, if you will, that we have. And all of the
manufacturers are trying to get involved.
And we are starting that process by asking the question,
not should we reconstitute that specific entity, but, in a
wartime scenario, what do you need, specifically, to
essentially restore peace and then to reconstitute whatever was
destroyed during warfare, and no different than you might do in
a civil society?
So it is a little bit different approach to it. And what we
find is that we--our approach toward reconstitution of the
necessary forces drives us to an interesting set of studies.
And we are conducting those studies over the course of this
year.
We have asked people--because, as you might imagine, we
were shocked but not surprised at the Chinese development. The
Chinese have been launching satellites into space. They didn't
hit anything with the satellites that they were launching into
space. This is because they have guidance systems. So it is not
surprising. But it did, for us, remove that peculiar veil of
sanctuary that we had given space just as if nothing would ever
happen up there.
And so we are working very hard. And in another forum, we
could probably tell you a lot more.
Mrs. Drake. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Okay.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
And I want to thank all of our servicemen and women who
maintain air superiority for this country. And it is something
that we definitely have to maintain and enhance.
And so with respect to the last question that was asked, I
have a question. The space situational awareness, or SSA, is a
top priority. Yet, for two key SSA programs--the space-based
space surveillance and the space fence--the Air Force has
requested $46 million less than expected in fiscal year 2008.
Furthermore, funding of space-control technology, counter-space
systems and SSA systems and operations comprise roughly $300
million in fiscal year 2008.
Is this funding adequate, given the overall investment in
space and the growing threats to space?
Secretary Wynne. Mr. Johnson, thank you very much for that
question. The fact is that along with balancing all of the
accounts, I think what you are going to find is we are borning
in our studies right now and we are trying to figure out what
constitutes the right kind of requirements that we need there.
We also believe if you are going to have operationally
responsive space and space-situation awareness, you are going
to have to make sure that the technical maturity of the things
that you have available is good. This is where Dr. Sega is
taking us back to basics and trying to make sure that we spend
the money on the right things at the right time.
And I think, in that regard, we feel like we have
adequately funded the 2008. That having been said, upon the
launch of the Chinese Anti-Satellite, we have actually added
some in the unfunded area to try to boost it up. But you have
to watch out and you can't just throw money at engineers who
don't have an answer for you. And so we are trying to balance
the growth in that area.
General Moseley. Sir, I think one takeaway is that space is
not a sanctuary anymore. The launch of Sputnik in October 1957
was a bit of a wakeup call for capabilities in space. This ASAT
shot is an equal wakeup call relative to, ``This is not a
sanctuary.''
And it goes back to the congresswoman's question also.
Space-situation awareness is critical to be able to see what is
out there. Defensive counter-space is critical to be able to
protect the assets on orbit. And that is the direction the
secretary and Dr. Sega are taking to be able to maintain space
surveillance and to be able to look at operationally responsive
space to replace satellites, but also to look at defensive
counter-space.
But sir, somewhere in here will need to be a policy
discussion on what is next because it won't be the United
States Air Force that goes beyond the policy limits now on
space-situation awareness and defensive counter-space. If there
is a decision to move into offensive counter-space, that is a
different issue. And that is not what you are asking, but that
is the second and third-order question to space not being a
sanctuary anymore.
Mr. Johnson. Certainly. I believe it would be prudent for
us to anticipate a changing environment in space. And we
certainly need to have a superiority in space, as we do in
aerospace. So that is a conversation that I am sure is----
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson [continuing]. Definitely coming.
As threat to space and operations in space increase, so too
will the need for a robust space-intelligence capability. How
does the Air Force plan to address this requirement?
General Moseley. Sir, we have done this in two ways. In
fact, you are looking at one of the experts right here behind
me, who is one of the space experts who has deployed into the
theater. If you think back a few years ago, most of our space
experts never let them out of those vaults and caves and they
never saw the sunlight.
We now have them deployed into the operations centers and
we have had them deployed into operating alongside sailors and
Marines and soldiers, with him being deployed in the Al Anbar
province with the Marine Corps. So part of this is having the
space experts out to bring that core competency out to others
conducting operations.
The other part of that is we have completely revamped Air
Force intelligence with a complete refocus on operational
issues within Air Force intelligence. So we have elevated the
position--the top Intel officer to be a lieutenant general or a
three-star. We are moving more intelligence officers into more
senior positions now and being able to do the same thing with
space.
When I was fortunate enough to command out in the Arabian
Gulf, I had two sets of space experts working for me. And those
fellows now have been promoted into being general officers. And
they are bringing theater expertise back to Colorado, as well
as exporting Colorado expertise out to the theater. So we are
pretty excited about this.
I am personally excited because this has been one of my
imperatives with these folks--to be able to get this expertise
out of a vault somewhere and getting out where people are
actually working. This is a good-news story.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. My time has expired.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from North
Carolina, Mr. Hayes.
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Moseley, Secretary Wynne, welcome. Thank you for
putting the ``air'' in airborne and all the other good lifting
things you do every day.
We have got a $15 billion question mark with the combat
search-and-rescue helicopter issue. We have got a PJ back
there. I think that is really appropriate. And the A-10 drivers
kind of put those two together.
In light of what GAO has said, what is the plan? I mean,
this is just one of many examples of equipment that we don't
have that we need for our folks.
And the third part of the question is, how many folks that
are pilots were involved in that selection process. It has
seemed time and time again to me there are far too many
bureaucrats between the pilot and the acquisition folks.
So if you could kind of give me a rundown on the three:
where are we, when are we going to fix it, and how are we going
to fix it?
Secretary Wynne. I think you really have asked a great
question because there are so few programs now that the
industry--it is a vital concern to them to win everything that
they can to stay alive. And it is no surprise to me that they
protested. I will tell you that the number of protests are
rising as the number of programs are diminishing. It is a true
dogfight out there to make sure that you can be alive for, if
you will, the next competition.
We just don't do as many procurements as we used to do.
Now, that having been said, the particular instance here--the
GAO, I think, has found a technical application here. I think
we can solve this pretty narrowly and I am hoping that we can
see our way through this and avoid a lengthy delay in the
procurement cycle so we can actually expend all of the
resources that we have asked for in the 2008 timeframe.
Mr. Hayes. General Moseley----
Secretary Wynne. As to your question of whether or not we
had requirements and actual operators in the offering, I am
going to let Chief Moseley answer that question because I think
he is more capable.
Mr. Hayes. Thank you.
And, Chief, as you answer that, talk to me about
survivability of the Chinook in an extraction situation.
General Moseley. Sir, the folks that developed the key
performance parameters for the competition were combat-rescue
guys. And so the KPPs that were developed that were then
competed were actually combat-rescue guys living in that
system.
Remember, we have had a mix of combat-rescue guys. I have
been of the opinion that combat search-and-rescue is a
combatant Air Force issue, not a special-operations issue. So I
moved combat rescue back into air-combat command. In this
transition, we had some people that looked at the new
helicopter as both an in-fill and ex-fill capability, as well
as a combat-rescue capability. But there were pilots involved
and there were combat-rescue folks involved.
Sir, I will tell you, the H-60 that we have now is a
limited airplane. It is limited because it can't hover very
high. It is not very fast. But it can't carry very much either.
And so when we have to go to the ranges that this PJ goes in
Afghanistan and Iraq, we have got to download a PJ and put a
fuel bladder in the back, which means you cannot carry a
litter. And you are limited by the number of people.
If this bomber pilot takes her crew out of that airplane
and we send an airplane to go pick them up, that is not just a
single C fighter pilot. That is a crew. We have got to be able
to have an airplane that is big enough to pick up a variety of
players because in this world that we are living in, combat
search and rescue is a joint mission that the United States Air
Force performs for the entire joint team. You have to be able
to go distance and you have to be able to hover at high
altitude and you have to have a survivable platform.
So, sir, I am looking forward to getting on with the
mission. I am looking forward to getting on with the decision
so we can field a system that we can go out and pick people up,
because I believe we are going to be in this business for a
long time.
And, sir, I will tell you, from my life out in Afghanistan
and Iraq, one of my biggest worries sending people out to fight
was that I couldn't go pick them up, because in this fight we
are in, at the end of this, there will not be a POW return.
There will not be a group of people repatriated. If they
catch you, they will kill you. And so the ability to get the PJ
to you and pick you up and get you home is a big deal. It is a
very big deal, whether it is a Navy pilot or a crew or a Marine
pilot or a crew or an Army or a special ops team--anybody out
there, if they catch you, they will kill you.
So combat search and rescue is a core competency for us. It
is a mission area that we hold dear. The ``jolly green giants''
are very, very special people inside our combatant Air Force.
So, sir, then, the question about the Chinook--the Chinook
is a fine airplane. Our Army brothers and our special ops
people are flying that airplane into some very, very dangerous
places right now. I will not critique the airplane because it
is a fine airplane. What my concern is now we have got yet
another delay. I want to field this mission.
Remember, we have accelerated this program five years and
we have accelerated Block 10 two years inside that to be able
to get this PJ something that we can go a distance and pick
people up. So, sir, that is where I am.
Mr. Hayes. Well, fix it right. Fix it quick. Make sure we
do whatever we need to do to get the folks out there and get
some new airplanes so we don't have to pick them up--anyway----
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hayes. Take care of it, will you?
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hayes. And Pope Air Force Base, while you are at it.
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the general from
Pennsylvania, Admiral Sestak.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you.
I will follow up on that last question, Mr. Secretary. And
thank you for your time.
Just, actually, a yes-or-no answer, if you don't mind. Is
the CH-47 the correct aircraft, then, for the CSAR mission?
Secretary Wynne. I would have to answer it this way: It is
the one that we selected. It is a subject of the GAO review. I
think it has every chance of continuing to be selected.
However, I would have to take all the details and talk to the
GAO to make sure that we do not short shrift because your Air
Force is into open and transparent competition. And we want to
make sure that everybody considers that what we do is a level
playing field. So we maximize the number of people to come
forward to compete.
And so I need to go and make sure I give the GAO complaint
a full look.
Mr. Sestak. Thanks, Mr. Secretary.
General, in the transformation for the Air Force--and you
know so much better than I do--but it is comprised of those key
concepts from technology, concepts of ops and organization.
Your AEF is your organizational way that you meant to address
this new future that we are actually in in the global war on
terror, in the insurgencies we do from Iraq to Abu Sayyaf and
Djibouti--in the Philippines and then Djibouti. The AEF has
been quite stretched. You have had to--had to, a couple of
times, kind of reconfigure it or go on.
Is it the right transformational, organizational concept
for the future in view that you have had to go back and re-look
at it. When, in a sense, this deliberativeness of it was, to
some intention, expected to address these types of predations
that have come up?
General Moseley. Sir, it is good to see you again, from the
time we spent together out in the Arabian Gulf.
Let me answer yes. I believe the Air Expeditionary Force
rotation scheme is the right way to do this because it provides
some measure of predictability and some measure of being able
to schedule a person's life.
Mr. Sestak. Right.
General Moseley. That is very, very key to us. We want to
be able to publish a schedule that, depending on where the
member is inside the wing that they are assigned to and inside
that AEF schedule, that we can somehow try to stick to that.
Nothing is perfect and we will never make it 100 percent. But
we are very, very good. We are up over 90, 95 percent right now
with providing that scheduling predictability so people can
plan their lives.
But, of course, in this war-fighting business, your
opponent gets to pick. And sometimes they choose wisely and
sometimes they make your life a little more difficult. And so
right now, we have in excess of two AEFs deployed. And in some
of our stressed areas, our combat-rescue helicopters, some of
our ISR assets--in fact, the rivet joint has been out in excess
of 6,000 straight days.
And so when a combatant commander requests a rivet joint,
there is only one wing of those--or like the AWACS or like the
JSTARS that are down in Georgia. You only have one set of those
machines. And so you are always out with those airplanes.
Mr. Sestak. General, if that is the right organizational
concept, and then you go down and you have the technology--
obviously, one thing you do very well is work with foreign
nations, particularly this new global war of terror.
When you look at programs like AFID, the Aviation Foreign
Intelligence Defense, it is the only squadron you have in order
to, so to speak, on the aircraft-to-aircraft level, to
intermingle with those nations out there that might want to be
able to know, ``How do we have an aircraft that can work well
in a jungle? How do you do close air support? Are we doing a
disservice by not placing more resources in this critical
area?''
