Unless industry can find some way to sustain its design skills, the JSF may yet prove to be the last manned combat aircraft produced
Over the last 100 years, industry has developed the capability to design and produce extremely complex and capable aircraft. The pinnacle of that complexity and capability is the modern fighter, exemplified by the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22 Raptor. Each stands on the back of a long line of past combat aircraft that have honed the design skills of their developers. But any skill begins to atrophy if it is not exercised regularly.
The US military aircraft industry - the largest and best-funded in the world - is in danger of losing its ability to design a manned combat aircraft within 10 years, according to a new report from research organisation Rand. Conceptual designers are already an endangered species, says Rand, as the Joint Strike Fighter moves into detailed engineering. All that remains to keep the design teams intact at Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman is work on unmanned air vehicles, unmanned combat air vehicles and military derivatives of commercial aircraft. Such programmes are not sufficient, says Rand, to keep alive the special skills required to design manned combat aircraft.
The report and its stark conclusions should come as no surprise. Concerns about the impact on the US industrial base of the Department of Defence's 'winner-takes-all' strategy for JSF were raised well before Lockheed Martin won the competition in 2001. Rand itself concluded winner-takes-all was the cheapest option, but its latest report highlights the true long-term cost of that decision.
Based on currently funded programmes, Rand estimates, research and development funding will fall below the minimum required to maintain a viable military aircraft design team at Boeing in 2006-8. Northrop Grumman, with its share of JSF, will remain a viable competitor until 2008-10, the report suggests, but even Lockheed Martin will begin to lose its design capability two years later if there are no new programmes. Adding in the UCAV, tanker and surveillance aircraft programmes already planned does little to delay the design interregnum facing the US industry next decade.
Commissioned by Congress, the report outlines policy options to maintain the capability for more than one US company to design and produce military aircraft. None of them are cheap. And maintaining three companies as viable competitors for future military aircraft programmes will be far from cheap. Options include a new major UAV programme every four years, a series of X-plane technology demonstrators, or a new long-range strike aircraft. Only the latter option will sustain all three companies' design capabilities to 2020, says Rand - but at enormous cost: $30 billion for development and $50 billion for 100 aircraft.
With the F/A-22 and JSF consuming most of the USAF's procurement budget for the next 10-20 years, it is hard to see how it can afford to launch a new manned combat aircraft programme before the end of this decade. If the Rand report is correct, and no other remedy is found, that already may be too late for Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
Inevitably there is room for debate on just how perishable are the skills of military aircraft design teams. Boeing lost JSF, but says most of its design team remains within the company, dispersed on other programmes - many unrelated to manned combat aircraft. But Rand argues that working on programmes such as the US Army's Future Combat Systems network of manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles does not maintain the specialist skills needed to design a highly integrated, high performance fighter or bomber.
It is a problem European industry has been facing for several years, since the Rafale, Typhoon and Saab/BAE Systems Gripen entered production. So far, there is no sign of a next generation of European combat aircraft emerging this decade and European defence spending is not sufficient to fund a robust programme of technology demonstrators. In Europe, encouraged by the success of Airbus, the emphasis on government R&D funding is shifting to the commercial arena. While this will provide work for the region's designers, by Rand's definition it will not preserve Europe's ability to produce competitive combat aircraft.
Whether the military aircraft industry is facing a crisis or simply adapting to change is unclear. The emergence of unmanned systems and network-enabled operations is reshaping the face of warfare. At one time, the JSF was hailed as the last manned combat aircraft. Unless industry can find some way to sustain its design skills it may yet prove to be true.
Source: Flight International
