[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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