[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 114-86]
NAVAL STRIKE FIGHTERS: ISSUES AND CONCERNS
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 4, 2016
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
98-914 WASHINGTON : 2016
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio, Chairman
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
PAUL COOK, California Georgia
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
SAM GRAVES, Missouri TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey MARK TAKAI, Hawaii
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
John Sullivan, Professional Staff Member
Doug Bush, Professional Staff Member
Neve Schadler, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Tsongas, Hon. Niki, a Representative from Massachusetts,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces................... 2
Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative from Ohio, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces................... 1
WITNESSES
Davis, LtGen Jon M., USMC, Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps
for Aviation (DC(A)), U.S. Marine Corps; RADM Michael C.
Manazir, USN, Director, Air Warfare Division (N98), U.S. Navy;
and RADM Michael T. Moran, USN, Program Executive Officer,
Tactical Aircraft, U.S. Navy................................... 3
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Davis, LtGen Jon M., joint with RADM Michael C. Manazir and
RADM Michael T. Moran...................................... 33
Turner, Hon. Michael R....................................... 31
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Jones.................................................... 55
NAVAL STRIKE FIGHTERS: ISSUES AND CONCERNS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces,
Washington, DC, Thursday, February 4, 2016.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael R.
Turner (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL R. TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM OHIO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND
FORCES
Mr. Turner. The hearing will come to order.
The subcommittee today meets to receive testimony on issues
and concerns regarding the strike fighter fleets for the
Department of the Navy [DON].
I would like to welcome our distinguished panel of
witnesses: Lieutenant General Jon M. Davis, Deputy Commandant
of the Marine Corps for Aviation; Rear Admiral Michael C.
Manazir----
Admiral Manazir. Manazir.
Mr. Turner [continuing]. Manazir--sorry, director of--
Manazir, Director of the Air Force division for the U.S. Navy;
and Rear Admiral Michael T. Moran, Program Executive Officer
for Tactical Aircraft.
Thank you for your service and for your attendance today.
We are here today to talk about the Department's strike
fighter programs, but I want to take a moment to pause and
remember the tragedy of January 14th in Hawaii, when we lost 12
Marines and 2 CH-53Es. We must do everything in our power to
ensure the readiness and safety of our young men and women in
uniform.
At the outset, I would also like to note that the
Department of Defense [DOD] will not release its fiscal year
2017 budget until Tuesday. Accordingly, I expect that our
witnesses will not be able to discuss the details of the
upcoming budget request.
However, the members do have questions about the budget,
which are to be taken for the record. I would ask that our
witnesses respond promptly after the budget is submitted to
Congress.
We have several issues to cover today, but in my opening
remarks I want to highlight two committee concerns: the Navy
strike fighter shortfall and the issue of physiological
episodes in the F/A-18 fleet.
In hearings last year for the fiscal year 2016 budget
request, Admiral Greenert, then the Chief of Navy Operations,
described a requirement to procure an additional 3 squadrons of
F/A-18E/Fs, or about 35 aircraft. Additionally, the Marine
Corps' unfunded requirements list included six F-35B aircraft
to replace six AV-8B aircraft destroyed at Bastion Airfield in
Afghanistan when the enemy broke through Marine defenses in
September 2012.
This committee and the Congress heard that call. For fiscal
year 2016 the committee added 12 F/A-18E/F aircraft and 6 F-35B
aircraft.
The National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] signed into
law in November of last year reflects those increases. The
Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2016
included these authorized increases and added two more F-35C
aircraft for the Navy.
We know that that helped to alleviate some of the Navy's
strike fighter shortfall, and the fifth-generation fighter
increases will improve the Navy's warfighting capabilities. We
look forward to hearing more from our witnesses on how these
increases helped and how much more we need to do.
Since 2009, the Department of the Navy has noticed a rise
in hazard reports, known as HAZREPs, regarding the
physiological episodes in the Navy's F/A-18 and EA-18G fleets.
According to the Navy, physiological episodes occur when a
pilot experiences a loss in performance related to insufficient
oxygen, depressurization, or other factors present during the
flight.
We have been informed that the Navy has organized a
physiological episode team to investigate and determine the
causes of these physiological episodes in aviators. As symptoms
related to depressurization, tissue hypoxia, and contaminant
intoxication overlap, discerning a root cause is a complex
process.
We understand that determining the root cause, or causes,
of physiological episodes in F/A-18 aircraft is a work in
progress. We look forward to learning more today about the
Navy--what the Navy is doing to address this and it is an
important issue. Very many Members of Congress are very
concerned about these issues.
Before we begin, I would like to turn to my good friend and
colleague from Massachusetts, Ms. Niki Tsongas, for any
comments that she may want to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner can be found in the
Appendix on page 31.]
STATEMENT OF HON. NIKI TSONGAS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MASSACHUSETTS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, to our witnesses. Welcome. It is good to
have you before us.
We here in Congress have no greater responsibility than
making sure that the men and women we send into harm's way are
provided with the best and safest equipment available. Today's
hearing on naval strike fighters is an example of the kind of
oversight Congress must do to make sure that happens, and I
thank the chairman for focusing on this important topic.
There are many issues to discuss today, including whether
or not we have enough strike fighters, the state of their
material readiness, and the potential need for funding
adjustments once we see the President's budget request [PB]
next week.
However, while the number of aircraft we have is an
important issue, the performance and quality of those aircraft
is just as important. As such, I would like to focus my
concerns today on one particular topic highlighted in today's
testimony and the hearing materials provided to members.
This issue is the troubled performance of the on-board
oxygen generation system of the F-18 fleet. Specifically, I am
concerned about the high rate of hypoxia, which is caused by a
lack of oxygen, and other physiological events apparently being
experienced by the crew members of F-18 aircraft over the past
5 years.
The members of this committee remember well the impact that
on-board oxygen generation system failures had some years ago
on the F-22 fleet, both in terms of the risk it posed to
service members and to the impact it had on the grounding of
the entire F-22 fleet. With this in mind, it caused me great
concern to learn of the higher than expected rate of
physiological events for F-18 pilots over the past several
years, going back to at least 2010, according to the Navy.
While it must be pointed out that there has, thankfully,
not yet been a confirmed loss of life or aircraft attributed to
such events, the increasing rate at which these incidents are
occurring and their potential for catastrophic incidents is not
lost on any of us. To me, this boils down to keeping our naval
aviators and naval flight officers safe.
Just as we place a high priority on body armor for our
ground troops, making sure the oxygen system works as it should
in a $15 million-a-plane fighter aircraft should be a top
priority. While there are many important parts of a complex
fighter aircraft, I am sure our witnesses would agree that the
basic life support system for the crew is one of the most
important of all.
So I look forward to hearing more today about this issue as
well as others that you are here to talk about, what the Navy
is doing to correct it, and what the outlook for the future is.
In addition, I hope to hear what Congress might be able to do
to help solve the problem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
I understand that only General Davis will be giving us an
opening statement.
General Davis.
STATEMENT OF LTGEN JON M. DAVIS, USMC, DEPUTY COMMANDANT OF THE
MARINE CORPS FOR AVIATION (DC(A)), U.S. MARINE CORPS; RADM
MICHAEL C. MANAZIR, USN, DIRECTOR, AIR WARFARE DIVISION (N98),
U.S. NAVY; AND RADM MICHAEL T. MORAN, USN, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE
OFFICER TACTICAL AIRCRAFT, U.S. NAVY
General Davis. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Tsongas,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the issues
and concerns associated with the Department's strike fighter
programs. Additionally, today we will be addressing fiscal year
2016.
The programs of the 2017 Presidential budget submission has
not been released, so we won't be talking about that today,
sir.