General Moseley. Sir, great question. And, yes, we are
planning to do that. As we look at the opportunity for the new
Joint Cargo Aircraft--if you look back on the successes that we
have had with the international program with the F-16 and the
strategic partnering that we have developed and the
partnerships over time, with pilots growing up and flying from
Sheppard Air Force Base back to Norway, back to Red Flag, back
to Norway, and then, the NATO construct--it is all about the
same machine. It is those classic Air Force to Air Force
relationships.
So when we look at the Joint Strike Fighter, we see a new
future with that. When we look at the Joint Cargo Aircraft, we
see a new future with that. The C-130 gives us a future with
that. We have some now operating C-17s, but that is not a big
number.
Mr. Sestak. But should more be placed into the kind of
aircraft SOS has?
General Moseley. Well, sir, we have also looked at the
notion of a counter-insurgency airplane. We have looked into
the notion of moving something that would be useful now for the
new Iraqi air force, which we have offered up--they operate C-
130's now, three of our excess airplanes. So is there not some
way to provide new capabilities to do exactly what you are
saying?
The commander of Air Force special ops command and the
commander of special ops command and I are looking at, perhaps,
moving out on a counter-insurgency airplane and then partnering
much tighter with Joint Cargo Aircraft. So you have a COIN
airplane, as well as a lifting airplane, that we can partner
out there with a bigger number of countries.
Mr. Sestak. Yes, sir. I might come back to that. But I
probably have time for one last question.
And Mr. Secretary--if I come back to it--but the question I
really had is, should there be more of these squadrons that
have the old cubs or whatever it is that actually work with you
and turning these different aircraft? Mr. Secretary, my
question is overarching. And one organization, Congressional
Budget--was that the gavel?
Got it.
The Chairman. General, he can come back a moment later.
Did I understand you said a moment ago that you have excess
C-130's?
General Moseley. Sir, these were the C-130Es that, as we
moved them from active units and replaced them with Js, that we
had three airplanes that had life on them that aren't too broke
that we provided to the Iraqi air force to provide their
airlift. We provided the pilots and we trained them at Little
Rock. And so we funded that under our excess-aircraft model,
which is not an FMS case. So that is where the three C-130Es
came from for the Iraqi air force.
The Chairman. Mr. Conaway.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Moseley, thanks for being here.
Secretary Wynne, I appreciate it.
Also, I want to add my thanks to the warriors behind you
who you brought in this morning--nice touch to do that.
Also, Secretary Wynne, I want to add my concern that all
procurement be done openly and fairly and transparently, and,
particularly, this combat-search-and-rescue aircraft that you
have talked about--looking forward to an aggressive review by
you in response to the GAO.
But it is one thing for Sikorsky and Lockheed to protest
as--you would expect that. But to have what would appear to be
a disinterested party agree with them and say there are some
things wrong with the process itself--and I understand your
concern that it slows things down and all those kinds of
things--but having the system work helps us back up the
decisions made by the system, if that makes any sense.
General, back on the overall management of the 300-plane
fleet, are you aware of any kind of a commercial circumstance
where fleet managers said, ``You have got to manage the fleet.
You have got to do these kinds of missions and that management
has to involve you not doing away with any of the aircraft''?
Does that happen anywhere else besides in the Air Force where
your hands are tied that way?
General Moseley. Sir, I am not aware of anything.
Mr. Conaway. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that you
would be required--and I know we are part of the way that
works, and I understand the reasons why that gets in there, but
it seems to me that that is a flawed tactic if we are in an
arena of limited resources.
Can you provide for us what that costs in doing that? In
other words, you have run a model that said, ``If I had free
will choice to do the job you tell me to do, I want to have
these planes and have these missions available and to line them
up the way you said and to cut the ones''--can you provide for
us----
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Conaway [continuing]. What the costs to the system is
if we would otherwise put those dollars somewhere else. Would
you do that for us?
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Sir, I would ask you in the hearings with General
Schoomaker and Admiral Mullen ask them, because if they have
equal restrictions on managing their inventories, I don't know
of it.
Mr. Conaway. It is not likely they have that same kind of a
circumstance, and I understand that C-5s are built in certain
places and we have got all this infrastructure out there that
we need to do, but at the end of the day, we are all tasked
with protecting this country with limited resources to get that
done.
So I appreciate your service to our country. A constituent
friend of mine, I think a college chum of yours, David Mims,
harasses me every day that I see him about making sure you are
doing a good job, and so I told him I would grill you pretty
good this morning.
General Moseley. Thank you, sir. That is helpful.
Mr. Conaway. Which I don't think I have done.
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Conaway. But thank you for your service, and I do look
forward to the response to the GAO report on that procurement
issue, because given the four years, five years we have dealt
with the tanker thing, and I am not trying to say they are the
same, but it is of great importance to us that we get the
system work, whatever the answer it is.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thanks very much.
Ms. Castor.
Ms. Castor. Good morning, Mr. Secretary and General, and a
special thank you to the brave and talented men and women that
you have brought from the Air Force here today.
I am privileged to represent the Tampa Bay area, which is
home of MacDill Air Force Base. In addition to Central Command
and Special Operations Command, we also have the air refueling
wing.
So all of the questions that have been asked on the tanker
program and KC-X, I would appreciate, as Mr. Marshal has
requested, a briefing in my office on the--I am new. I would
like a briefing on the history of the procurement and
development process, a specific timeline moving forward,
especially to ensure that we are promoting fair and open
competition and expending the taxpayer dollar in the most
efficient way.
General Moseley. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Castor. Next, I would like to go to your testimony
adapting to non-traditional roles. I am very concerned with a
portion of your testimony and the fact that airmen and women
have stepped into fill joint war-fighter tasking and stressed
skill areas in which other services are shorthanded.
It said the Air Force currently provides over 7,700 airmen
and women to fulfill these in lieu of ground force tasking.
Airmen and women fulfill in lieu of requirements in such areas
as detainee operations, convoy operations and protection,
explosive ordnance disposal, et cetera, et cetera, you have a
long list here. And you say that the Air Force also fills
another 1,200 join individual augmentee positions.
What is the most consequential impact to the Air Force
because of this? And tie it to your budget request to where are
we going to see that impact?
Secretary Wynne. I can give you a specific instance of two
missile technicians coming out of the northern tier states that
are interrogators because they speak Arabic. They are not now
missile technicians, they are interrogators, because they were
asked for and assigned.
When they joined the Air Force, we appreciated their
intelligence and made them missile technicians. They are not
that anymore. If we were wrong and had excess, to the
chairman's point, excess missile technicians, it would surprise
me. We have a specific request for TO&E and we ask for them.
When we get them back, which they will come back to us, we
will have to retrain them into the missile technician field,
because they will not be as prepared.
So even though you say we have 7,700, roughly, people, that
actually means we have at least double, because you have to
have some downtime to prepare and some downtime following.
So we look at between 17,000 and 21,000 as the number of
people we have involved in this exercise.
Now, that having been said, as I come down 40,000 in order
to make sure in order to make sure I can recapitalize my force
structure, this concerns me. It concerns me because it is
growing, it is not shrinking. It was forecast to be shrinking
about this time, yet it is actually growing.
To your point, we don't guard prisoners. The Air Force
doesn't guard prisoners; we don't have prisoners. The Army
guards prisoners. For us to have prison guards at Camp Bucca is
an anomaly for us. We are very proud of the people who are
doing it, by the way. I mean, they are doing magnificently.
They bring different things.
It has caused us to change our training regimen. We now
have emergency medical training, we have rifle training, we
have things that we did not have. We have convoy training. We
are the only service that has convoy training, because we felt
like if we were going to make our people convoy drivers who
used to be snowplow operators, they are going to get trained.
So this is where we are coming from.
Chief, do you have a comment?
General Moseley. As we have looked at the total number of
folks that have done this, we have asked for a scrub to see
what we have been asked to do with our people and are the
people doing something that is relative to their original
training. About a little over 80 percent of the folks that we
have done this with have done something relative to their
training or within their competency.
We have had to refine that a bit or we have had to help
them a bit, but for the most part, they are in something that
looks like what they have been trained to do in the Air Force.
We have just taken that to a different level.
But, ma'am, the part that concerns me alongside the
secretary is that 25 percent or so that is not within their
core training. We have done this for the right reasons. We have
done this because we are a military at war, and the land
component is stressed, and the land component has asked for
assistance from the Navy and the Air Force in doing this, so it
is the right thing to do.
But as the mobilization policies now allow the chief and
the secretary of the Army to be able to get at its guard and
reserve in a bit different way, I anticipate this non-core
competency number coming down for us.
Ms. Castor. And the Army chief of staff has--may I continue
for a moment?
The Chairman. You can come back.
Ms. Castor. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the benefits of being the last person is I have got
to hear everything that has been discussed in the previous
questions.
And, gentlemen, and thanking you for your service, and I
must say that so far the only good news that I have heard is
the introduction of the incredible Air Force personnel that you
have behind you and their individual accomplishments and
contributions.
You have painted a picture that is very dire. The space no
longer a sanctuary, loss of the aerospace industrial base, the
recapitalization being a significant gash into the overall
personnel that you have, which, of course, with your concerns
of the loss of intellectual capital, and of course I see that
as a potential loss for ingenuity, the concern that you have in
your overall competitiveness and the equipment that you are
seeking and that you see as next generation.
It is interesting, as you two gentlemen paint this picture,
I do think that there is not a sense, specifically in Congress,
of the Air Force waving the flag of concerns of its situation.
General Moseley, I told you before that I think that the
Air Force budget hearing is one of the least attended hearings
that we have in HASC. The number of people that believe that
there is an emergency or of a grave concern for the Air Force
on this committee or in Congress is probably fairly low. And I
would think that the Air Force could do a better job in waving
its flag of, ``We have serious concerns that need to be
addressed.''
Secretary Gates, when he was here, I had asked him about
the recapitalization plan and my concern, which you guys have
shared, of the 40,000 personnel that are to be cut and whether
or not that that needed to be reviewed. And he indicated that
as a result of the additions to the Army and Marine Corps, that
it may cause the reconsideration for the Air Force.
General Moseley, you have indicated, of course, that with
the flight time dropping that you believe that that may be too
far.
Secretary Wynne, I don't want to diminish the concern that
this is a self-inflicted wound in looking at your concern of
whether or not you would receive your top line increases that
you had wanted in equipment, but I must ask, I am very
concerned that the recapitalization is going to occur at the
ability of the Air Force to advance or function.
And you began your presentation by indicating that you are
an Air Force at war. You stated some concerns, but I am very
concerned that if the recapitalization with the force shaping
plan goes forward, that what we might have is an Air Force that
is unable to go to be our advantage on the battlefields of
tomorrow. And I would like your further comments.
Secretary Wynne. Well, as the Army is seeking a mine-
resistant vehicle because the Humvee did not work, we want a
fifth generation fighter, we want the right kind of modern
tanker, we want the right kind of modern ISR equipment, and we
want the right kind of lift capacity to make sure we can fight
also a modern war against a different future enemy.
I think that the capabilities that we have to fight the war
today gave us a huge complement. I mean, I would say that our
ability to contain air dominance is well known throughout the
world. What we are wanting to make sure is, and as I say, it is
the duty of every airman to make sure that the next generation
airman feels that same confidence and that same capability, and
that is where we are headed.
I would tell you just in the area of your concern, pushing
things into the laboratory and making sure that we right the
laboratory capabilities so that Wright-Patterson becomes again
the technical center of aerospace in America. I want that, and
I will tell you General Bowlds is doing a great job.
And with your support, sir, I think we can get there. It is
a concern of mine, though, as to how do we fit all of this into
the package. And as General Moseley said, it was a pretty good
battle. It took a lot of time to try to figure out how to
squirt all this out.
General Moseley. Sir, as you look at these people, one of
our blessings is we have the sharpest, smartest, most
adaptable, agile people in any military. One of our curses is
they make this look so easy people think it is easy. This is
not easy.
And the recapitalization of this Air Force is a fundamental
issue right now in this discussion that we are having over
budget. Do we want to be the global Air Force that I think you
ask us to be or do we want to be something else? Because we
make this look so easy, people believe it is. That is a
challenge.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
I might say to Ms. Castor and to others that we will have a
second round, so if you have other questions, please stay.
Mr. Ellsworth.
Mr. Ellsworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you both for coming.
I appreciate your hospitality at the Pentagon a couple
weeks ago, but I have got to tell you when I walked out and got
on the bus I think the captain, and I hope I got that rank
right, had to help me pick my jaw up off the concrete before I
could get on the bus. Because I walked out of there thinking
that I came into this job two months thinking that we were the
best equipped and most advanced, and I walked out of there now
having concerns that you are expressing again today.
