[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 118 (Monday, September 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H8143-H8144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE INFLUENCE OF AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH ON MILITARY VICTORY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tancredo). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Pickett) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. PICKETT. Mr. Speaker, early this year the nations of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, the NATO alliance achieved a military
victory in Yugoslavia. The military objective of the 3-month long
campaign in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo was to drive the Serbian
armed forces out of Kosovo.
This objective was achieved largely through the use of air power
applied in a sophisticated and comprehensive manner. The bulk of the
sorties flown were executed by fighter-bomber aircraft based in Italy
between 200 and 300 miles away from their objectives in Yugoslavia.
These sorties were accomplished largely by F-15E, AF-8B, and F-16
aircraft operated by the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, and
other European countries, and Tornado attack aircraft operated by Great
Britain and Germany and also French attack aircraft used by the Air
Force of France.
In addition, heavy, long-range bombers, B-52s and B-1Bs based in
England and B-52s based in Missouri delivered a substantial fraction of
the weapons on the targets.
Finally, unpiloted reconnaissance aircraft were used extensively for
the first time in this conflict.
Although air power has been a significant component of all warfare
since 1939, it can be argued that this was the first campaign where air
power was absolutely the dominant factor.
Given what has happened in Kosovo, it is a legitimate question to ask
how the air power that achieved that victory was created. The record
shows that it did not happen overnight. In 1944, the Commander in Chief
of the U.S. Army Air Forces, General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold said, ``the
first essential of air power is preeminence in research.'' The key word
in this statement is research. It is important to understand how this
research was performed, who paid for it, and how the results were used.
In 1917, a provision was put in the Naval appropriations bill to
create a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics called NACA
because the inferiority of American aircraft during World War I was
patently obvious, not a single airplane of American design or
manufacture was used in combat during World War I.
The decision to create NACA changed that circumstance for all time. A
research laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, the Samuel Pierpont Langley
Aeronautical Laboratory was established a year later, and from then on,
the United States of America has been preeminent in military aviation.
For a short period, the Germans and the Japanese built more airplanes
than the United States during World War II. However, after less than 2
years, American air power emerged in vastly superior numbers with
aircraft that were decisively superior in quality. The reason why the
United States could accomplish this end was due in large measure to the
research done in the laboratories of the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics between the First and Second World Wars.
All-metal airplanes, efficient radial engines, accurate flight
control systems that made dive-bombing possible were all developed
during those years in the NACA laboratories with the assistance of the
military.
A strong and independent civilian research agency had been created to
advance knowledge in aeronautics. The chairman of the committee was
always a civilian, but both the Commanding General of the Army Air
Corps and the Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics were statutory
members of the committee. Thus, a close connection to the military was
assured.
Things have changed since the end of the Second World War, but the
aeronautical strength of the United States still depends on the
successor institution to the NACA that was established after the end of
the Second World War.
{time} 2015
In 1958, the launch of the Sputnik by the Soviet Union as the first
man-made object to orbit the Earth stimulated the creation of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. This organization
consisted of all of the facilities of the old NACA plus some military
facilities that were added to enhance the space mission of the new
agency.
The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 made the new agency
responsible for continuing the support of military aviation. This most
important mission has been successfully accomplished for the past 40
years and the results were evident in the Kosovo campaign.
The most successful fighter-bomber of the 20th century is undoubtedly
the F-16. The facilities of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration were used extensively during the decade of the 1970s to
develop the flying qualities of this aircraft. Many thousands of hours
of wind tunnel and flight simulator time were devoted to the creation
of the F-16.
The former commander of the Israeli Air Force and the current
president of the state of Israel, Ezer Weitzmann, has called the F-16
the ``Spitfire'' of the 1980s after flying the F-16 himself. Weitzmann
became famous in 1948 when he flew a black painted ``Spitfire'' in the
Israeli war of independence. Thousands of pilots across the world have
agreed with his assessment.
The F-15 aircraft was also a product of NASA technology through the
employment of NASA's extensive facilities. The conically cambered wing
on the F-15 was a product of NASA research and the attack version of
this airplane, the F-15 ``Strike Eagle,'' is one of the most potent
attack aircraft in the world.
Finally, the concept of vertical takeoff in land combat aircraft
originated in the United States and was picked up by British aerospace
concerns. The first version of the aircraft that eventually became the
``Harrier,'' the ``Kestrel,'' was extensively tested in NASA facilities
in the 1960s. The ``Harrier'' eventually evolved into the AV-8B, which
was also tested extensively in NASA flight simulators and wind tunnels.
The former was particularly important in developing the complex flight
control system for this aircraft.