Joining me today is the Navy's Director of Air Warfare,
Rear Admiral Mike Manazir; and the Program Executive Officer
for Tactical Aircraft, Rear Admiral Mike Moran. I am honored to
be here with them today.
As you are well aware, the Department faces an aviation
readiness challenge, which includes reduced strike fighter
capacity available to support the tactical aviation force's
operational and training requirements. While your invitation
requested focus on these DON strike fighter challenges, we note
the readiness of--is a preeminent concern for all of naval
aviation, and that extends beyond the strike fighter inventory
alone.
The Department's legacy F-18 and AV-8B readiness challenge
is attributed to a series of events beginning with the delays
in JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] procurement, which translated to
an unplanned maintenance to extend the service lives of legacy
aircraft beyond their designed life. Additionally, combatant
commander-driven operations and Navy and Marine Corps training
and readiness requirements are driving increased strike fighter
utilization rate, thereby adding to the current depot
maintenance workload.
In an effort to meet strike fighter inventory requirements,
our depots are executing a service life extension program.
However, the depots' throughput of planned service life
extension work has been complicated by the discovery of
unexpected corrosion-induced work, leading to longer repair
times for the inducted airframes. The extremely high demand for
our assets for such a prolonged period of time is challenging
our ability to maintain and sustain them appropriately.
While the Navy and Marine Corps share the Department's F-18
A through D fleet, the resulting readiness challenges
associated with increasing F-18 at or reporting is vastly
different. The Navy prioritizes and continues to meet deployed
readiness requirements set forth in the Optimized Fleet
Response Plan.
Achieving these standards, however, has come at the expense
of force training for the operational squadrons at the early
stages of the fleet readiness training plan and the fleet
replacement squadrons responsible for the air crews' initial
and refresher training--basically training our seed corn. This
poses risk to our future readiness, impacts our surge capacity,
and places additional stress on the operational hardware
through overutilization.
As the Nation's force in readiness, the Marine Corps does
not achieve readiness requirements on a tiered structure.
Rather, Marine aviation is expected to sustain a nominal
readiness requirement to fight tonight.
However, Marine aviation is not meeting that readiness
requirement, due in large part to the limitations in
operational capacity--not enough airplanes on the line.
In the strike fighter communities we are unable to generate
the minimum flight time required to operate the thresholds to
readiness--required readiness. The challenge is twofold.
In our F-18 A to D fleet we are simply not producing enough
aircraft at our depots to meet our readiness requirements. In
our Harrier fleet, the primary limiting factor is parts
availability--supply.
Together, these challenges manifested in an overall force
readiness degradation that can only be overcome with improved
equipment availability through legacies in sustainment and in
new aircraft transitions. We are addressing the problems
through an--on a number fronts, including initiatives to
improve our depot throughput to return more aircraft to fleet--
and you will hear more about that today, I am sure;
synchronizing our readiness enabler accounts; and exploring
means to reduce utilization.
The sustainment of our legacy fleet is a priority to meet
our combatant commander-driven operations in the near term. We
have also recognized the adverse effect overutilization has on
our hardware and on our--and have implemented service life
management protocols into the F-18 E and F fleet earlier in its
life cycle.
Finally, we are successfully integrating new F-18 and F-35
aircraft into the fleet to address the usage attrition, a
portion of our challenge that can only be overcome through
aircraft procurement.
We thank Congress for recognizing our concerns in fiscal
year 2016 and helping like you did--that, in fact, is going to
be really, really helpful--and authorizing and approving--
appropriating additional funding for aviation depot production
and the additional strike fighter aircraft to address our
military capacity challenge.
We appreciate the committee's continuing support and
oversight on these important issues and look forward to the
questions as we explore all facets of this complex situation.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of General Davis, Admiral
Manazir, and Admiral Moran can be found in the Appendix on page
33.]
Mr. Turner. Thank you, General.
In your prepared testimony, General Davis, you note that
naval aviation readiness is in a precarious position and that
Marines are flying an average 58 percent of the required flight
time necessary to be ready for the Nation's call. Can you talk
about the factors that have led to this decreased state of
readiness?
And also, Admiral Manazir, can you please tell us--you
state that the Navy is also in a precarious position--are they
getting as few as 58 percent of required flying hours, like the
Marine Corps?
And this would be a great opportunity for both of you to
give a commercial on why this budget year is incredibly
important, because that is what we are doing right now.
General Davis. Absolutely, sir.
I can start if you would like, Mike.
Admiral Manazir. Go ahead.
General Davis. We are. I ran the numbers. Again, I get
almost a weekly update on where we are, and we tracked a 30-60-
90 flight time for our pilots.
So if you look at the inventory in our flight lines, it is
really a readiness factory. And our training and readiness
manual for the Marine Corps, we are not on a tiered readiness
profile; we operate what they call T2.0, which means about 70
percent of our fleet is ready to go, and go meet our Nation's
bidding.
We have got a reduced or smaller number of squadrons that
meet our operational commitments, but--so we don't do a tiered
readiness. We stay at a--our target is to stay at a constant
level of readiness.
The training and readiness manual for an F-18 pilot calls
for about 15.8 to 16 hours a month per pilot to fly. They are
flying, on average the last 365 days, 10.6 hours a month, so
significantly lower than the requirement.
The Harrier fleet is supposed to fly about 15.4 hours a
month. They are flying about 10.3 to 10.4 hours per month, so
vastly lower than the requirement.
So they are not achieving a T2.0 readiness level; they are
achieving about a T2.7 level.
We are meeting our operational requirements, and what we
are doing is we are paying with that middle bench. Those forces
that would deploy quickly when the Nation called for a
contingency, they are getting less airplanes to train with.
While we are meeting our operational commitments, we are doing
that just in time.
I would say that is a result of a couple things: One,
reduced budgets for operation and maintenance accounts; delay
of the new aircraft procurement, or lowered ramp for airplay of
the Marine Corps' case, like the F-35. The sequestration
impacted us, and also I think sequestration really impacted on
the depot capability out there to repair our aircraft.
So in the Marine Corps on the TACAIR [tactical air] side--
that is F-18--today the F-18 fleet is operating right around 50
percent of its capacity in the United States Marine Corps.
If I was to add the F-18s and the Harriers that I am
supposed to have on the line on any given day, it is about 238
airplanes. Of those 238 I am supposed to have on the line to
meet that T2.0 readiness requirement, about 178 are what they
call ``in reporting,'' that they are there, they are actually
on the flight line, okay?
Of those 178 I can fly, today, this morning we could get
airborne about 110 of those airplanes. There are just not
enough up airplanes on the line, sir, all right?
So it is a combination of how we sustain our aircraft; in
the Harriers' case, not enough parts for the Harriers. We have
done an independent registry review to figure a way to
basically get out of that, and I briefed the committee on that.
And last year your help in 2016, laying supplies and money
in to go help us recover that platform will help us recover the
Harrier in about 2016-2017 back to where we need to be on our
flight line readiness.
The F-18 is more of a depot problem, and it is a little bit
longer problem. But talking with Admiral Manazir and working
very closely with the Navy, we believe we will be back to 12
aircraft per squadron somewhere about FY [fiscal year] 2017 or
early 2018.
A shout out, from my part, to Admiral Paul Grosklags and
Admiral L.J. Sewell. I think that they are doing a great job
down there with the resources we have given them to change both
the readiness equation in NAVAIR [Naval Air Systems Command]
and what they are doing in our depots.
So bottom line, I would say that we don't have enough
assets on the line to do the job, enough up aircraft to train
our Marines. We will make our Nation's call and readiness, but
I think there is risk out there in the larger fight with our
bench not having enough aircraft to train and fly with on a
daily basis.
Admiral Manazir. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.
We have similar readiness statistics as the Marine Corps in
the percentages. As General Davis noted, the Marine Corps does
not tier their readiness; they stay at a level readiness to be
a force in readiness all the time, 24/365.