My question is that we had a small debate last week for
about three days at the end of the week that got a little
attention across this country and across the world, and a lot
of that debate was about the message we were sending to our
troops and the message we were sending to our enemy.
And I can't help but sit here and think that hearing what
we are hearing today, and I assume there are reporters here and
they hear that wings are falling off and that we can't fly our
planes at Mach 2 or whatever it was, that we have to fly them
slower than what they were designed for.
I don't have any feelings that we won't hear doom and gloom
from the Army, the Marines, the Navy, that they are short on
equipment, like you said, Mr. Secretary. What message, in your
opinion, are we sending to our troops? And like you said, they
will stand up and they will do their job and they will fly in
there and flap their wings if they have to, I know that, to fly
and do their mission, but what message are we sending to our
enemy, and what message are we sending to our troops in this
type format when we don't supply them the best and most modern
equipment available to us?
Secretary Wynne. Well, there is no doubt in our minds, sir,
when the North Koreans wake up in the morning they are not
worried about an invasion; they are worried about the United
States Air Force. When the Chinese think about how to fight the
Taiwan Straits, they are worried about the strategic Navy and
the United States Air Force.
In the same way, I think we deserve to make sure that our
people can fight the fight that you ask of us, and right now I
would tell you that I think we are prepared to do that.
In World War II, by the way, the bravery of our airmen took
on an air force that was superior to theirs, and we lost a lot
of great airmen bombing Ploesti, bombing Berlin, bombing Tokyo.
Doolittle signed up phenomenal people that went to the Tokyo
raid.
So our message to our airmen is, ``We believe in you, and
we are going to support you to the maximum extent possible, and
we have a duty to future airmen to make sure that they are as
confident and as capable as you are.'' And that is our message.
And to the bad guys, ``We will bring the fight to you.''
Mr. Ellsworth. And just as a follow up, I guess I would
say, what message is Congress sending by putting the boomer in
a 45-year-old plane? Are we not sending that same message that
we aren't supporting--you know, we can pass a resolution that
says, ``We support you.''
The proofs in the pudding, and I am putting you in a plane
that is not safe, we can't fly at the speed it is designed and
it is 45 years old, unless you tell me that that is a great
plane, it is still good. Then we are sending the wrong message
that way, Congress--I am not talking about you, I am talking
about us sending the wrong message to our troops and to the
enemy by not backing you. We are on the same playing field
here. I am talking about we need to step up and do our duty.
Put up or shut up.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Before I call on Mr. Wilson, I am concerned about this same
area of readiness.
I understand while I had to step away that you did discuss
readiness, but I think it was also testimony that there is a 10
percent reduction in flying hours, and then, General, I think
you said, ``We are as low as we can go.''
Aren't these terrible risks when you cut flying hours that
much? Are we going to find ourselves engaged in combat, not
quite as capable as we were a year ago?
General Moseley. Sir, 10 percent is a manageable cut, but
my concern is that we don't get on to a habit pattern of
continuing to raid the O&M accounts and the flying hour
accounts. We have done about everything we can do to protect
the investment accounts, to include taking more risk in the O&M
account and in the depot account. We are about there now where
I am not comfortable with any more risk.
Sir, I will tell you, some of the older pieces of our
inventory, you couldn't generate those sorties anyway because
the airplanes are getting old and they are breaking. So you
couldn't generate those UTE rates in those squadrons.
The Chairman. What about additional use of simulators; is
that helpful?
General Moseley. Sir, it is to a point. We discussed this
before. I started flying airplanes when I was 14, so maybe I am
a dinosaur about this, but there are certain things you can do
in a simulator that are just that, you are simulating
activities or procedural trainers. You have to be able to fly
the airplane, you have to be able to understand the inherent
dangers of aviation, and you have to be able to train at
composite force levels. Now, the new simulators are wonderful,
but they are adjuncts to procedural trainers. You have to be
able to fly.
In the abstract, people say, ``Well, you could just do most
of this in the simulators and then only fly when you really
have to.''
Sir, that is a loser argument.
The Chairman. Let me point out that the B-2 pilots at
Whiteman Air Force Base do a great deal of time not in the B-2
but in the trainers----
General Moseley. Correct.
The Chairman [continuing]. T-38s.
General Moseley. That is right, sir. And that is to get
them airborne, to get them flying.
The procedural trainer that we have at Whiteman with the
509th is a great bomber simulator, but you still have to get
them into the bomber and get them into exercises. And when you
can't do that, you have to get them airborne.
Because, sir, you know from living there and watching us,
this aviation stuff is inherently dangerous.
The Chairman. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary.
General, thank you, and thank you for bringing your warrior
colleagues with you too.
I am a 31-year veteran of the Army National Guard, and I
appreciate your comments earlier about the Air National Guard
and the competence and capabilities. I know Guard members are
just very, very proud of their service in the global war on
terrorism.
Additionally, my background, I am very honored that my dad
served in the 14th Air Force, the Flying Tigers, during World
War II in China, and three years ago, I had the opportunity to
visit with President Jiang Zemin in Beijing. And for you and
your colleagues, I want you to know, you may not be appreciated
as much today, but, indeed, President Zemin pointed out that
the American military is revered in China for their efforts to
provide for their liberation in World War II.
Additionally, I am grateful that I have a nephew that I
visited in Baghdad last year. He is currently in Alaska. I am
very proud of his service in the Air Force.
It has been asked earlier by a number of people about the
CSAR RFP. I have a specific concern and that is, with all the
other good questions, in the key performance parameters, one of
the indicators that was not included was the terminal area of
survivability. And I would just urge if there is an amendment,
that that be looked at. And you have answered that, indeed,
that pilots that have familiarity are participating in the
process, and so I hope that proceeds.
Additionally, in your statement, you mentioned that the Air
Force is exploring the concept of time-certain development,
which would deliver an initial capability to the war-fighter in
an explicitly specified much shorter interval. In the past,
schedule-driven has had problems.
Do you see where this can be beneficial, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Wynne. Well, sir, I have the benefit of some
history, and that is that on the F-16 program, they actually
gave us not only a time-certain development of 36 months but
also a specific amount of money that the corporation, if they
overran it, had to put in their own. It was a head-to-head
competition between, if you recall, the YF-17 and the F-16.
At the end of the day, also the Joint Strike Fighter was
done on a relatively tight time schedule, at least in the
concept development.
We think that time-certain development actually stimulates
the engineering talent in America and creates problem-solving
teams that would otherwise be kicked downstream. We also will
tell you that a time-certain development essentially puts the--
you have got to put the requirements on the table and you have
got to stand aside and let the engineers develop.
So I do see and have participated a little bit in a
beneficial event.
That having been said, yes, you cannot sacrifice schedule
for quality; it is a balance.
Mr. Wilson. And in conclusion of my question, I appreciate
so much Congressman Turner pointing out his concerns, but I
appreciate, too, that you have indicated the American Air Force
is equipped and prepared to face any challenges to our
citizens, and that is your view.
Secretary Wynne. Yes, sir.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And, General Moseley and Secretary Wynne, I bring you
greetings from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro,
North Carolina, and we appreciate the Air Force in eastern
North Carolina.
As I have listened to--and that is the advantage of being
the last one--to so many excellent questions about budget and
where you are today and the things that you have got to do to
remain strong, I want to ask you and look a little bit further,
like 10 years out, that if we are having to make these
decisions now--and I heard your comment, Secretary Wynne, and I
would agree.
I mean, there is not a nation in this world that does not
respect and know that we have the strongest air force, I don't
think there is any question, but when I look at the financial
shape of this country and it is getting--and according to David
Walker, who has spoken to this committee, it is getting really
tighter and tighter. And if we continue to--let's say we are in
Iraq five more years, I hope to God we are not, but let's say
we are, and we have to keep spending roughly $250 million a day
in Iraq.
I know what you are saying but my question is this: China,
we have a trade deficit with China that is somewhere around
$400 billion. I mean, we are sending jobs there, we are sending
American dollars there, they are putting it in their military.
When you are here before this committee saying, ``Well, we
are going to have to readjust here, readjust there,'' my
question to both of you is, today we are, but 10 years from
now--and I probably won't be in Congress 10 years from now, but
there will be somebody else--10 years from now, if we are still
having to have these debates and discussions that we have got
to be more frugal with the dollar because we don't have many
dollars, if that should happen, I am not saying it is going to,
but if it should, where is China today with their air force?
Where will it be 10 years from now with their air force if
we, in this country, have to continue to tighten the belt and
cut back on our Air Force?
Secretary Wynne. Well, sir, let me start by saying, I had
the very good privilege of being at Seymour Johnson Air Force
Base and watching the 96 Eagles line up, and it is an awesome,
awesome sight. I also had the great opportunity to interact
with the citizens of Goldsboro who support that base, and it
was inspiring.
And I want to thank you because I know you know that
Seymour Johnson was the source for the 21 airplane salute over
President Ford's funeral, and that great tanker squadron, the
Reserve squadron there, as well as the active duty squadron
interacted terrifically to make that look seamless and flawless
and easy, just like we talked to Congressman Turner's question.
Sometimes the Air Force makes things look very easy.
And we actually captured a film on You Tube that we use at
the Air Force Association that citizens around Grand Rapids
took and filmed, but we can never find out who did it. But they
put it up on You Tube and it was Taps with a 21-airplane salute
into the flag. It was awesome. And so I use it as the Air Force
Association as a dessert after I have bored them with my
speech.
Mr. Jones. Thank you, sir.
Secretary Wynne. I will tell you that I do worry about the
concern that you have expressed. As they did in the ASAT test,
the Chinese are becoming awesome investors. They are focused,
they are deliberate, and they are working the problem very
hard. I would say that over the next 10-year period, we need to
work with them, if you will, to bring them in in a manageable
way, because I would not like to be their opponent.
What I would like to be is I would like to be, if you
would, their world partner in managing them into the world, and
that is really our stroke. And it is going to be a carrot and
stick, and I think one of the things that you are emphasizing
is we have got to be careful that the stick doesn't look too
weak.
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir. Thank you.
General Moseley. Congressman Jones, their air force is a
good air force. They feel that a new fighter that they have got
in squadron strength, they are co-producing fourth generation
systems that are designed in Russia. They are extending the
range on their bombers, they are building new tankers, they are
building new AWACS, they are watching us, what we have done for
the last 16 years, and they are doing the same thing.
Sir, I will tell you, it may be a time for a discussion
about percentage of GDP on defense budgets. That is not going
to be my lane to make that call, but when you talk about the
challenges that you are addressing, we are sitting right now
with the lowest percentage of GDP since we have been fighting
wars, for sure since World War II, let me say it that way.
So I offer to you that this country can afford the best Air
Force, this country can afford the best Army and the best Navy
and the best Marine Corps. And so it is based on what you want
us to do, and it is based on how do we buy ourselves out of a
procurement holiday that has taken us to an average age of 25
years on this inventory.
Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, during the first round of questioning, I was
inquiring about cost savings. In the first round of
questioning, we explored the current policy, which is in U.S.,
which doesn't permit the Air Force to retire certain airplanes
that they would like to retire, and we found out that it costs
us about $1.7 billion a year to keep those airplanes sitting on
the ground. And I know that you had to step out during that
time, but I just wanted to mention it again, because I think it
is extremely important.
There is another cost savings set of exercises under way
initiated by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission
actions in 2005. And one of the concepts embodied in those
recommendations is joint basing.
Actually, I became involved in joint basing two years
before BRAC did. I went to visit Phil Grone and I said to him,
``Look, the three bases that are contiguous in my district,
McGuire Air Force Base, Navy Lakehurst and Fort Dix Army Base,
are three pieces of real estate that sit right next to each
other, and when I visit each of the bases I see a set of
activities at McGuire and a set of activities at Lakehurst that
are the same as the set of activities at McGuire and another
set of activities at Fort Dix that are pretty much the same as
the sets of activities that I saw at the Air Force base and the
Navy base.''
And so I said, ``Why don't we try to create a concept where
people can share assets and services can share services and
save the taxpayers money and give us money to divert to other
things that are meaningful in terms of our national security?''
And that, I believe, is how jointness got started.
The 2005 recommendations came out, the jointness
recommendations were involved with my bases at McGuire, Fort
Dix and Lakehurst as well as Fort Lewis and other bases around
the country. That process is ongoing and inching forward.
Now, I know that there are a lot of important questions to
discuss and a lot of important decisions to be made. Two of the
most important, which are currently under discussion, and I am
interested in getting your perspectives, are whether or not
land should be transferred from one service to another, that is
number one, and number two is, how we can protect and maintain
the proper quality of life issues between and among the
services.