As previously mentioned, a remarkable feature of the Kosovo air
campaign was that a significant fraction of the damage done on the
ground was due to aircraft that were based more than a thousand miles
from the combat zone. B-52 and B-1B bombers based in England delivered
thousands of tons of bombs and other guided weapons on targets in
Kosovo and Yugoslavia.
Even more impressive was the achievement of the stealthy B-2 aircraft
which flew its missions from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, 5,000
miles from the target zone. An F-16 can carry two thousand-pound bombs,
and a B-1B can carry 24 of these so that a single mission by a B-1B
bomber might be equivalent to 12 sorties by an F-16.
Both the B-1B and the B-2 were the creations of an industry supported
by NASA facilities. Neither would have been built without thousands of
hours of wind tunnel and simulator time devoted to them in government-
owned NASA facilities.
Even more important was the application of NASA research results to
both aircraft. These results range from aerodynamics, materials, and
flight controls to the human factors that had to be considered to
protect the pilots and the crew from the environments that they would
face in accomplishing their missions.
Finally, the Kosovo campaign was the one in which unpiloted aircraft
were extensively used for reconnaissance that turned out to be a
decisive factor in the campaign. Unpiloted vehicles have been around
for a long time and were used as target drones and as experimental test
vehicles during experiments that traditionally involved the destruction
of the vehicle.
However, recent advances once again pioneered by NASA in flight
control
[[Page H8144]]
systems and in sensors have made it possible to use unpiloted vehicles
for many other purposes. Probably the first application of unpiloted
vehicles requiring sophisticated technology was the highly maneuverable
aircraft test vehicle. This was a small, unpiloted aircraft with a
sophisticated flight control system designed to perform experiments in
maneuvering regimes that had not yet been explored with piloted
aircraft. The experiments done by NASA with this vehicle during the
1970s demonstrated to all concerned the utility of unpiloted aircraft
for sophisticated purposes.
In the last two decades, a large variety of unpiloted aircraft have
been developed and with the recent advances in control systems and
communication systems and in the ability to transmit intelligence data
in real-time to command posts, unpiloted reconnaissance aircraft have
come into their own.
A special example is the ``Predator'' unpiloted reconnaissance
aircraft that played a very important role in Kosovo. In one incident,
a ``Predator'' vehicle spotted a concentration of Serb troops on the
ground and with accurate pictures transmitted by satellite link
reported the concentration and its location to the command post. This
information was then used to divert a flight of B-52 bombers that had
already been on another mission to the troop concentration which was
accurately located by the GPS signal transmitted by the ``Predator.''
The B-52s bombed the troops, killing most of them on the ground. This
kind of coordinated attack with heavy bombers guided to the target
using unpiloted aircraft and a sophisticated command and control system
was a decisive element to secure the victory in this campaign.
The technology to do all of this could not have been developed
without the aeronautical research performed in NASA's research centers.
The research performed to create the aircraft systems described here
dates back to the 1970s, somewhere between 20 and 30 years ago.
In 1970, the aeronautics budget of NASA was approximately 25 percent
of the agency's budget, some $1 billion out of a total of $4 billion.
It was this heavy investment in aeronautical technology that in a very
real sense made the victory this year in Kosovo possible.
Today, however, we have a very serious problem. The aeronautics
budget in NASA today is a much smaller fraction than it was in 1970,
about $2 billion out of $14 billion or just 14 percent. In terms of
spending power when inflation is factored into this calculation, NASA's
investment in aeronautical research today is about half of what it was
30 years ago.
One result of this massive reduction in aeronautical research has
been that many important NASA aeronautical research facilities have had
to be shut down entirely or perhaps mothballed. This has forced some
U.S. aerospace firms to use European facilities. More important, it has
become difficult to attract the best talent into NASA's aeronautical
research enterprises.
In the past year, this situation has reached the crisis stage because
further reductions in NASA's aeronautics research are now being
proposed. In view of this circumstance, it is legitimate to ask the
question where the knowledge and the technology will come from to make
victory possible in another Kosovo perhaps 20 years from now.
The sad fact is that we are no longer making the investments
necessary to maintain the kind of Air Force that has the capability
that we have today. This situation can only be changed by reversing the
trend in aeronautical research funding and reinvesting in this
critically important technology. An investment in NASA aeronautics
program of about $4 billion annually is what is required to maintain
our effort.
General Arnold's statement of more than half a century ago is as
valid as it is was then. The security of the United States and the
stability of the world depend on a relatively small investment in
advanced aeronautical technology so that NASA can continue to do the
work which will allow the United States to maintain its leadership and
superiority in military aviation.
I urge all Members to support this effort.
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