The Navy has a tiered readiness system, where basically in
the early phases of the workups prior to going on deployment we
have a lesser readiness requirement, just as the squadrons get
ready to go in the basic training phase. And then we move to an
intermediate phase where we resource them a little bit higher.
And then we fully resource them to go on deployment.
We also are meeting our deployed requirements. We are
meeting our integrated and advanced training prior to
deployment. Where we are taking the readiness hit is down in
the lower maintenance phase or basic phase, when you want to
just get an aviator time to fly.
We have found that even in this tiered readiness level, if
you picture sort of a bell curve in training, so you train up,
you go on deployment at the highest level, and then you walk
back down again, that bell curve has gotten steeper. So we have
taken the readiness out of the front end and the back end,
where you sustain the readiness.
That means that a significant part of our force that is
shore-based, in training and not deployed yet, is experiencing
a lot less flight time than they are required to spend. And so
it gets to the same kind of percentage chances that General
Davis talked about.
We have had to shut down squadrons if they don't have
enough time in the air. We create a floor of flying hours at 11
hours a month--we call that our tactical hard deck--for a pilot
in the United States Navy, and we say, ``If you can't get 11
hours per month you are not proficient and current enough to
remain safe in the airplane.'' And so we try to get that 11
hours per month.
The proximate causes of this are the underfunding of what
we call the enabler accounts. Your committee, Congress has been
wonderful in PB16 of giving us the readiness funding and the
increases in aircraft to help with the problem.
But we have had about a decade of critical underfunding of
what we call the enabler accounts. So if the flying hour count
is the 1A1A account, that is the money it takes to fly the
airplane, the hours that it takes. Underpinning that 1A1A
account is the depot account, 1A5A; sustainment accounts like
the 1A3A and the 1A4N. I am doing alphabet soup here.
The problem is that we typically focus on one kind of
account. We go fly the hours and we underfund the spares; we
underfund the depot; we underfund the parts that go into that
flying.
And we have done that in the service over the last 10
years, and that stuff is coming to fruition.
Sequestration hit us, as General Davis said, where the
workforce in the aviation depot was laid off. We couldn't bring
that work to bear on the depot workload, and those depot
airplanes backed up. So it is a combination of factors.
Again, the PB16 budget moves the needle in the right
direction. The aircraft that you added--and as you noted in
your statement, Mr. Chairman, Admiral Jon Greenert last year
said, ``I need two to three squadrons to fix the hole that I
have to replace the airplanes we have been using over the
years.''
So far we haven't got the two to three squadrons yet,
although we are moving towards that, thank you very much. And
so we still need about another 16 or so Super Hornets to fill
the hole here in the midyears of the teens.
But we are experiencing the same kind of readiness hits
that General Davis is and we are having to take those hits back
at home and so keep the deployed operations moving.
Mr. Turner. General Davis, the Marine Corps has the
majority of the Navy's legacy fleet of F/A-18s in its
inventory, which are affected by the problems with the
environmental control system, causing physiological episodes in
aviators. General, I was a mayor before I came to Congress, and
of course I had police force and a fire department.
Our fire department had problems with their breathing
apparatus, and they--we never could figure out what was wrong
with it. It would randomly go out when people were in, you
know, the most unsafe conditions, obviously, running into
burning buildings to save other people.
In the end, even though we couldn't find what the problem
was, we had an issue of confidence with our firefighters, and
it affected their performance and their safety. How is this
affecting the issue of the confidence of our pilots?
General Davis. I think that, first off--and I have flown
both the AV-8 and an F-18, so one of the things I learned
flying the F-18--I am very confident in the OBOGS [On-Board
Oxygen Generation Systems] system in the AV-8 but, you know, I
was--we always watched the--on the climb-out the schedule to
make sure that we are good to go from an oxygen perspective.
I will tell you that I am very confident my Navy team here
to go fix the OBOGS problem, make sure we got a--I got a good
system for my Marines. The Marines love flying the F-18. It is
a workhorse for us.
We don't worry that much about the OBOGS right now, and
again, we do have--we know that the Navy is working that for
us, so--and I actually have--my youngest son is a Marine F-18
pilot that flies an OBOGS F-18C right now and just got back
from deployment. I think he is more worried about his--the
number of airplanes on the line right now for him to go train
than he is the OBOGS.
But I do defer to the Navy exactly what we are doing on
that, sir, but that we are confident the Navy is getting their
arms around the OBOGS problem.
Mr. Turner. And the environmental control system?
General Davis. That as well, sir.
Mr. Turner. Admiral Moran, sustainment of the F-35: Now
that the F-35B has entered the Department of the Navy's
inventory and its first operational squadron last year, and the
Navy is expected to declare IOC [initial operational capacity]
with its F-35C in the late 2018 or early 2019, what challenges
do you see for sustainment of these aircraft and how is the
Naval Air Systems Command preparing for these challenges?
Admiral Moran. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
First I will tell you that the F-35 is not in my portfolio,
so the tactical aircraft for the Navy--F-18, AV-8B. F-35 is
still run by the Joint Program Office [JPO], General Bogdan.
So I will tell you we are full participants in the JPO when
we talk about sustainment, integration to the carrier deck and
how we work those issues. But I would not comment here today on
the long-term sustainment of F-35 in the Navy. I would really
defer that to the Joint Program Office or the F-35 Program
Office.
Admiral Manazir.
Mr. Turner. Would you like to comment on the physiological
episodes in the F/A-18, please?
Admiral Moran. Oh, absolutely. Yes, sir.
You know, ma'am, you mentioned this is a top priority. I
will tell you, it is absolutely a top priority in the United
States Navy and the Marine Corps. You know, we have what we
call the Naval Aviation Enterprise, that we meet monthly at the
three-star level.
So General Davis, Admiral Manazir are leaders on that team.
Admiral Shoemaker, who is the commander of Naval Air Forces,
leads that with Vice Admiral Grosklags at NAVAIR Systems
Command.
And so that is a top priority that is discussed on a
monthly basis at the three-star level. So every incident that
occurs, I will tell you, comes to my desk if not daily,
certainly weekly.
And we have a very robust physical episode team, as you
mentioned, and pretty much over 120 people at this point that
are looking at every aspect of our environmental control system
[ECS], of our OBOGS system, and really the human interface to
that system to make sure we are uncovering anything that can
continue to mitigate that risk.
I will tell you, since 2009, when they started raising or
increasing in numbers, we put a lot of things in place. The ECS
system really is a decompression sickness piece, so it is a
pressurization in the airplane.
So we have made probably close to 18 or 19 changes in that
system to date--pressure valves, control valves, sensors--as we
have updated that airplane and we learn more. So continuously
looking, from a material standpoint piece.
On the OBOGS side, we are looking at replacing some of
those components, too.
Sir, and your mention on the breathing apparatus for the
firemen, it is the same thing. So, you know, when we get the
gas--or the air through the engines and we filter it to get the
nitrogen out and then other contaminants out, it is really a
filtration system that we are looking at.
So we replaced that filtration system. We field it in about
219 jets today; we are going to get it in all the jets. That
really has done a great job of getting rid of the carbon
monoxide and improving the breathing gas for the pilots.
And then the oxygen monitor system, we have got a new
system in place now that has been in test--funded in 2017 to
start going on the airplanes when it completes tests here later
this year. So incrementally, each of those systems replacing
that.
But I will also tell you, from leadership's direction, the
awareness of the problem is just been made keenly aware across
all of our sites. So we have a roadshow that is the NAVAIR
System Command engineers, our fleet folks, our safety center
folks, our aviation medicine folks, go out to all of the sites
and really increase the awareness for our pilots of what the--
what it--what we are dealing with.