I think those are two really important questions that are
slowing the process down. And I am not in a position to make
the decisions, but I would sure like to think I am in a
position to encourage all the services to make these decisions.
So I would be interested in your perspectives on those.
Secretary Wynne. Well, thank you, sir.
When joint basing started, it was in fact to avoid
duplication in the procurement of services and avoid
duplication in the performance of administrative duties. It has
gone beyond that, and it has gone in a direction that, frankly,
our Air Force doesn't like.
First, our Air Force actually fights from the bases that it
occupies. This is our place. Whiteman Air Force Base is the
place that we take off from. McCord Air Force Base is a place
that we take off from. We want to make sure that our quality of
life for our people are very well developed.
My approach to joint basing is real simple: I want joint
basing to be a raging success. In becoming a raging success, I
want to make sure that it adheres to the highest standards for
quality of life for all of the individuals that are attracted
to that base. If another service has a lower set of standards
and I can raise those at this particular joint base, then their
people will be delighted as customers to come to that joint
base. This is what I think joint basing should be, because it
will draw high performers and it will draw a success story.
I do not believe that we should transfer land, I do not
believe that we should transfer assets, I do not believe in the
landlord concept of accomplishing this thing. I don't think
that is what we set out to do in the first place. This was more
of a trial and pilot to try to drive efficiencies into the
system. So I am pretty concerned about this.
General Moseley. Congressman, please let us, for the
record, provide you the matrix that we asked our judge advocate
generals to create for us that shows when you transfer the
property what legal authorities transfer with that as the
commander of the oversight authority for the installation. It
is a staggering list of things that goes down to even include
response for Freedom of Information Act by citizens in the
vicinity.
So please let us provide that for the record, and I will
echo with my boss, same.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. I look forward to receiving that.
The Chairman. Ms. Davis.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to both of you for being here. I was able to
hear your testimony, although I had to leave for most of the
questions for some other committee responsibilities. But I
appreciate your being here and especially bringing the young
people who are so outstanding to our country. It was good to
hear their background and all of their accomplishments.
Thank you all.
I am not sure whether this particular question was asked
but I wanted you to just help us out a little bit with some of
the ``in lieu of'' jobs that have impacted the training of
traditional Air Force pilots.
I am not sure if you addressed that, but we know that
certainly many of our airmen have been asked to take on some
responsibilities that perhaps they were not specifically
trained for, and I am wondering if you could discuss that and
has that impacted readiness out of all and their ability to
continue to be as sharp as possible in the fields in which they
actually did train for?
Secretary Wynne. Thank you very much.
I would say this way: We believe that when the Army is
stressed and when the Army requests under duress, we should be
supportive. We try very hard not to let it affect our pilot
community. It does affect our maintenance, our support and our
administrative and especially our security forces that are, if
you will, a lot more like Army.
But when you get to the point, as we look at this, where we
are trying to buy armored security vehicles and the Army is
trying to buy fixed-wing aircraft, you have got to wonder, what
is going on here? And I would say to you, what is going on here
is we think that with the increase and reset of the Army ground
forces and the Marine ground forces, we need a reevaluation to
make sure that we are applying and requesting the taskings in
the right way.
It does affect our training. We lose these people, they are
not doing the job that we have asked them to do for at minimum
the time that they spend on the ground. But what is hidden,
just like it is hidden in the Army, is the training is spent up
and then the retraining of the opportunity after that. So we do
not get our airmen back. So even though we say we have about
7,500 that are currently involved, you think about it and it is
about 21,000 for the spent up, for the actual performance and
the spend down.
Chief?
General Moseley. Ma'am, one of the numbers we talked about
a while ago was about a little over 80 percent of the tasking
that we have under this in lieu of tasking business is
something that looks like a core competency of the Air Force.
So a little over 80 percent of the people that do this are
doing something that they actually have trained for in some
fashion in the Air Force.
So it is not as bleak as you think. The problem is the 20
or 25 percent that are not. And we send them out to do
something that is not a core competency for the Air Force.
The secretary mentioned a bit ago guarding prisoners. The
Air Force doesn't have a prison. The Navy and the Army have
prisons. We almost never have one in prison. So we don't have a
competency of prison guards, so we have to take someone and
train them to do that.
But I will tell you, ma'am, the country is at war, and the
American military is at war, and the Army is stressed. And so
the things that we can do to partner with them really, really
matter. And the things that we can do to help really, really
matter.
This growth that we are going to see and this expansion
that we are going to see in brigade combat teams and the
ability for the Army to mobilize a bigger portion of its guard
and reserve should minimize these out-of-competency taskings
for the Air Force. We are going through that process right now
to see about going to zero on the taskings that are outside of
our competency. But the ability to partner and the ability to
fight this war on a global scale, that is a big deal for all of
us.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
And in terms of the leadership, are you more likely to lose
some of your mid-level leadership as we proceed in this way? Is
that a worry?
General Moseley. Ma'am, right now, our retention numbers
are higher than they have ever been, but you are asking the
right question. If you continue to send people to do things
that they did not sign up to do or is outside of their
competency, you can bet we will see impacts on that with
retention.
Secretary Wynne. It is the old, ``Once is an adventure,
twice is a job.''
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
General Moseley. Ma'am, can I follow up, though? These
people are incredibly brave, and they are out there doing
things that they didn't sign up to do, and they are out there
doing this very, very well. Because we hold the standard so
high on training of the Air Force, we hold our recruiting
standards so high, these are very valuable people to be out
there doing that. I am proud of every one of them that we have
sent out there.
Secretary Wynne. Absolutely.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, to get back to the recapitalization issue, I
have no question concerning your need for equipment and
modernization. Of course, my concern, as I expressed it, was
that doing that at the cost of cuts in personnel may have a
result of risk of future consequences.
And my point that I want to just leave with you as I go to
other questions is that I don't think that we have had a real
clear picture given to us of what those costs could be of those
future consequences of choosing this tradeoff.
General, you had said about the Air Force making it look
easy. If you tell us that you are going to look for
efficiencies, everybody is for efficiencies, but if you paint a
picture of what the actual risk of future consequences are, we
have a greater understanding of what is occurring and then a
greater ability to respond to your needs.
One other comment on statements that you have made
concerning the loss of the aerospace industrial base. As you
know, General, it has been an issue that you and I have
discussed before.
Mr. Secretary, I would greatly appreciate if you would
adamantly communicate with the Commerce Department your
concerns and issues, because I don't think our Commerce
Department has as great of a concern as they have opportunities
for trade that can support our aerospace industry. They do not
see them as important.
And, certainly, we cannot just support the industry by
appropriations with the military side. It also takes a robust
economy and a robust trade. I think hearing the opinion of you
two gentlemen in Commerce could help them as they have issues
that they could advance to support the aerospace industry.
And, General, I wanted to thank you for--General Deptula
has been a great deal of help to me on the issues of NACIC and
DAI and the issues of overlap or permanent responsibility
assignment discussions. I have a great deal of concern, as you
may be aware.
NACIC is a jewel that has performed well, and as we look to
the future, we are not going to have a lessening need for
intelligence, and I am greatly concerned that territorial
battles might weaken our overall ability on the intel side. I
know that your elevation of the deputy chief of staff for
intelligence that might be certainly a sign of your agreement
that this is an area of our need to protect those assets and to
grow them.
And I just would like your thoughts from the two of you
concerning intel in Air Force's areas and where you might see
that there are concerns of overlap and diminishing the Air
Force capabilities?
Secretary Wynne. Well, one of the things that we are trying
to do, even with this remote operated visual enhanced received,
the ROVER system, is to actually diffuse intelligence right
down to the tactical commander, whether he is in a combined air
operation center or in an airplane or right on the ground as
the tactical ground commander. So we are actually trying to
make sure that intelligence is, firstly, boldly fused and
driven down to the tactical level.
Having General Deptula, by the way, who is a real smart
fellow, helps us because he now can interface with what is
available, what should not be, what needs analysis and what
does not need analysis, how to protect that information as it
goes to that tactical area. So we are benefiting dramatically
from all of the aspects of intelligence, but one of the things
is just to focus.
It is just as you said, focusing on it, just like where now
we are focusing on cyberspace. We are focusing on cyberspace,
it feeds intelligence, intelligence feeds cyberspace. We are
truly benefiting and we are blessed with the people we have in
there.
General Moseley. Sir, having been in the building when it
was hit on 9/11 and then having read the 9/11 Commission
report, I concluded that our intelligence system could use a
little rework inside the Air Force.
So when I became the chief, that was one of the first
things that I did was hold an intel summit and decide to move a
lieutenant general to be in charge of Air Force intelligence
and allow that person then to streamline all of the functions
inside the Air Force to be able to protect the intellectual
capital of things like NACIC and to be able to protect where we
are and to be able then to allow those people to grow into
different areas.
So you take the person and grow the person as fast as you
can, but you set the institution up to deal with this new
global threat that is completely different than when I started
this 30-something years ago.
And the way to get at that is to have the right set of
tools with the right set of intellectual capital and the right
set of creativity inside that intelligence system to be able to
deal equally with land component, maritime, special ops and the
interagency. So it is not just inside the Air Force; it is the
ballooning of opportunity out there and the ability to
interface and share.
I think we are doing a better job with this, and I think
this template is going to pay big benefits for us.
Mr. Turner. Good.
General Moseley. I know it will for the people, which for a
chief that is a critical piece, to take care of the people. And
so for a lieutenant to come into the intel world or a junior
enlisted person to come into the intel world and then go into
this new business that includes cyberspace, the strategic
threats and the ability to wrap up things like NACIC, this is
pretty exciting.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Turner.
General, would you say that the personnel in the Air Force
are being stretched and strained today?
General Moseley. Sir, I would say, yes, we are.
The Chairman. All right. You are stretched and strained
today, and you have loaned the United States Army 7,700 airmen;
is that right?
General Moseley. Yes, sir. And, for the most part, they
have given them back.
The Chairman. All of them?
General Moseley. Well, we have some that have transferred
to the Army but not many. But we have got most of our people--
--
The Chairman. How many out there are on loan to the Army
today?
General Moseley. Sir, to the exact number----
The Chairman. Give me your best judgment.
General Moseley. I think there is about 5,500 or 6,000,
somewhere like that.
The Chairman. Fifty-five hundred are still out there.
General Moseley. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. And you are asking for a reduction in numbers
in personnel of how much?
General Moseley. Forty thousand.
The Chairman. That bothers this country boy from Missouri,
because you are going to stretch them and strain them, 40,000
and 7,500 more; am I correct?
General Moseley. Yes, sir, but, remember, the reason that
we waded into this was to protect the investment accounts to
recapitalize an Air Force that----
The Chairman. No, I understand all that. I am talking about
the sergeant that is out there and he sees his brother being
led off to do Army duties and a cut is coming of 40,000. He is
going to say, ``My gosh, I am working as hard as I can now and
the corporals there with me are working as hard as they can
now. What do they expect?''
So explain to this sergeant why the 40,000 on top of the
7,500 is being taken away.
Secretary Wynne. Well, sir, we are down now----
The Chairman. Oh, no, no. I am asking the general.
Secretary Wynne. Oh, I am sorry.
General Moseley. Sir, we have some efficiencies in the
system that take up some of the 40,000, but that is not the
biggest number. We don't have fleets of people managing
vehicles. I mean, we have some efficiencies in the system that
help.
The new bomber will take less crew chiefs than the B-52s.
The C-5 and the C-17 are big differences, the F-22 and the F-15
are big differences. We deployed less stuff and less people,
but that is not the preponderance of the 40,000.
The Chairman. That is just going to be a small amount.
General Moseley. The 40,000 is to protect the investment
accounts.
The Chairman. Now, what in the world does that mean?
General Moseley. That means if we don't do anything, given
the top line that we have got, this Air Force will go from age
24, average, for the inventory to age 30 and then pretty soon
we won't be able to fly any of the broke airplanes.
The Chairman. So you are reducing numbers to get more new
airplanes.
General Moseley. The entire capital investment, sir--
spacecraft as well as aircraft and as well as ground equipment.
The Chairman. But that is why you are reducing the numbers,
to get things.
General Moseley. And to protect the depot accounts and to
protect the O&M accounts and to protect the quality of life on
the bases and to protect all of the things that we do as an Air
Force to be able to get underneath the physical guidance and
beneath the physical guidance in the topline. That is where we
had to go to keep the investment accounts healthy?