So we have increased the training as part of that. So what
we did every 4 years to do hypoxia training we are now doing
every year. We have got a new, more realistic breathing
apparatus training environment that we do every 2 years now
that really gives the pilots a real kind of sense of what that
hypoxia feeling is going to be, because it is really that
awareness piece.
And then the training and air crew procedures, all being
implemented. So what I would tell you what we do now and I can
see that on a daily basis.
When an incident pops, you know, I would tell you, before
the pilots would go on their oxygen, their auxiliary oxygen for
100 percent for a period of time and then get out of it. The
new procedure is, hey, bleed that system out, recover the
airplane, and return to base.
And I will tell you, that is--in every incident that I have
seen in my time here so far the pilots are executing those new
emergency procedures very effectively.
So I think where it is a multipronged approach that we are
hitting this. It is absolutely a focus for us and we continue
to make gains.
And I will tell you that the things we are doing now is
really trying to understand the contamination piece. I mean,
are there any things getting in the gas, you know, that the
pilots are breathing that we are not aware of?
So I think we have really gone after the carbon monoxide
and have really good test results. And now we are doing a study
to see what else is out there that may be contaminating, you
know, the gas that the pilots are breathing.
Right now we don't have a way to measure that in the
airplane, and so we are looking at ways right now, testing a
couple things down at Pax River that we can put into their
emergency gear to not interfere, but measure the gas so that if
there is something out there that we are not seeing yet,
hopefully we will learn that and build that into the filtration
system.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Admiral.
Congresswoman Tsongas.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I appreciate, Admiral Moran, your testimony in trying
to address some of the issues. But I do want to continue to
have a conversation around it because it is, I think, an issue
that despite all your efforts and investments in policies and
training and everything else, the numbers still don't go down.
I mean, in fact, they have, I think over the last--the rate
of events has been consistently in the range of 20 to 30 events
per 100,000 flying hours for the past 3 years. So even as you
have made these investments, you are not seeing a lot of
progress.
So, Admiral Manazir, I wanted to ask, what would be a
normal or expected rate of such events for the fleet? And what
would you look to see as these efforts are being made? Is there
such a rate? Have you created something that you are looking to
achieve?
Admiral Manazir. Ma'am, that is a good question. Let me
describe the physiological event just a little bit and put it
into terms that might be a little more understandable.
First and foremost, I have complete confidence in the
system--the training and the backup systems that we have on the
Hornet and the Super Hornet. We designed them for redundancy.
A physiological event occurs when a pilot feels dizzy,
feels confused, feels a little strange in the airplane. Admiral
Moran mentioned the trainer that we have now.
I have been flying Navy airplanes since 1982 on oxygen. I
commanded an F-14 squadron that had OBOGS back in 1998. I have
two cruises with that system and I have four cruises with the
Super Hornet--deployed Super Hornet.
I have never experienced a hypoxic event outside of
training. I haven't personally.
But what we do with the trainer now is you get into a
simulated cockpit on the ground, you put an oxygen mask on, and
you do simulated training. The system is set up so you can fly
a simulator. And they gradually reduce your oxygen content and
they train us to recognize the symptoms.
It is not a instant ``you are gone.'' It is a confusion
factor.
And so when a pilot feels that, he is--he deploys his
emergency oxygen, which is 100 percent oxygen bottle like we
used to do. Then he reaches down underneath his left thigh, he
pulls a handle, and he goes onto emergency oxygen.
That backup system immediately gives him emergency oxygen
and the symptoms subside enough for him to land the airplane.
That system has worked 100 percent every time and I am
confident it still will.
We haven't developed a rate per 100,000 flying hours
because even one event like that, catastrophic, can--you can
lose the airplane. I don't think we will, but we are trying to
drive these events down through all of the actions that Rear
Admiral Moran talked about, and driving those rates down.
I will comment to you that the rates started to climb in
2010. That is the year that we told everybody, ``Okay, we think
there is a problem here at Navy leadership.''
So instead of just coming back and going, ``Yes, I was kind
of dizzy. Everything is fine. It passed. It passed,'' we said I
want you to report every single event. So I think the
phenomenon that you are seeing between 2010 and now is an
increase in reporting.
They are very real events and they do key us into where we
go for causal factors. But the chairman talked about the
firefighting breathing apparatus. It is like chasing a ghost;
we can't figure out because the monitoring devices that do this
are not on the airplane to figure out whether there was a small
oxygen content more than we needed, less than we needed, or a
carbon monoxide event, or poison in the gas, something that
came off of bearings, breathing toxic air.
We haven't been able to figure that out, so we have been
chasing ghosts. I mean, we are replacing and creating new parts
and chasing those things.
So, ma'am, I think we are just trying to get that rate down
as far as possible, while still understanding causal factors.
But if we had a confidence problem in the airplane we would
ground the fleet.
And we don't have that problem. That is why you don't see
the commander of Naval--NAVAIR, Vice Admiral Paul Grosklags,
going to that extreme measure, because we have confidence in
the system. We are just trying to figure out the cause of these
episodes.
Ms. Tsongas. And I appreciate the efforts that you all are
making. It is obviously a real issue and one that--in which the
safety of the pilots is, you know, paramount in everybody's
mind.
But even as you are making all the--so I appreciate that
the reporting is better so you have a better understanding of
the scope of the problem. That is always the first step we have
to take.
But that has also been in concert with all these other
efforts that you are making to try to address and solve the
problem and fix it. And despite that, there seems to be no
progress made because the reported numbers remain the same.
So I am curious, in addition, as we are talking about the
budget going forward, what the cost of this has been. And is it
a funding issue? Is it a technological--some issue that people
just somehow haven't been able to identify? Could you address
that?
Admiral Moran. Yes, ma'am.
You know, I don't see it as a funding issue. We have gotten
all the resources we have asked for on the technical side to go
ahead and investigate the causal factors, so I don't see it as
a research question.
The new filter material that we are replacing in the
current systems has been funded and supported, so we are
putting those in the airplanes as we speak. Like I said, only
219 systems to date, but, you know, they are looking to do
about 40 a month to get that into all the jets.
The new oxygen monitor system is resourced. It is going
through the final stages of its testing, as I said, in Pax
River. That is funded in fiscal year 2017 they have to be
installed in the airplanes.
The changes we have made to date on the ECS system have all
been funded and supported across the board.
So from an acquisition standpoint, providing systems to the
fleet, I have not faced any resource challenges or issues to
get that support across the enterprise.
Ms. Tsongas. Have you looked at installing an automatic
backup system, and would there be a cost to that?
Admiral Moran. Well, as Admiral Manazir talked, we do have
the automatic oxygen--the oxygen system as a backup. What we
are looking at is can we increase the amount of that oxygen
system that we carry in the airplane so we can give it a longer
duration and that emergency piece. So we are actively today
looking at can we increase.
Right now, depending on the altitude and really the
condition of the pilot, that lasts anywhere between 20 minutes
and maybe down to 5 minutes. So can we extend that, you know,
by two- to fourfold to give that pilot a--you know, that real
backup system for an extended period of time? We are looking at
that, as well.
Ms. Tsongas. Would there be a cost issue associated with
that?
Admiral Moran. It would be an expense, yes, ma'am.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. Representative Cook.
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We talked a little bit about some of the concerns in
aviation readiness, General, and I want to talk about the
backlogs in the depots.
During the summer every year I kind of go back for a
reunion at Camp Lejeune. I was in the Swansboro area.
By the way, every August it rains down there every time I
come and it comes down in buckets, but that is another story.
Things haven't changed much.
But I went out to Cherry Point and I visited the depot
there, and I was very, very impressed with the briefs and
everything like that. But I am concerned about the room that
they are going to have; I am concerned about whether there is
enough actual space there, and this is for not only the East
Coast depot but the--and I haven't visited the West Coast
depot--whether you have the physical space in the plant.
They did say there, you know, I started to ask them about
space, do we have to acquire land or what have you. They said
no, they already own the land, which is amazing, and they can
do it.
So is this a concern about backups, about whether you are
going to be able to take care of the F-35s? And do you have the
readiness right now in the depots to handle this increase in
terms of manpower, parts, and room?
General Davis. Yes. Congressman, thank you very much for
that question. I will probably ask Admiral Moran to help me a
little bit in the end of that.
But I would say we have got a pretty--we have got a good
military construction plan to make sure that we have got the
facilities to take care of our platforms--I do worry, it is not
for this committee, but the V-22 as that comes into its rework.
Will we have the room to go work those airplanes in? We are
working them really hard and we are putting a lot of hours on
those airplanes. They are going to come into the depot.
As we work the depot, the number--probably one of the
number one things we need out there besides--and every airplane
is a little bit different, so they aren't working on F-18s up
there; we are working on Harriers, CH-53s, V-22s. In that case
here there is some corrosion, a little bit in the V-22, but
mainly, our main limiting factor out there with that particular
depot is spare parts.
You know, the parts--they would call, like if you are a
racecar driver you are going to come in and get a complete
turnover new parts you would have a list of equipment out there
that you would put on that airplane. Same thing really with our
F-18s, getting what they need as they come in, the--kind of the
most common parts that come off that airplane need to get
replaced.
That is the number one thing for us right now with both
Harrier, CH-53, both in the depots and in the flight line, is
basically getting our turnaround time to where it needs to be.
The 53 deals with about 25 percent--cable supply, as does the
Harrier.
And frankly, it is probably--you asked, Congressman Chair,
you asked about the sustainment on F-35. That is my number one
concern with F-35 is underfunding its spares accounts, both for
the depot and for the flight line's units.
Mr. Cook. General, I want to switch gears a little bit, F-
35----
General Davis. Sir.
Mr. Cook [continuing]. And Expeditionary Air Field,
Twentynine Palms. Years ago when the Harrier first came out
used to have a sweeper to clear Lyman Road at Camp Lejeune.
General Davis. Right.
Mr. Cook. I used to always laugh when I saw that because of
the fog and all that stuff.
General Davis. Right.
Mr. Cook. Is that going to be a problem or are we going to
have to go away completely from an expeditionary air field?
General Davis. No.
Mr. Cook. Because when that wind blows at Twentynine Palms
or in the desert or all that stuff there, this is a very, very
expensive aircraft, and if you can reassure me and tell me
everything is going to be fine.
General Davis. We just actually did a deployment up to
Twentynine Palms----
Mr. Cook. I know----
General Davis. And bottom line is they--it was the
typical--it was November, December wind patterns out there and
it wasn't necessarily--they lost some sorties for weather
mainly due to the crosswind limitations on--for the air--for
affording that direct crosswind. And a lot of time above about
25, 30 knots you don't fly because if a pilot ejects out of an
airplane they get pulled across the desert floor and get--could
get hurt that way.
So Twentynine Palms is a training environment, so it is not
operational. So we limit to the wind limits out there to make
sure that we don't hurt somebody.
We actually dinged--on that particular deployment we
actually had blade damage to two engines, right? But when we
looked at it it wasn't blade damage that required the engine to
be removed. So we do have that. In every jet aircraft out there
little rocks, little things get pulled up.
But in this case here the F-35 proved to be very robust. It
had some blade damage; it was blendered out and it wasn't a
problem.
So what we are doing, though, in that--Major General Mike
Rocco, a great commander down there at Miramar--they are very
conservative and I think that is sensible. That airplane wasn't
supposed to go to Twentynine Palms until this spring. We pushed
it up there early because, one, we wanted to stress, you know,
how that airplane would operate logistically, how it was going
to operate in support of the grunts out there at Twentynine
Palms. And frankly, that airplane belongs in every climate
place--not just on a main base, but on an amphibious carrier
and also, too, in our expeditionary bases.
So we got a lot of the data points we wanted to out of
that. We will always have to be FOD [foreign object damage]-
conscious when we go to expeditionary bases. But part of that
is how we operate; part of that is what we have to sweep up to
go in there.
Mr. Cook. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Representative Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Manazir, over the past couple of years the Navy has
cut F-35Cs in the future years defense planning budget. With
the threat growing in numbers and capability in the 2025
timeframe and beyond, what is the Navy doing to recover these
aircraft to ensure our carrier strike groups and carrier air
wings remain relevant and are able to counter the growing
threats?
Admiral Manazir. Thank you very much for your question, Mr.
Johnson.
The Navy's procurement of F-35C aircraft were cut for
fiscal reasons, in line with other Navy priorities.
And thank you, to the committee, for the support of extra
F-35Cs in the PB16 budget, and that goes a long way towards
capability.
You will find the Navy buying additional F-35Cs in greater
numbers as we go forward. The Navy, operating off of our flight
decks, operates integrated capability, whether Super Hornets,
EA-18G Growlers, E-2D Hawkeyes, or helicopters, to create a
capability that can overmatch the threat.
The F-35C is a critical part of that netted capability. Its
stealth characteristics, its data fusion capability, and its
very advanced identification of the threat capability allow us
to extend the reach of the carrier strike group.
So I think you will find, sir, that as we push forward in
these future budget cycles that our prioritization of the F-35C
for warfighting capability will increase.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
General Davis.
General Davis. Again, adding the six Harriers last year--or
the six F-35Bs to replace our combat losses is incredibly
important and I want to say thank you very much, on behalf of
the entire Marine Corps, for doing that. We lost a great
squadron commander and six airplanes destroyed and two damaged
at Bastion.
Those airplanes are now going to be--fill up a VMFA-122. By
getting those airplanes it will allow us to move an F-18
squadron--an older F-18 squadron out and move the new airplane
in.
I just spent the last 2 days down at Fort Worth with our F-
35 pilots and took--General Neller went down there with us. I
will tell you that we have a war-winning airplane.
So with the Marine Corps we heard Congressman Cook ask
about going to expeditionary bases. We will go to our
amphibious ships; we will go to expeditionary bases. And that
airplane is going to change the way we fight.
We took all the senior Marine leaders on down to go watch
this for 2 days, and we had the young guys that are flying the
airplane. They are flying a completely different way than
everything we have ever flown before in a very positive way.
Real combat capability, real combat multiplier.
I think it is going to make the Marine Corps the force in
readiness to be exponentially more qualified and more capable
to meet the threats that loom at our Nation's bow. We have got
exactly the right system out there.
Thank you for the support on that.
Bottom line, what I do worry about is that it comes in--not
only the airplanes, and we are going into a full rate of
production pretty close here in 18--is the sustainment support
that goes along with that. If we get this great new airplane
and my readiness rates are as good as they should be because I
am taking parts off good airplanes because I don't have the
parts out there to put them on another airplane, and to make
the readiness goals I need to, I think that would be a real
tragedy.
It is a fantastic airplane. With the young aviators that
were out there, the only thing they can complain about with
this airplane--the only thing--was spare parts. Not enough
spare parts.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
General Davis, the F-35 is the only fifth-generation
aircraft in production today, and I would like for you to
highlight for us what the F-35 fifth-generation capabilities
bring to the fight.
General Davis. What we saw yesterday in a couple
scenarios--and I want to--be careful--we have got to watch the
classified nature of some of this stuff, the capabilities we
have out there--we did close air support in a contested
environment through overcast weather.
We took a division of airplanes and basically we had a
division of F-35Bs launching off an amphibious carrier and it
struck a target that would have taken--to do--to take the
target--and I was the CO [commanding officer] of our weapons
school MAWTS [Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron]
One. To do that strike with the conventional assets the Marine
Corps owns today would have taken 12 to 14 airplanes. We did it
with four.