The Chairman. How much more strain will there be on the Air
Force sergeants in this world? If they are strained right now,
how much more are they going to be strained when you take
40,000 out and 7,500 are bled off to the Army?
General Moseley. Sir, we have got about a dozen stressed
AFSC, our Air Force Specialty Codes. Those are the most
stressed of all and those are the----
The Chairman. How do you unstress them?
General Moseley. The challenge here, in the case of the
PJs, we don't have enough PJs because the appetite for PJs is
so high and the school house is so long. You continue to
recruit PJs and train them as fast as you can, but you never
meet the appetite.
In some of our AFSCs that are stressed, we have 120 percent
of manning in the AFSC but we don't have seven levels and five
levels experienced crew chiefs, for instance. So part of this
is just aging the force. Part of this is experiencing the
force.
But, sir, we had to come off of the manpower to be able to
protect the money, to be able to protect the quality of life,
the depot accounts, the O&M accounts and the investments.
Now, the challenges that we will face here is when the Army
and the Marines grow. We don't yet know what that means,
because we have not seen the analysis and the breakout of the
brigade and regimental combat teams.
Because, sir, you know very well, we have a lot of people
that live with the land component. Our special ops folks, our
ETACs, our JTACs, our ASOS, ASOGs, our combat weather, combat
COMs, all of those people live out there with the Army, and so
if the Army brigade combat teams grow, these people will grow
in numbers. And so that is the part that we are going to spend
some time over the summer working close with the Army to see
where that takes us.
The Chairman. You are a potential Air Force recruit, and
you know of the stress and strain, and you know of the 7,500
bled off, and you know that the Air Force is going to shrink in
size. Don't you think that will have a chilling effect on this
bright, young high school graduate from joining?
General Moseley. Sir, that is a great question. Let me tell
you where we are right now. Of every 100 people that we contact
or that contact us to become an enlisted person in the Air
Force, we only take one. So we are fairly selective in this
business of entry into the Air Force.
So there is some opportunity out there that we don't avail
ourselves of. On the officer side, we only take 30 out of 100.
We have not had issues yet with recruiting nor have we had
issues with retention, because we spend a lot of time on
quality of life in our bases and where our families live and
where our people work, and we focus a lot of time on education
opportunities in PME so people can grow inside the profession.
But, sir, right now, we are only taking one out of 100, and
we have not lowered the recruiting standard. We have not
lowered anything about recruiting or about----
The Chairman. In other words, you are turning some of them
down.
General Moseley. We are turning 99 away for every one kid
we take to become an airman on the enlisted side.
The Chairman. How about your officer corps, your young
officer corps? How is ROTC doing? How is the Air Force Academy
doing? Are they coming and staying in?
General Moseley. Sir, for the most part, yes. Our retention
numbers--we are always going to have challenges with pilots, we
will always have challenges in some special engineering fields,
but for the most part, if you continue to produce somewhere
around 1,100 pilots a year, you will be okay. And we are moving
toward that magic number of 1,100.
The Chairman. I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, General
Moseley, for being with us today.
We have a series of votes now, and if there is no
objection, no further questions, appreciate it.
Secretary Wynne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Moseley. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:52 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
February 28, 2007
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 28, 2007
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 28, 2007
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ORTIZ
Mr. Ortiz. For those of us who are not pilots, now--what is a 10
percent reduction? What does it mean as far as hours? I mean, how many
hours do they--were training before? And the 10 percent means how many
hours of reduction? And what are the risks, if there is any risk
involved when you do that?
General Moseley. The 10% flying hour program reduction in the FY08
budget submission equated to 104,768 flying hours. Our analysis
indicates that 7.5% of the current 10% reduction is manageable within
low to medium risk categories. The remaining 2.5% of the reduction is
in a higher risk category. We continue to evaluate and assess the risk
incurred by reduction to the program in FY08 and will adjust future
budget positions based on that analysis.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER
Dr. Snyder. What was the specific cost-breach notification that you
gave us?
General Moseley. C-130 AMP declared a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach,
because the current Program Acquisition Unit Cost and Average
Procurement Unit Cost will exceed both the original Baseline Estimate
and current Baseline Estimate by more than 50%. C-130 AMP has
experienced increases in its unit cost as a result of significant cost
growth during the development portion of the program.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KLINE
Mr. Kline. What percent of utilization are you flying those 130Hs
at?
General Moseley. Sortie utilization (UTE) rate is defined as
'average sorties per month per aircraft', and in this case, includes
the entire C-130H inventory (Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve
Command, and Active Duty Air Force). In 2006 the C-130H sortie UTE rate
was 23.2--a 46.8% increase over the 2001 sortie UTE rate of 15.8. The
significant increase in C-130H UTE rate from 2001 to 2006 is directly
attributed to increase C-130H utilization in the CENTCOM AOR.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SAXTON
Mr. Saxton. I am interested in getting your perspective on whether
or not land should be transferred from one service to another, that is
number one, and number two is, how we can protect and maintain the
proper quality of life issues between and among the services.
General Moseley. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ABERCROMBIE
Mr. Abercrombie. The FY08 budget request once again does not
include funding for the JSF alternate engine program.
a) What advantage does the Air Force see to not having a JSF
engine competition?
b) Did the Air Force participate in any of the Congressionally-
mandated analyses in last year's authorization bill to support this
decision? If so, could the Committee review this analysis?
c) What amounts would be required to fund the alternate engine in
FY08 and in the FYDP? Why were these amounts deemed to be unaffordable
in FY08 and in the FYDP?
d) Is the alternative engine program proceeding as envisioned
with the use of FY07 funding until Congress acts on the FY08 budget?
e) What lessons were learned and what benefits resulted from the
F100 and F110 engine programs?
Secretary Wynne. a) Cancelling F136 development will save DOD $2B
through FY13. The AF portion of that savings would be $1B.
b) No, in accordance with the authorization bill language, the AF
did not participate in any of the Congressionally-mandated analyses
from last year's authorization bill. The bill specifically directed the
studies be done by OSD CAIG, the Comptroller General and a Federally
Funded Research & Development Center (FFRDC). OSD selected IDA as the
FFRDC.
c) F136 engine development would require $500M in FY08. USAF
portion would be $250M. F136 engine development would require $2B
between FY08 - FY13. AF portion of that would be $1B. Cancelling F136
development will save DOD $2B through FY13. The Department concluded
that a single engine supplier provides the best balance of risk and
cost and there were higher priorities in the constrained budget
environment.
d) Yes, the Department will continue to provide the funds
appropriated in the FY07 budget for the F136 program and called for in
the F136 systems development and demonstration contract, while Congress
is considering the FY08 request.
e) The lessons learned from the F100 and F110 engine programs
have been captured by three Congressionally-directed studies. The
studies all found intangible benefits to competition in general.
However, results also indicate that it will be difficult to achieve a
net return on the investment for an alternate engine. For example, the
Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) study determined that 8.8 billion
in constant FY06 dollars would be required to develop, maintain and
procure a second engine. $2.1 billion of this would occur in fiscal
years 2008-2012. They noted that offsetting this amount through savings
from competition would require a 40 percent savings rate in production
costs. Production savings of this magnitude appear implausible based on
savings of 11-18 percent achieved in historical engine competitions. If
Operating and Support (O&S) costs were effectively competed in addition
to procurement costs, the required savings rate would fall from 40
percent of procurement costs to 18 percent of total costs. Because the
Department of Defense has not typically linked procurement and O&S
costs in a single competition, IDA found no historical data with which
to estimate plausible O&S savings under such an acquisition strategy.
IDA assessed that competition can be expected to bring non-financial
benefits in the form of fleet readiness, contractor responsiveness, and
industrial base robustness.
The Department continues to believe that managing the risk with a
single engine supplier is the best use of the available resources.
Mr. Abercrombie. Two Joint Strike Fighters were requested in the
FY07 Supplemental budget to replace the combat losses of fighter
aircraft. Since, the JSF aircraft will not be available to the fleet
for several years, why are these aircraft not listed in the base budget
as they will not reach the Warfighter during the next fiscal year?
Secretary Wynne. This request is in accordance with DOD guidance
which allows the Services to request replacement of combat losses in
the supplemental. The request for two F-35A aircraft in the FY07
Supplemental is consistent with the Air Force's recapitalization effort
and the position of not procuring legacy platforms that are incapable
of surviving future conflicts.
Note: White House memo dated 9 March 2007 revised the FY07
Supplemental request by deleting the funding for the two F-35A aircraft
``to finance higher priority emerging global war on terror needs''.
Mr. Abercrombie. The Government Accountability Office (GAO)
sustained the bid protests of Sikorsky Aircraft Company and Lockheed
Martin Systems Integration-Oswego (LMSI) against the Air Force's award
of a contract to The Boeing Company, for the Combat Search and Rescue
Replacement Vehicle (CSAR-X). The solicitation provided that for
purposes of the source selection, cost/price would be calculated on the
basis of the Most Probable Life Cycle Cost (MPLCC), including both
contract and operations and support costs. GAO sustained the protest on
the basis that the Air Force's actual evaluation of MPLCC was
inconsistent with the required approach as set forth in the
solicitation.
Secretary Wynne. In its March 29 decision the GAO denied all of the
additional arguments raised by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin Systems
Integration, ``finding that none furnished an additional basis for
sustaining the protests.'' In response to the GAO's recommendation in
their February 26 decision the Air Force intends to amend the Request
for Proposals (RFP) to clarify its intent with respect to the
evaluation of Operations and Support (O&S) costs, reopen discussions
with offerors, and request revised proposals. If the evaluation of the
revised proposals results in a change to the CSAR-X Best Value Source
Selection decision, the Air Force will make
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MARSHALL
Mr. Marshall. The Air Force has initiated internal budget
reductions or budget shifting through Program Budget Decision 720 (PHD
720), that directly affects base operating structures (BOS) through the
elimination of fire protection positions. Do you feel that these fire
protection reductions will affect the Air Force's ability to adequately
respond and mitigate a catastrophic event that could occur at an Air
Force facility?
Secretary Wynne and General Moseley. The Air Force will retain its
capability to respond to emergencies IAW DOD Instructions. We have the
mandate to be able to respond to and manage a single major emergency
event. Our new resource levels will achieve that. Our former manning
for fire and emergency services was able to manage multiple emergencies
at a given time. We also will continue to mitigate fire risks by
ensuring our fire prevention and engineering programs remain intact.
Our facilities are designed to meet all Life Safety Code requirements.
We're confident that we are taking appropriate risk in managing our
resources. We have an outstanding record as it has been five years
since the Air Force has had a major fire event. We are proud of our
record and believe we can be more effective and efficient in providing
fire protection in support of our mission.
Mr. Marshall. A CONOPs, which the Air Force has produced,
demonstrates that the Air Force intends to rely heavily on outside
municipal resources for assistance in fire protection, rescue and
emergency medical service responsibilities for Air Force facilities as
part of the base operating structure reductions. Do you feet that the
Air Force has an inherent responsibility to provide adequate emergency
service response capability for the protection of Air Force assets and
personnel? Given the unique hazards of an AF base (combat aircraft,
weapons systems and complex research structures), should that
responsibility be levied on cash-strapped municipalities and States?
Secretary Wynne and General Moseley. The Air Force does indeed have
a mandated responsibility to provide adequate emergency service
response capability to protect our people and assets. This is a
responsibility we take seriously. Our new concept of operations will
staff our Fire & Emergency Services, including rescue, to handle a
major event IAW DOD Instructions.
The new Fire Emergency Services Concept of Operations does not rely
on non-Air Force resources to provide fire protection and rescue at
required levels. We have had in place Mutual Aid Agreements between
local municipalities and Air Force bases to ensure shared capability is
identified for unpredictable catastrophic events. These existing mutual
aid agreements were not factored into the new concept as far as
personnel and equipment levels. The mutual aid agreements however
continue to be an effective tool in managing both on and off base
resources for large events.
The fundamental premise of the staffing reductions is that Air
Force fire departments have more resources than they require based on
DOD Instruction and actual fire emergency response data. Those excess
positions can be reduced with no quantifiable risk to Air Force people
and property. There is no shift in responsibility for fire protection
to external entities. Regarding Emergency Medical Services, Air Force
bases routinely contract with local providers for all service beyond
Air Force capability at that location. This arrangement is compensated
and not based on Mutual Aid Agreements.