We dealt with a very high-end sand threat. We dealt with
weather doing close air support through the clouds. I am not
sure we would have got in with the conventional fourth-
generation airplanes we fly today. It would have been a very
difficult problem.
With fifth-generation, four airplanes, and the way they
flew those airplanes, looking at basically talking to the
forward air controller through the clouds with their synthetic
aperture radar, with picture-quality optics out there through
the cloud, 1,000-foot overcast, we would not be able to do that
today. But a high degree of fidelity.
I think it is going to change the way we do close air
support, and change the way we support our Marines on the
ground.
The second scenario was a four ship going against a very--a
strike mission defended by very high-end surface-to-air
missiles and a very high-end adversary aircraft--division of
aircraft. They took care of all the four adversaries they were
up against, took care of the sand threat, and killed the target
with no attrition.
So I think it is going to change the way we do business. It
has certainly changed the way that the Department of the Navy
fights the fight because we will fight our F-35Bs alongside the
carrier wing out there, being an integrated fight out there, I
think getting better value for the taxpayers' money and much
better capability than we have had today.
Like the V-22 has changed the Marine Corps and the naval
services in a positive way how we project power from the sea,
the F-35B is going to allow us to project power from a sea base
and our expeditionary bases ashore in a very positive way for
our Nation. I was very excited what I saw yesterday not from
what I know but really from what those young guys were doing in
the airplane with the technology that you provided for them.
Thanks very much.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
And I yield back.
Mr. Turner. General Davis, thank you for elaborating on the
F-35 sustainment question with--on Admiral Moran's answer.
General--excuse me, Representative Graves.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is for General Manazir, and it is encouraging
to hear, obviously, the Navy has taken the, you know, the
tactical aviation, at least the shortfall, very seriously, and
you are obviously intending to acquire more F/A-18s. And you
have testified before this committee before and you have said
that the mainstay of the, you know, the strike fighter force
is--F-18s is going to be through 2035, I think was the
timeframe that was used. And we are now two or three squadrons
short, given the shortfall.
But I would like you to address, you know, the importance
of keeping the Super Hornet and the Growler lines operational,
which is something that worries me, because you can't just
start these lines up, you know, out of nowhere. And if we are
going to keep these airplanes flying and maintained and
everything else, we have to keep those, you know, those lines
moving. But can you address that?
Admiral Manazir. Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the
question.
As I testified last year, the Navy is about two to three
squadrons short of Super Hornet. The fundamental reason for
that is we have been overutilizing our aircraft over the last--
mostly--close to a decade without replacing them in the numbers
that we need to. And that overutilization was done in support
of our ground wars in two countries. That attrition of 35 to
35--35 to 39 aircraft a year was highlighted by Admiral
Greenert last year when he said 2 to 3 squadrons to fill that
hole.
The Super Hornet is a vastly capable airplane that will
complement the F-35C going forward through the decade of the
2020s into the 2030s, and as our statement notes, the
predominance in numbers until the mid-2030s is going to be in
Super Hornet as we continue to flow the F-35Cs into the air
wing going through the decade of the 2020s. The complementary
capability of those Super Hornets, along with the F-35C, gives
us our striking power, our reach off the aircraft carrier.
It is vital to maintain a viable line at St. Louis for the
Super Hornet for the near term here, in order to get those
numbers into the air wings that we need to, and then to extend
the force out through the 2030s until we get to a predominance
of F-35C. And so acquiring those airplanes--and thank you very
much to the subcommittee and the overall Congress for getting
those extra Super Hornets to replace the numbers that we have
flown.
Also, the extra Super Hornets over the next several years
covers the slide in initial operational capability F-35C to the
right. We have had previous IOCs of the F-35C planned for
several years earlier. This slide in F-35C capability to the 3F
software block of the airplane is such that we have had to
continue to buy Super Hornets to keep the capability in our air
wings high. So it is vital to maintain that line open, sir.
Mr. Graves. We can actually go beyond that, too, and that
is one of the things I worry about throughout all branches of
the military is backfilling our used-up equipment. We have got
a real problem with that and it worries me. And I'm obviously
more interested in aviation than I am other areas, but thank
you for your comments very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Turner. Representative Graham.
Ms. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all very much for being here.
We went on a trip, this subcommittee, to Eglin, and one of
the concerns that was raised was about the maintenance system
for the F-35, acronym ALIS [Autonomic Logistics Information
System]. And it seemed like there were a lot of challenges that
were being faced, and we have already talked about some of the
maintenance issues that allow our jets to be ready to fly when
we need them.
Can you give an update on where we are with ALIS? Thank
you.
General Davis. Yes. Eglin is the--where VFA-101 is, I
think. The Marines have moved out. Our squadrons are now up in
Beaufort; and Yuma, Arizona; and soon to be in Iwakuni, Japan.
And we also have systems up--aircraft up at Edwards with our
operational test unit.
We are achieving the kind of success rates we need to right
now with ALIS. We have one workaround that we have found, we
worked on with our operational readiness inspection. And our
IOC declaration was the one thing that you still got to do is
you have got to use a laptop computer to download the engine
numbers you need to after the flight.
But for the most part, a lot of the ALIS is understanding
the system and also the training for your enlisted maintainers.
So we have some really good maintainers that know ALIS really
well. No system is without its flaws, but we are not finding
the debilitating problems with ALIS out there.
And the big thing we are finding is our turnaround times
were inside 2 hours. If I have the parts then we can make the
turnaround, but if I don't have the parts we are not making
that.
So I think that--and we also took an expeditionary
deployable ALIS up to Twentynine Palms. It was one of the
things we talked about out there, as well.
So we got your main base; we are putting them on the Navy
ship, the L-class ships and the carriers. And also we had one
we wanted to take up so we could be light and austere.
Some of the initial reports were that it had a lot of
bandwidth limitations out there. I think part of that, too, is
how we train our Marines. We are using some of those same pipes
for our communications out there, and I think probably limiting
the number of things that we download outside of the work stuff
we need to do is going to allow us to get the ALIS information
we need in a timely manner.
So we are not losing sorties for ALIS right now, that I am
being told about. And our turnaround time is actually quite
good. Not without problems, but not impossibility out there. So
thank you.
Ms. Graham. Anyone else have a comment about ALIS, not
ALIS? Sorry. I mispronounced it----
General Davis. You might have said it right; I might have
said it wrong. I don't know.
Ms. Graham [continuing]. So many acronyms, y'all. Very----
General Davis. Right. There are too many.
Ms. Graham. Another question, just this might seem like
common sense, but I, you know, I hear that you all are saying
that the--our pilots are not getting enough training time. What
do you all think that does for our vulnerability from a
security standpoint?
Admiral Manazir. Ma'am, thanks for the question.
We both testified earlier, as--right after the opening
statements, that we are losing training time in the phases
leading up to deployment. What that affects is our surge force.
And so if we keep our deployed readiness up high, as we do in
both services, and we are on the front lines with those forces,
if something were to happen and we were required to surge
forces from the United States, those forces are not as
adequately trained now and we would have to put a whole bunch
of resources in there to fly--to upgrade the flying of those
forces to be able to surge behind.
That goes across--for the Navy that goes across our
carriers, our air wings, our parts, or the full resourcing
piece. So the combined effect of the under-resourcing of
readiness accounts, spares, all the accounts across the board,
is such that our surge force is not going to be recovered for a
little while here.
We are targeting specific areas in that surge resourcing to
be able to get to a surge number by the end of this decade and
get back up to where we expect to be for the backup, the
reserve, the surge forces. That is where we see that impact.
General Davis. Ma'am, for the United States Marine Corps,
again, it is our deployment model. We are supposed to maintain
a baseline readiness of this 70 percent, and the hours kind of
what we pay for our flight hour dollars, I can't execute the
flight hour dollars because I don't have the flying--up-flying
machines to do the job.