Mr. Marshall. These reductions, regarding fire and emergency
services also appear to directly affect the Air Force's capability to
affect an aircraft rescue or mitigate an aircraft incident. A review of
the CONOPs shows that the AF will reduce staffing on aircraft
firefighting vehicles from three (3) personnel to two (2). This appears
to conflict with DOD requirements (DOD instruction DOD 6055.6) which
establishes that such vehicles will be staffed with three (3)
personnel. Does the Air Force intend to violate DOD Policy regarding
these reductions?
Secretary Wynne and General Moseley. The CONOPS defines the most
probably major fire emergency involving aircraft. Revised Air Force
manpower standards will provide the authorizations to deliver this
level of service. The CONOPS does not reduce manpower on any fire
fighting vehicles. The number of firefighters required on fire vehicles
is determined by the incident commander. DODI 6055.06, Fire and
Emergency Services Program, does not prescribe the number of
firefighters required on specific vehicles. This document addresses
``fire companies'' which can include multiple vehicles for the required
company firefighters. The Air Force fully conforms to DODI 6055.06
today and will continue to do so after the PBD 720 reductions are
executed.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. GIFFORDS
Ms. Giffords. The Air Force budget submission requests $69.2
million for the A-b Wing Replacement Program. However, the Air Force's
Unfunded Priority List includes an additional $37.5 million for Fiscal
Year 2008, to purchase six additional wings. Close Air Support is one
of the Air Force's most important combat missions in Iraq and
Afghanistan. What degree of risk does slowing the rate of A-10
recapitalization create for the Close Air Support mission, given the
planned expansion of the Army and the Marine Corps?
Secretary Wynne and General Moseley. [The information referred to
is classified and retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Giffords. Does the Air Force consult with the Army and Marine
Corps when making budget decisions that could affect the availability
of air support for ground troops? If so, what was the Army and Marine
Corps reaction to your budget decision? If not, why not?
General Moseley. The Air Force takes its responsibility very
seriously to provide timely and effective air, space and information
support to meet Combatant Commander requirements of which US and
Coalition land forces are one of the integral warfighting components.
As a member of the Combatant Commander's warfighting team, today's land
forces require close air support aircraft and supporting personnel,
persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, secure
satellite communications, and inter-/intra-theater airlift all provided
by the US Air Force. Our staff works diligently to balance all of these
requirements within our available obligation authorization to provide
the best balance of trained and equiped forces today and in the future.
The Air Force is a key member of the Joint close air support
executive steering committee that reports to the Joint Requirements
Oversight Council (JROC), ensuring the Services establish a joint
position for the future of close air support operations. These vetted
requirements are used to guide and influence budget decisions, but
there are more requirements than funding available. Each Service then
balances funding and risk to best optimize their force mix and provide
capability to support the National Military Strategy and Combatant
Commanders.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. CASTOR
Ms. Castor. How does the United States monitor other countries'
procurement and development of air systems? What do we know?
Secretary Wynne. A key National Air and Space Intelligence Center
(NASIC) mission is to establish future aerospace force assessments.
This mission prevents technological surprise through research,
development, and acquisition analysis and forecast assessments. These
assessments are derived from manpower, equipment, material, processes
and facilities analysis for key strategic countries. In addition, NASIC
assesses on-going air system developments worldwide to ensure current
warfighters are constantly appraised of the foreign state-of-the art
available to any potential adversary. These technical assessments build
on the aerospace force assessment and provide detailed capabilities and
performance estimates for planning and tactics development, as well as
specific requirements for US weapons systems acquisition programs.
NASIC uses all sources of intelligence to derive these assessments.
Our primary intelligence monitoring sources are: Imagery Intelligence
(IMINT), Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT),
Measurement and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT), and Open Source
Intelligence (OSINT). These sources provide a foundation to monitor,
understand and identify trends in air and aircraft weapon systems
research, development and acquisition (RDA) processes. The sources also
help identify air system programs and resources. NASIC collaborates
with the entire Intelligence Community (IC) to develop and maintain
intelligence collection requirements. These are driven by target
country doctrine and strategy. The analyses from these sources yield
assessments on a country's strategy and capabilities for weapon systems
development and procurement. The assessments include forecasts of when
key air systems will become operational, i.e., reach their initial
operational capability (IOC). NASIC also conducts analysis on overall
trends in a country's investment in its weapons research, development,
test, and evaluation resources.
NASIC has successfully forecast and accurately assessed strategic
countries' procurement and development of leading air systems. In
addition we produce original scientific & technical intelligence on the
characteristics, capabilities, limitations, and exploitable
vulnerabilities of foreign air systems. This intelligence is in support
of current and future warfighters and national policymakers.
Ms. Castor. What is the Air Force doing to facilitate the use of
alternative fuel?
Secretary Wynne. The Air Force intends to test and certify a
synthetic fuel blend in the entire aircraft fleet by 2010.
Currently, we are completing the testing of the synthetic fuel
blend in the B-52, with certification expected by the end of the 2007.
In addition, we are working with the Federal Aviation Administration
and the commercial airline industry (Commercial Aviation Alternative
Fuels Initiative - CAAFI) to test and certify the use of synthetic
fuels in high-bypass engines by 2009. Since the commercial airline
industry uses 85% of the jet fuel in the U.S. and the Air Force uses
the same type engines on our transport and refueling aircraft, we feel
it is prudent to work together to facilitate the use of synthetic
fuels.
The Air Force goal is to acquire 50% of our domestic aviation fuel
from domestic sources producing a synthetic fuel blend by 2016. It is
our intent to procure synthetic fuels from sources that have carbon
capture and sequestration (CCS) technology and equipment in order to
greatly reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Ms. Castor. What is the most consequential impact to the Air Force
of airmen and airwoman being assigned in lieu of (ILO) ground force
tasks?
Secretary Wynne. Airmen supporting US Central Command's ILO
requirements predominantly serve in their core competencies and receive
valuable combat experience in doing so. Approximately 80% of Airmen
serve in core skill sets. The remaining 20% perform ILO tasks outside
of their core competency and require extensive additional training.
These represent the most consequential impact. These areas are
comprised of interrogator and Detainee Operations specialists. The Air
Force does not possess an interrogator specialty which requires tasking
Airmen to attend 6 months of training before deploying to the combat
zone. These disposable skill sets require Airmen to leave their primary
career fields for up to 18 months. Detainee Operations requirements
have similar consequences in that the specific skills, taught by the
Army to execute the Detainee Operations mission, are not required by
Airmen on return to their bases.
The Air Force is aggressively pursuing options to limit Airmen
performing duties outside their core competency. Currently, all Airmen
interrogator requirements are eliminated and an ongoing initiative is
shifting Airmen from Detainee Operations requirements to missions more
in line with Security Forces specific skill sets. Ultimately we will
continue to work with our joint partners to ensure we provide the best
military solution for the Combatant Commander.
Ms. Castor. Please detail the strengths and weaknesses in the Air
Force Reserve and Air National Guard's ability to contribute to
national responses if the nation is hit by a natural or catastrophic
event.
Secretary Wynne. Reserve: The Air Force Reserve is able to respond
immediately to an event because we train to one-tier of readiness. We
are bound only by the availability of Military Personnel and Operation
and Maintenance funds.
Air National Guard: Thirty-Four percent of our air and space force
capability is resident in the Air National Guard. Each day,
approximately 16,000 Air National Guard members are supporting
continental air defense, another 5,000 are mobilized or deployed and
they continue to provide a critical surge capability for the Air Force.
They not only protect America's skies, but also provide critical skills
for domestic operations: airlift, air traffic control, weather,
medical, communications, civil engineers, security forces, aerial
firefighting systems, and many other capabilities. All of these
capabilities are ``dual use'' capabilities derived from the Air
National Guard's federal role.
The Air National Guard's 177 locations are spread across 54 states
and territories and, unless deployed away from home, members live and
work near their units. If one area of the country is hit with a natural
or catastrophic event, the other areas quickly respond, as they did in
their historic response to Hurricane's Katrina and Rita. This response
is rapid and agile but can be difficult to coordinate.
Our adaptable airmen have overcome challenges brought on by a
piecemeal approach to how we present capability to the governors and
domestic responders. The bottom line is there is a lack of identified
requirements to allow the Air Force to adequately plan and allocate
resources. While this can easily be misunderstood as a Department of
Defense problem, this issue crosses many agencies and departments.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MEEHAN
Mr. Meehan. I would like to complement the United States Air Force
for their excellent work in protecting our troops by providing
ballistic armor in all C-130 and C-17 transport aircraft. I know this
has been essential to safe operation in many theatres including Iraq an
Afghanistan. I note with great interest that the Air Force, through its
unfunded priorities list, has now placed high priority on procuring and
installing the same add-on armor on the C-5 aircraft. It's my
understanding that some initial work is being done to procure the first
few such armor kits. I would like to understand your plans for
outfitting the full fleet as quickly as possible to ensure that the C-5
crews have the same protection the Air Force has always provided for C-
17 and C-130 crews.
Secretary Wynne. Thank you for your interest in the protection of
our aircrews and the protective armor needed to help assure their
safety. The Air Force Reserve has allocated $2.5M in order to procure
11 kits for aircraft assigned to Westover. The AF has requested an
additional $18.5M to procure the remaining 100 kits to outfit the total
force fleet via the 2008 Unfunded Priority List. If these funds are
appropriated, the vendor has demonstrated the capability to deliver.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. EVERETT
Mr. Everett. General Moseley, I know how important educational
opportunities are in the recruitment and retention of a high quality
force. But I understand that the current language in the National
Defense Authorization Act hinders your ability to offer some of the
educational programs you would like to see at Air University at Maxwell
AFB in Alabama. What changes would you recommend to this language and
why is this important?
Secretary Wynne. A change in congressional language would make our
professional military education programs more responsive to our
emerging GWOT requirements. We see a need for Bachelors Degree for
Enlisted Airmen, a hybrid resident and distance learning Master's
Degree for young officers, a Master's Degree in Flight Test Engineering
for the Test Pilot School, and a PhD for a few officers in Strategic
Studies. All these programs are beyond our authority under the current
language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We could be
more responsive if the Commander of Air University had the authority to
grant these degrees and others we might identify in the future.
This is not a request for funding . . . just a request to pursue
better educational opportunity for our people, and to increase our
intellectual throw weight in the tactical, operational and strategic
levels of discourse regarding the role of an Air Force in the affairs
of the nation.
Mr. Everett. I was please to see last Fall that the Air Force stood
up a Cyberspace Command with the mission of providing freedom of access
to cyberspace. Within this command, I am particularly interested in the
work the Air Force is doing in the area of network security. How does
both network and application security fit into the overall construct of
the mission of the new Cyberspace Command? Do you feel as though you
have adequate resources to address the threat to our networks and
applications?
Secretary Wynne. A change in congressional language would make our
professional military education programs more responsive to our
emerging GWOT requirements. We see a need for Bachelors Degree for
Enlisted Airmen, a hybrid resident and distance learning Master's
Degree for young officers, a Master's Degree in Flight Test Engineering
for the Test Pilot School, and a PhD for a few officers in Strategic
Studies. All these programs are beyond our authority under the current
language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We could be
more responsive if the Commander of Air University had the authority to
grant these degrees and others we might identify in the future.
This is not a request for funding . . . just a request to pursue
better educational opportunity for our people, and to increase our
intellectual throw weight in the tactical, operational and strategic
levels of discourse regarding the role of an Air Force in the affairs
of the nation.
Mr. Everett. As you know, the force structure of the Air Force
Reserve is being affected by a variety of factors, including BRAC, the
Air Force's Total Force Initiative, and Program Budget Decision 720,
which eliminates 7,655 positions. One issue of particular concern to me
is inactive duty training (IDT). What steps are being taken to ensure
that the Air Force Reserve component have the authority they to ensure
that reservists are receiving the training that they need?
Secretary Wynne. At this time the Air Force Reserve (AFR) is
meeting all training requirements. As requirements evolve, we will make
necessary adjustments, including seeking legislative relief, if
necessary.
Mr. Everett. Given China's January 11th test of an anti-satellite
weapon-the first antisatellite test in over 20 years, a) What new
capabilities or additional resources are needed to counter this threat
and address other growing threats to space? b) In your testimony, space
situational awareness (SSA) is a top priority yet for two key SSA
programs, Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) and the Space Fence,
the Air Force has requested $46 million less than expected in fiscal
year 2008. Furthermore, funding of space control technology,
counterspace systems, and SSA systems and operations comprises roughly
$300 million in FY 2008. Is this funding adequate given the overall
investment in space and growing threats to space? c) As threat to space
and operations in space increase, so too will the need for a robust
space intelligence capability. How does the Air Force plan to address
this requirement? d) To what extent will the Chinese test and other
emerging threats to space change the DOD's investment priorities in
space? Furthermore, to what extent will this drive us to different
types of systems and capabilities, or a different space architecture?