Again, every--is a little different. Your F-18--legacy F-
18, coming out of the depot; Harriers is the parts. But it
extends throughout Marine aviation.
So I will tell you that we have a very codified and good
training system. It is 1,000 times better than when I came in
as a young guy in 1982. But our pilots, men and women, are not
getting enough looks at the ball. They are not getting enough
flight time experience out there to be ready to be that across-
the-ROMO [range of military operations] force to the degree we
need to.
We train really hard. We are working incredibly hard to
make our next-to-deploy unit go out the door ready to go,
whether it is on a carrier, because we have got F-18s and soon-
to-be F-35Cs will go on Navy carriers. And our regular strike
fighter is going out there for our unit deployment program to
Japan, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force in the
Middle East, and then all of our new deployments--we are making
those deployments just in time.
And I look at the amount of risk, operational risk, and the
wear and tear on the Marines and their families by doing it
that way. There is no margin in my cupboards anymore. So any
kind of help that you could give us in the sustainment
accounts, any kind of help you can give us in recapitalizing
our fleet--the old airplanes are great, but they don't stay up
as long as they should.
A new airplane, properly sustained, will give us that long
life we need. A lot of the airplanes we're flying--you know, we
brought the F-18 into the Marine Corps in 1981, the Harrier in
1983. We have got an--we have extracted maximum value out of
those platforms, and we will continue to do so until we turn
them in.
And we have done our readiness recovery models to make sure
we do do that and we get the readiness numbers we need to both
in F-18 and Harrier. But we do need to recapitalize and sustain
that system as quickly as we can.
I worry about the training base. I also worry about my
pilots leaving the Marine Corps because they are not getting
enough flight time. These are the best and brightest that our
Nation has produced, and I--it is probably the Air Force and
the Army, as well. Great young people, they joined to fight;
they joined to be good at what they do.
It is like a quarterback--you know, the--all the great
quarterbacks want all the snaps. Our pilots want all the snaps.
An F-18 pilot in the Marine Corps should get 16 hours of
snaps a month and he is getting 10. You know, and they are not
as good as they should be.
Admiral Manazir. And I want to add just something for the
committee. Our standard is very, very high for readiness.
General Davis talked about the standard that changed between
when we both came in in 1982 to right now. We match our
readiness against that standard.
Your Navy and Marine aviation can beat any foe anywhere in
the world hands down without trying. We train to that standard,
and that standard is what we're indexing to see if we are
there.
So our standard is very high. We want to achieve that
standard without having to lower that bar, and that is why we
tell you that we need more readiness dollars and resourcing and
a focus on that standard to maintain our overmatch of any
adversary in the world.
Mr. Turner. Representative Duckworth.
Ms. Graham. Thank you.
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here.
I would like to follow up on what my colleague from
Louisiana, Mr. Graves, was touching on in terms of the
shortfall of F-18s. Given all the different moving parts,
basically, you know, in light of the current inventory of
aircraft spare parts, crew, maintainers, do you have enough to
support current demand--operational demand?
General.
General Davis. Yes, ma'am. On the F-18 I will probably try
to answer for the Harrier, as well.
We have the inventory of pilots we need. We are under-
resourced right now in F-18 pilots because for a small period
there we took jets out of the training squadron to make
operational commitments. We have stopped that, so our training
base is sound. Now we are producing the number of F-18 pilots
we need.
But I am not getting them the looks at the ball, like we
talked about. Same thing with the Harrier pilots.
Our enlisted maintainers--those are the ones I focus on the
most----
Ms. Duckworth. Yes.
General Davis [continuing]. My master wrench-turners. I
will tell you that we talked about spare parts, we talked about
depot, we talked about in-service repair. The fourth pillar of
that, for sustaining a legacy or a new airplane, is the quality
of the maintainer.
We've got great Marines and sailors. We are focused now on
how do we retain those very best Marines and sailors, and how
do we make sure they have got the right promotion opportunities
and training opportunities to do that stratified training, much
like our aviators do.
I commanded the weapons school, and in 1978 with the
weapons school they said, ``We need to do this, to make better
Marine aviators.'' At the same time they said, ``We need to
make a schoolhouse like that for our maintainers, the patch-
wearers, the train-the-trainer.''
We didn't do that. We are doing that now. And the first
class is going out at the weapons school in conjunction with
the WTI [Weapons and Tactics Instructor] class to train that E-
8 senior Marine to be the train-the-trainer to retain our very
best and brightest.
I think we don't have enough parts, we don't have enough
airplanes. We have the human capital we need; we just need to
give them the tools to be as good as they can be.
Ms. Duckworth. And how does that affect your Reserve forces
and the folks? You know, because as they leave Active Duty, the
tempo, the quality of life, whatever it is, they decide to
leave and you want to retain them in some way possible, so the
Reserve forces is really a good place to keep those--to keep
folks operational and in the game. How does the lack of parts,
aircraft, school slots, all of that, help your--affect your
Reserve forces?
General Davis. Reserves are a critical component to our
fleet. In fact, two of the TACAIR squadrons the Marine Corps
will have are--we have two Reserve squadrons. One is cadred
right now; I don't have enough airplanes.
And VMFA-112 has less than half the airplanes it is
supposed to have. So it impacts the amount of flight time those
pilots can get; it detracts the desire to go out front, leave
from the Active Duty force to go to the Reserves. And frankly,
we are looking--we are not getting enough looks at the ball so
the normal experience level you are looking for a reservist to
go there, a lot of these guys don't have it as much as they
needed to.
Ms. Duckworth. Right.
General Davis. Lieutenant General Rex McMillian and I have
worked in this very closely. Bottom line is, as go the Active
fleet goes the Reserves. So if we are hurting in the Active
force we are going to be hurting in the Reserve. We are
rebuilding the Reserves the same time we are rebuilding the
Active fleet.
Ms. Duckworth. So as the shortfall in F-18s, for example,
across the service is happening, is--are you showing the same
percentage of shortfall in the Reserves and Active fleet, or is
it coming more--you are talking about you have a whole squadron
that is not flying right now in the Reserves.
General Davis. We cadred that squadron getting ready to
stand up the F-35.
Ms. Duckworth. Okay.
General Davis. But VMFA-112--and we did a kind of a force
reduction to deal with the systems we have right now have got
19 squadrons of--1 F-35 squadron, 1 Reserve F-18 squadron, 6
Harrier squadrons, and 11 F-18 squadrons right now in my
inventory, and those are all legacy F-18s, plus the 2 training
squadrons that go along with that.
We will have two Reserve squadrons at end game. They will
be F-35 squadrons, one at Beaufort and one at Miramar--or one
at Cherry Point and one at Miramar. So building them up is
critically important to us.
And again, I think the Reserves is our buffer, right, and
they are also part of our Active force. So making them healthy,
making them as good as they can be is critically important to
the future of the Marine Corps.
We have got to fix the Reserves the same time we are fixing
the Active fleet while making--right now making our operational
commitments, and doing that as well as we can. In fact, our
Reserve squadron is at Beaufort this week participating in the
Marine Division Tactics Course, which is basically training our
division of air-to-air pilots to go be as good as they can be,
and they are out there in force with the airplanes they have,
totally integrated with the Active Duty Component, being
assessed and evaluated like the young captains are at Beaufort.
And generally they do very, very well.
But we need to get them more inventory and more parts so
they can do their job well.
Ms. Duckworth. Admiral, did you want to add anything?
Admiral Manazir. Ma'am, for the United States Navy a
similar type of thing. We have a--our full requirement of
pilots, both Active and Reserve. We have our full requirement
of maintenance personnel, both Active and Reserve.
Where we suffer is the jets. As I described, we fully
resource deployment and advanced training, and then we are
unable, because of jet availability, to fully resource the
basic phases.
That also extends to the Reserves. So we are unable to
fully resource the Reserves, so of their 10 jets--we have 2
Reserve squadrons. One is a blue backup that would--will
continue to be trained to go on deployment in case we can't
send an Active squadron, and the other one is primarily an
adversary squadron. Both do adversary duties for us, fighting--
playing like they are opposing forces.
The availability of jets is a problem in the Reserves and
the lower-level phases of our pre-deployment training. The
proximate causes of that are parts, and the depot throughput
that we have already talked about. And the proximate cause of
the depot throughput, from a personnel standpoint, is artisans
and engineers that we have had to hire since sequestration to
make the depot flow continue.
So our near-term readiness problem is the depot throughput.
We continue to get better. We are 44 percent better this year
than last year--or 2015 over 2014. We continue to get better
and push those F-18Cs out to Navy and Marine Corps squadrons so
that we can resource them properly with hardware and properly
train the pilots.
But the specific answer, ma'am, for Active and Reserve for
the Navy is we have all the people that we need. It is the jets
that we need to do--continue the training.
Ms. Duckworth. I feel strongly that this Congress has--and
previous Congresses has seriously done you a disservice by
asking you to live up to an operational tempo, but not
providing you the resources that you need. You don't have to
respond to that. That is a political statement, and----
Mr. Turner. Your time is up. Just let me say I agree. And
certainly that is----
Ms. Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner [continuing]. It is the budget battle time.
Ms. Duckworth. Yes.
Mr. Turner. This is the time for us all on this committee
to make certain that our voices are heard to the other
Members----
Ms. Duckworth. Yes.
Mr. Turner [continuing]. Of Congress so that hopefully we
can get more resources, because this is not just, you know,
inefficiency that is resulting in these falloffs; it is
absolutely resources.
And Congresswoman Tsongas gets our last question.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to follow up again on some of the issues on the F-
18.
First of all, I appreciate, Admiral Moran, your talking
about the manual backup oxygen system, but I think we all would
be concerned by the fact that you are asking a potentially
incapacitated pilot to sort of help himself out of this. And it
is my understanding that that would only give him 10 minutes,
were he able to exercise it appropriately, and you would have
no idea how far away he might be from the carrier or wherever
he needs to get back to.
So as you are looking at creating a budget, I think an
automatic system is something that you might--I am sure you
said you are thinking about it, but it seems to me that would
give him much more time and he wouldn't have to activate it--or
he or she would not have to activate it themselves.
Another question, though: I know last year's NDAA
authorized 12 additional F-18s, so how is the Navy--and this is
for you, Admiral Manazir--how are you making sure that these
new planes aren't delivered to the Navy without the same on-
board oxygen system problems that you are struggling with
today?
Admiral Manazir. So, ma'am, thank you very much. Those new
Super Hornets are coming off the production line with the
newest modifications that NAVAIR and Boeing are working
through, and it is a combination Boeing-Navy team that is
looking at this OBOGS system very, very hard.
As soon as the technical work is done, the engineering
work, to do these new parts--and Admiral Moran talked about
them, the sieve and the regulator, the things that we think
might be causing some of this--they get rolled into the
production line. And then even when they get on the flight line
we put those parts in there, too.
So I am confident that the best technical minds in NAVAIR
and also in Boeing are looking at this and we will roll those
into the airplanes as they get to the fleet. And again, I have
to tell you, ma'am, I have a lot of confidence in the airplane,
having flown it.
Ms. Tsongas. And how will you be assured that all these
fixes are working?
Admiral Manazir. We will continue to monitor; we will find
better ways to monitor. We will continue to have pilots report.
We will look at that decline in reports.
We will turn over every rock, every technical rock, that we
can to make sure that we are going after every causal factor.
It is difficult to prove a negative. So if a pilot doesn't
have a physiological event time after time after time--and
again, ma'am, I have never had one ever and I have 3,500 hours
in fighters.
And so when somebody comes back and they say, ``Well, did
we fix it? Nobody has had an event,'' and then all of a sudden
we have an event, now we have to go back and see where the
trend lines go.
I have----
Ms. Tsongas. Are you comfortable with the reports you are
getting that you are being--getting an accurate sense of what
the problem is out there?
Admiral Manazir. Yes, ma'am. I think so. It is difficult
because if a pilot is a little bit woozy, his recollection of
the, you know, the exact leading up to, you know, what altitude
were you, what were you doing, what did you--did you sense
anything in the cockpit? So in our post-flight debriefs the
flight surgeon talks to them as well, so we try to get as much
fact as we can to then guide us in a scientific manner towards
a cause.
I am comfortable we will get there, but we are not going to
stop.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you.
I yield back. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Moran. Yes, ma'am. I just want to----
Ms. Tsongas. Oh, go ahead.
Admiral Moran [continuing]. It is okay, ma'am.
You know, when you say how are we going to know, I mean,
all--part of this process we have developed some test
procedures and test units to go check our pressurization
systems and check our OBOGS systems that we didn't have
currently. So when we accept the airplane off the line we will
use those systems, as well, to validate the performance as best
we can on the ground.
We didn't have those before. We have them now, so we are
leveraging them.
And I will tell you, you know, it is really for us I think
the kicker is can we really monitor, you know, what the gas the
pilot is getting, is there any contamination in there, as I
said earlier. So we do have some tools that we are employing
now on our test squadrons to start--collect that data.
As Admiral Manazir said, it is hard to get that data when
an air crew lands, to really know what they were breathing at
the time they had that event. So we are trying to put some
things in the airplane.
So we are, right now today in our test squadron, starting
to employ those to see if they are of value, and so that we can
start getting them out into the field. So we are looking at
that continuing to evolve to make the awareness piece, you
know, the critical factor so it is not a surprise. They can
tell it is coming on or get indications from the system on the
airplane that it is coming on.
Ms. Tsongas. I guess a concern we would have that we would
be paying for planes that still had this problem and put the
pilots at risk. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. With that, we will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:11 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
February 4, 2016
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 4, 2016
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 4, 2016
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. JONES
Mr. Jones. I understand that the FY17 PB may not include the $23M
in FY17/18 funding for the F-35B Lift Fan facility at FRCE Cherry
Point. This funding is critical in order to stand up the facility by
2022. Can you speak to this?
General Davis. This MILCON project to support F-35B depot-level
work at FRC East Cherry Point is currently in the planning stage, but
not funded in the Navy's FY2017 Presidential Budget. This MILCON
Project is late to need; it should be complete no later than FY2022 in
order to meet F-35 engine test requirements in support of the fleet,
but cannot be stood up prior to FY2024 even with funding beginning in
FY2018. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Joint Program Office (JPO)
planned procurement for the depot support equipment and tooling for the
FRC-E is still on track for FOC in CY22.
Mr. Jones. I understand one of the Marine Corps' top priorities
would be to move funding left from FY19 to FY17 for a specialized F-35B
hangar at Cherry Point. Could you speak to this critical need and if
this is one of your top unfunded priorities?
General Davis. Based on the planned F-35 squadron laydown schedule
for MCAS Cherry Point, funding for a F-35 hangar at this location will
be needed in the near future, but not in FY2017. However, we do have a
specialized F-35 Hangar aboard MCAS Miramar in San Diego, Ca as one of
our top unfunded priorities for this year.
Mr. Jones. Sir, I understand that the Marine Corps desires to have
a security fence constructed at MCAS, Cherry Point. Where does this
fall on the Marine Corps unfunded priorities list? And in what fiscal
year will it be funded?
General Davis. The MCAS Cherry Point airfield security fence was
funded in the FY2016 MILCON budget. We appreciate Congress adding this
project to the program.
[all]