Secretary Wynne. The Air Force recognizes space control as a top
priority and is placing a greater emphasis on Space Situation Awareness
(SSA), space command and control, and space protection. One of the key
elements of a robust SSA effort is the ability to integrate SSA data
and enhance space command and control. In the FY08 President's Budget,
the Air Force has added funds for a new program called Space Situation
Awareness Foundational Enterprise (SSAFE), which will ensure the right
processing and connectivity behind the sensors to support the timely,
correct decision making necessary to counter emerging threats.
The budget for SSA and space control is adequate relative to the
threat and the Air Force's overall investment strategy. The Air Force's
top SSA priority in the FY08 President's Budget was to maintain the
continuity of current capabilities. To that end, funding for Space
Based Surveillance System (SBSS) Block 10, which will supplant the
Space-Based Visible as the primary space-based SSA sensor, was
increased to ensure that system is launched in FY09.
The Department of Defense (DOD) is addressing requirement for a
robust space intelligence capability by improving the capabilities of
the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), the primary DOD
producer of foreign aerospace intelligence. Specifically, NASIC is
adding resources to collect/process/evaluate open source and classified
literature/material necessary to exploit and integrate available
intelligence to increase awareness of foreign space/counterspace
capabilities and predict intent. The increase in and acceleration of
emerging threats in space validated the DOD's increased emphasis on
developing a capability to rapidly launch and deploy satellites to
surge capability or reconstitute lost or damaged satellites. In the
FY08 President's Budget, the Air Force significantly increased funding
for the Operationally Responsive Space program to demonstrate the
ability to develop and launch Tactical Satellites (TacSat). The first
TacSat was successfully launched in December 2006 and two more launches
are planned for 2007.
Mr. Everett. A topic of considerable focus over the last few years
has been the relationship between ``black and white'' space. What areas
of cooperation and/or integration between ``black and white'' space do
you see as valuable? What are your plans to further black and white
space integration?
Secretary Wynne. Integration and partnership across Department of
Defense (DOD) and the Intelligence Community is essential for providing
the nation with effective and efficient space capabilities to support
national security activities; the Air Force is committed to fostering
this relationship.
There is value added to any activity that pursues efforts to
maximize the partnership and integration between the Intelligence and
Defense communities, particularly ``black'' and ``white'' space. The
NSSO is following the highly successful Transformational Communication
Architecture with development of architectures for Position,
Navigation, and Timing; Space Control; and Intelligence, Surveillance,
and Reconnaissance.
Integration efforts include building architectures, Concepts of
Operations, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR),
Communications, Launch and Ranges, S&T, Specifications and Standards,
Industrial Base, CADRE, Acquisition processes and lessons learned,
relations with other Civil Agencies, and joint operations where
possible.
Joint forums between the Air Force and NRO afford the opportunity
to coordinate and share across the National Security Space enterprise.
As we look towards future integration of black and white space,
collaborative efforts such as the Space Partnership Council allows for
senior space leadership in the DOD, civil, and intelligence communities
to discuss issues of mutual interest. The council meets about three
times a year; example topics include Space Situational Awareness, Space
Control, Space Acquisitions, Space Professional Development, Space
Launch,
Mr. Everett. The Committee noticed that Space Radar funding is now
classified and reflects a change in funding from an Air Force program
line to a Military Intelligence Program (MIP) line. What motivated the
change in funding sources for the Space Radar? What ramifications will
this have on system development, program management, and cost sharing
between the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community? What is
the status of the DODIC memorandum of agreement currently in revision?
Secretary Wynne. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)
directed the movement of Space Radar funds from the Air Force Military
Intelligence Program (MIP) to the NRO MIP. This movement has occurred.
These funds remain under the jurisdiction of the DOD, to be applied to
the Space Radar Program. In concert with this movement, OSD and the
Office of the Director of Intelligence (ODNI) have developed a cost-
sharing budget agreement for FY 2008-13 as demonstrated in the FY08
President's Budget (PB) submission. The movement of these funds does
not affect Space Radar system development or program management. A
draft Memorandum of Agreement between the Deputy Secretary of Defense
and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence is in final
coordination and documents the Space Radar cost-sharing agreement. It
also establishes the framework for Space Radar program management and
oversight as a joint OSD and ODNI program. Final cost sharing for the
production effort in FY14 and beyond is to be determined in the FY 2009
PB submission. Space Radar continues to be the single, shared space
radar capability for the nation. Support for both the MIP and the
National Intelligence Program funding lines is important so we can
maintain DOD and the Intelligence Community synchronization on the
program.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HAYES
Mr. Hayes. General Moseley and Secretary Wynne, I want to ask you
both about how you are going to handle the $15 billion contract for the
CSAR-X Combat Search and Rescue helicopters. The General Accountability
Office has just called the winning bid ``inconsistent'' with the
requirements spelled out in the Request for Proposal. The GAO is very
impartial, and they found in their recent ruling regarding award of
CSAR-X that flaws in the initial RFP and procurement process are
serious enough that the Air Force should re-issue a corrected RFP,
solicit updated proposals, and hold new evaluations of the offered
proposals. GAO rarely upholds protests, and has never upheld a protest
of a program of this magnitude, so it is important for the Air force to
follow through on this ruling. In light of the GAO upholding the CSAR-X
protest, what is the Air Force's plan to go forward with the CSAR-X
procurement?
Secretary Wynne. In its March 29 decision the GAO denied all of the
additional arguments raised by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin Systems
Integration, ``finding that none furnished an additional basis for
sustaining the protests.'' In response to the GAO's recommendation in
their February 26 decision the Air Force intends to amend the Request
for Proposals (RFP) to clarify its intent with respect to the
evaluation of Operations and Support (O&S) costs, reopen discussions
with offerors, and request revised proposals. If the evaluation of the
revised proposals results in a change to the CSAR-X Best Value Source
Selection decision, the Air Force will make any necessary changes in
the contract award decision.
Mr. Hayes. How will the Air Force address the need to procure the
right aircraft for the warfighter and the CSAR mission?
Secretary Wynne. From program inception, Air Force Combat Search
and Rescue (CSAR) personnel, including experienced aircrew and
maintainers, have been involved in every step of this acquisition. We
have a moral obligation to deliberately and expeditiously deliver the
Combat Search and Rescue capability the warfighter needs to protect
those who are in the fight today, and in the future, in operations
around the world. The Air Force operational and acquisition communities
will continue to work as a team to procure and field the best possible
aircraft for our warfighters.
Mr. Hayes. I am concerned by recent statements from the Air Force
indicating that because of the need to get a new rescue aircraft into
the field quickly, the Air Force is willing to proceed with the
intention of ``narrowly'' interpret this GAO decision. How and why do
you intend to do so? Fielding a system quickly is important, but most
important is choosing the best platform to support the warfighter. In
your selection process, will fielding a system quickly take precedence?
Secretary Wynne. In its March 29 decision the GAO denied all of the
additional arguments raised by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin Systems
Integration, ``finding that none furnished an additional basis for
sustaining the protests.'' In response to the GAO's recommendation in
their February 26 decision the Air Force intends to amend the Request
for Proposals (RFP) to clarify its intent with respect to the
evaluation of Operations and Support (O&S) costs, reopen discussions
with offerors, and request revised proposals. In evaluating the
responses to the RFP amendment, the Air Force will continue to apply an
integrated Best Value assessment, which considers Mission Capability,
Proposal Risk, Past Performance, and Cost/Price evaluation factors. If
the evaluation of the revised proposals results in a change to the
CSAR-X Best Value Source Selection decision, the Air Force will make
any necessary changes in the contract award decision. The Air Force
remains committed to a fair, open and transparent process while working
to resolve this protest. Additionally, we have an obligation to
deliberately and expeditiously deliver the Combat Search and Rescue
capability the warfighter needs.
Mr. Hayes. Can you assure the committee that the Air Force will
take the proper steps to assure the GAO ruling is followed, including
their suggestion of a re-bid? Can you assure us that proposals will be
re-evaluated?
Secretary Wynne. In its March 29 decision the GAO denied all of the
additional arguments raised by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin Systems
Integration, ``finding that none furnished an additional basis for
sustaining the protests.'' In response to the GAO's recommendation in
their February 26 decision the Air Force intends to amend the Request
for Proposals (RFP) to clarify its intent with respect to the
evaluation of Operations and Support (O&S) costs, reopen discussions
with offerors, and request revised proposals. If the evaluation of the
revised proposals results in a change to the CSAR-X Best Value Source
Selection decision, the Air Force will make any necessary changes in
the contract award decision.
Mr. Hayes. Are you planning a thorough requirements review or will
cost be the only area you are going to examine?
Secretary Wynne. The Air Force is not planning an additional review
of the CSAR-X Capability Development Document (CDD) requirements. The
Air Force did a thorough review of CSAR-X requirements when the CSAR-X
CDD went to the Air Force Requirements for Operational Capability
Council (AFROCC), en route to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council
(JROC) where the CSAR-X CDD was validated on 16 Aug 05. The Air Force
intends to comply with the GAO's February 26 Recommendation by amending
the Request for Proposals (RFP) to clarify its intent with respect to
the evaluation of Operations and Support (O&S) costs, reopen
discussions with offerors, and request revised proposals. If the
evaluation of the revised proposals results in a change to the CSAR-X
Best Value Source Selection, the Air Force will make any necessary
changes in the contract award decision.
Mr. Hayes. Was the lowest cost helicopter in the original CSAR-X
competition the one which was selected?
Secretary Wynne. The CSAR-X source selection decision was based on
an integrated assessment using Best Value source selection criteria.
The Best Value selection criteria included Mission Capability, Proposal
Risk, Past Performance and Cost/Price factors. As reported in the 26
Feb 07 GAO decision document for public release, Lockheed Martin had
the lowest evaluated Most Probable Life Cycle Cost under the Cost/Price
factor.
Mr. Hayes. Also, it is my understanding that CSAR pilots and users
were not closely included in the source selection process and in the
selection committee. I am especially concerned that the initial
platform chosen was questioned by numerous analysts and CSAR crews for
this particular mission. Moving forward will CSAR pilots and users'
concerns and input be given thorough consideration? How so?
Secretary Wynne. From program inception, Air Force Combat Search
and Rescue (CSAR) personnel, including experienced aircrew and
maintainers, have been involved in every step of this acquisition, as
well as participating as members of the source selection team and
source selection advisory council. The development of CSAR-X
requirements was led by Air Force pilots, aircrew, and support
personnel who have flown demanding CSAR missions, maintained the HH-
60G, and supported CSAR operations in austere locations around the
world. As we move forward with the CSAR-X program, CSAR aircrew and
support personnel will continue to play a vital role in its
acquisition, development, testing and fielding.
Mr. Hayes. Have any of the helicopters in the CSAR-X competition
been used for rescue in Afghanistan or Iraq? Which ones? How did they
perform?
Secretary Wynne. Variants of the H-47 and EH-101 have been deployed
to Iraq or Afghanistan. While these platforms provide an inherent
rescue capability associated with any helicopter, to the best of our
knowledge they are not dedicated to Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR).
The Air Force is the only service within the Department of Defense to
provide dedicated forces conducting the CSAR mission. The fact these
forces are dedicated is critical as it ensures CSAR is always available
and not delayed.
Mr. Hayes. How ``survivable'' is the original contest winner in a
high threat area? Why do you see it as the best helicopter for the CSAR
mission?
Secretary Wynne. The Capability Development Document (CDD) is based
on rigorous mission analysis and its development aided by combat
experienced HH-60G CSAR operators and maintainers. The CDD outlines the
required key performance parameters, key system attributes, and
attributes to include survivability needed for the CSAR-X aircraft. The
H-47 variant proposed by Boeing meets or exceeds all requirements as
set forth in the CDD.
Mr. Hayes. Are any of the helicopters in the competition being used
as rescue helicopters by any of our major allies? If so, which ones?
Secretary Wynne. While our allies may be deploying variants of the
H-47, S-92 and US-101 as a vertical lift platform with the inherent
rescue capability associated with any helicopter, to the best of our
knowledge they are not dedicated to Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR).
The Air Force is the only service within the Department of Defense to
provide dedicated forces conducting the CSAR mission. The fact these
forces are dedicated is critical as it ensures CSAR is always available
and not delayed.
Mr. Hayes. Do you think that the current situation is a result of
an ``era of protests'' caused by declining defense programs or is it a
reflection of a poorly executed acquisition?
Secretary Wynne. The CSAR-X acquisition is not indicative of
problems within the Air Force acquisition system. The Air Force is
employing and remains committed to fair, open and transparent
acquisition processes.
Mr. Hayes. Since this is the first major acquisition since the Air
Force received its acquisition authority from OSD, is this executed
acquisition indicative of any problems or flaws with the Air Force
acquisition system?
Secretary Wynne. No, the CSAR-X acquisition is not indicative of
problems within the Air Force acquisition system. The Air Force is
employing and remains committed to fair, open and transparent
acquisition processes.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MILLER
Mr. Miller. The first RAND study will be issued 31 March. I am
concerned that the study will not address the 2005 BRAG finding, now
law, that Eglin is an RDT&E center of excellence. Mr. Chairman, with
your permission I would like to submit the DOD and BRAC commission
comments on Eglin Air Force Base's military value and will not read
them now. SECDEF quote from BRAC report: ``http://www.brac.gov/
finalreport.htmt'' Eglin is one of three core integrated weapons and
armaments RDAT&E centers (with China Lake, CA, and Redstone Arsenal,
AL) with high MV and the largest concentration of integrated technical
facilities across all three functional areas. Eglin AEB has a full
spectrum array of Weapons & Armaments (W&A) Research, Development &
Acquisition, and Test & Evaluation (RDAT&E) capabilities. Accordingly,
relocation of Hill AFB and DTRA NCR W&A capabilities will further
complement and strengthen Eglin as a full spectrum W&A RDAT&E Center.
``Commission findings htm://www.brac.gov/finalreport.html'' The
Commission found merit in DOD's proposal to create a fullipectrum
capability at Eglin for Weapons and Armaments, and found no reason to
disagree with the Secretary's recommendation. The Commission carefully
examined the justification for the Secretary's recommendation to
transfer in-service engineering responsibilities for research,
development and acquisition, test and evaluation from FUII Air Force
Base to Eglin Air Force Base, and found it would enhance long-term
military value. ``Do you agree with the BRAC law, and if not, what does
the Air Force intend to do to implement its desired Test and Evaluation
plan while still complying with the law?
General Moseley. The Air Force Cost-Benefit analysis required by
the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Appropriations Act will be delivered to
Congress no later than 30 April 2007. The Air Force will comply with
BRAC law and will implement the Secretary of Defense's recommendation
to relocate Weapons and Armaments In-Service Engineering Research,
Development and Acquisition, and Test and Evaluation from Hill Air
Force Base to Eglin Air Force Base.
Mr. Miller. As a result of PBD 720, the Air Force proposed
realigning a portion of its Test & Evaluation capability and divesting
itself of other capabilities, in order to generate future cost savings.
The Air Force is currently conducting a cost benefit analysis mandated
by Congress in the FY07 National Defense Authorization and the Defense
Appropriations Acts, prior to implementing such a plan. We have been
told that the target date for the final assessment is June 2008,
although the assessment might be delivered as early as December 2007.
Likewise, most of the cuts to Air Force T&E in the FY08 and FY09 budget
were restored, pending the results of the cost benefit analysis. Can
you assure this committee that the Air Force will maintain funding of
its T&E infrastructure at least through the budget submission for FY10,
which is the budget submission after the cost benefit analysis is
completed? Also, we have been told that there is an additional study
underway by the RAND Corporation to assess the infrastructure and
staffing required to support Air Force Test & Evaluation. One could
assume that this study might find that additional infrastructure or
staffing is required. Has the study been constrained in any way to
simply look for cuts within the T&E enterprise?
General Moseley. The Air Force is faced with budget challenges,
continuous combat operations, and the need to reconstitute the force.
This has resulted in the Air Force considering all options available to
maximize efficiencies. This includesoptimizing the Test and Evaluation
infrastructure. The Air Force is engaged in several studies, including
a RAND study, to assist the Air Force with this effort. The RAND study
was not constrained to only identifying cuts within the T&E enterprise
and appropriate funding will be allocated to support optimizing the
Test and Evaluation infrastructure.
Mr. Miller. With the average aircraft age currently at 24 years, I
know you're concerned about modernizing and/or replacing many
airframes. Are you comfortable with the state of our C-130 center wing
boxes and our C-130 Fleet overall and second do you feel the budget
request was large enough? Do you believe AC-130U operational tempo has
accelerated fatigue damage to center wing over the previous
projections?
General Moseley. First, let me say we are confident the current
restriction/grounding limitations and center wing box replacement
program have effectively mitigated the risks that center wing fatigue
damage has on the C-130 fleet. The Air Force budget request is
sufficient to address the immediate needs for the Center Wing
Replacement (CWR) program. However as pointed out, the increase in
flying hours of the AC-130U in support of the war on terrorism has
accelerated the need to replace AC-130U Center Wing Boxes from FY12 as
originally scheduled to FY10, requiring purchase of AC-130U Center Wing
kits in FY08 in lieu of those programmed for the C-130H fleet.
Mr. Miller. The Air Force has been designated lead service for the
Joint SOF/CSAR Recapitalization Program and will procure and field
basic aircraft, common support equipment and trainers for USSOCOM. It
is my understanding that the acquisition strategy is currently under
review and a materiel solution has not been determined. Additionally,
the Joint SOF/CSAR tanker recapitalization ICE was approved by the JROC
on 18 Oct 06 and a report to Congress provided in FY06. What is the
status of the additional report to accelerate SOF tanker recap due in
FY07? Do you feel the Joint SOF/CSAR Recapitalization Program is on
schedule?
General Moseley. The HC/MC-130 Recapitalization Program is
progressing well. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council validated
the Initial Capabilities Document (ICD) in Oct 06, and OUSD(PA&E)
graded our Analysis of Alternatives as ``Sufficient'' in Feb 07 and
recommended recapitalizing Air Combat Command's HC-130P/N and Air Force
Special Operations Command's MC-130Es and MC-130Ps with new modified,
medium transport aircraft. We anticipate Joint Staff review and
validation of the Capabilities Development Document in May, which would
meet our target date. Meanwhile, Aeronautical Systems Center is
conducting market research to determine the best strategy for HC/MC-130
Recapitalization. That determination will be made in the May - Jun 07
timeframe.
USSOCOM and Air Force are preparing a response to the FY07 NDAA
HASC Report request regarding ``U.S. Special Operations Command
Aviation Modernization.'' We anticipate the report will be submitted by
the end of Apr 07.
Mr. Miller. It's my understanding that the President's Budget
Request for fiscal year 2008 includes $49 million for repairs to Santa
Rosa Island Range Facilities. I'm very happy to see this and was
disappointed OMB removed the $169 million the DOD submitted in one of
last year's supplementals since the hurricane damage was not Katrina
related. What is the Air Force's plan to ensure that at least $169
million is provided to this island which protects all of Eglin Air
Force Base and much of the community?
Secretary Wynne. The Air Force is committed to restore full access
and protection of critical test capabilities at Santa Rosa Island Range
Complex test sites. The construction funds are needed to construct
seawalls, repair roads, and restore the land mass. We have included two
projects totalling $84.0 million in the FY08 President's Budget;
Construct Seawalls ($35.0 million) and Repair Roads ($49.0 million).
The third project, Land Mass Restorations is tentativly programmed in
the FY10 MILCON program at $38.0 million. This project was deferred to
FY10 because of need for full environmental assessment study. In
addition, we have programmed $13.0 million for design of these three
projects. The total cost for restoring the test capability at Santa
Rosa Island Range Complex is about $135.0 million. This is less than
the original estimated cost of $169.0 million.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. GINGREY
Dr. Gingrey. Mr. Secretary, we certainly understand the need for
efficient and effective aircraft that meet the warfighter's needs. As
you know, I support both the C-17 and C-5 programs. You previously
testified that selective C-5A retirements would allow you to save
excessive maintenance money and buy new C-17s. Considering that the O&S
costs of a C-5 and C-17 (on an annualized per aircraft basis) are very
similar, what analysis has the AF done which suggests that this is
fiscally advantageous? It is true that C-5A/Bs today have a higher per
flying hour cost than C-17's, but when one measures the amount of cargo
carried by both aircraft, the cost of delivered cargo (cost-per-ton-
mile) are remarkably similar between the aircraft. In fact, modernized
C-5Ms will have a significant advantage over the C-17 in terms of cost-
per-ton-mile, and the investment will pay for itself. The Year 2005
USAF estimates of modernization O&S reductions were $20.4B BY00$ or
$49.8B TY$ which did not include an additionally anticipated $2B in
fuel savings. Reduced Total Ownership Costs (O&S savings - investment)
is $11.48 BY00$ or $38.2B TY$. RERP pays for itself while generating
an extra $38B TY$s to support AF recapitalization of other priority
programs in the future, such as space, tankers and fighters that you
mentioned. Even the AF's own C-5 Fleet Viability Board took a look at
C-5 O&S costs and concluded they were not out of line with other heavy
aircraft, considering the size and cargo carrying capability of the C-
5. Consequently, it does not appear that the AF's argument to trade C-
5s (with decades of service life remaining) for C-17 has any fiscal
advantage, nor generates a significant operational effect. In fact, it
seems much more prudent to apply the cost of a single C-17 toward
modernizing 3 C-5s, which provide 6 times the cargo capacity. Why
should Congress support replacement of C-5s with C-17s when there
appears to be no compelling reason to do so?
Secretary Wynne. Ongoing evaluation of the RERP program has brought
previous estimates of cost savings into question. The assumptions that
led to predictions of $11.4B in cost savings through 2040 did not
account for the recently identified cost pressures associated with
engines, pylons, and touch labor. The Air Force is currently engaged in
a detailed cost estimating effort to establish a service cost position
for C-5 RERP. This detailed cost estimate is forecast to complete by
July 2007.
A robust, modernized C-5 fleet is a force multiplier, carrying
roughly twice the palletized payload of a C-17 and is the only aircraft
that can carry certain cargo. This enables the C-17 fleet to fully
exploit its unique multi-role, aeromedical, airdrop, special-operations
and austere airfield capabilities (short/unimproved airfields, direct
delivery). It is clear that we need both. The three RERP aircraft
currently in flight test are performing well. Outside of RERP testing,
there are other legacy aircraft issues emerging, which will also need
to be addressed. No modernization program can address everything. As we
see with all our aging aircraft, unforeseeable issues continue to
materialize. Investment in new aircraft is the only other option
currently available that reduces the risks associated with an aging
aircraft fleet.
Dr. Gingrey. Mr. Secretary, I supported the procurement of C-17s to
replace the C-141, and Congress is on track to provide funding for 190
of these aircraft. The MCS, QDR, and the AF's own program of record
also support C-5 modernization as part of the nation's strategic
airlift solution set. These studies have all suggested that 292
aircraft are sufficient. By my numbers, the AF will grow to 301
strategic airlift aircraft, which appears to meet all of those
requirements. Considering Congress' previous support for your airlift
plans, why do you now present the dilemma that C-5As need to be
immediately replaced by additional C-17s? From my perspective, there is
nothing to preclude the AF from buying additional C-17s today. However,
it was the AF that chose not to put additional C-17s in the budget, nor
include any additional C-17s in its top 25 unfunded priorities for
FY08. Why is the AF sending such mixed signals? Given the fact that the
C-5 fleet has 70% service life remaining, and that the benefits of C-5
modernization are clearly documented (last year the USAF told us RERP
pays for itself while generating an additional savings of $11.4B BY00$
or $38B TY$s), why would the AF not accelerate this program for the
entire C-5A/B/C fleet to realize even greater future savings while
maximizing cargo capacity?
Secretary Wynne. The ongoing evaluation of the RERP program has
brought previous estimates of cost savings into question. The
assumptions that led to predictions of $11.4B in cost savings through
2040 did not account for the recently identified cost pressures
associated with engines, pylons, and touch labor. The Air Force is
currently engaged in a detailed cost estimating effort to establish a
service cost position for C-5 RERP. This detailed cost estimate is
forecast to complete by July 2007. The three RERP aircraft currently in
flight test are performing well technically. However, there are other
legacy aircraft issues emerging, such cracks in the fuselage crown
skins, which will also need to be addressed.
Although the Air Force did not include additional C-17s in the FY08
budget, we did include additional C-17s in the FY08 Unfunded Priority
List as a part of Remaining Requirements.
Acceleration of the C-5 modernization program could in result in
higher O&S savings and mitigate upward programmatic cost pressure, but
in the current fiscally constrained environment this is a challenge for
the Air Force.