Air force fights mobility capability study, which opposes plan to boost C-17 production
Airlift plans are emerging as the newest feud between US Air Force and top US Department of Defense officials who are already scrapping over future purchases of fighters and command-and-control aircraft.
The USAF is seeking to buy at least 42 more Boeing C-17s on top of its current $60 billion programme to purchase 180 of the aircraft, around 140 of which have already been delivered.
Boeing says it needs a commitment for new aircraft no later than January to avoid major production-line disruptions and cost increases. But a long-awaited, DoD-initiated review of future mobility needs is likely to dispute the service’s call to buy more airlifters.
The Mobility Capability Study (MCS), briefed in draft form to Congressional staffers last month, finds the planned force structure for airlifters already sufficient. “It says we don’t need radical investments” to meet military mobility objectives, says one staffer.
The MCS was launched by the Joint Staff in 2004 with the goal of quantifying the mobility force needed to support the military’s increasingly faster deployment timelines. The USAF had long argued that the study’s predecessor, the five-year-old Mobility Requirements Study-05, quickly became outdated following 9/11. The subsequent pace of combat and humanitarian relief operations have added to the pressure on the inventory levels for the airlift fleet.
However, the USAF’s call for even higher investments in strategic and tactical airlifters, including the Lockheed Martin C-130J and C-5A/B, apparently failed to persuade the MCS authors. Instead, they support the USAF’s current plans to augment about 600 ageing C-130E/H s with a further 60 C-130Js, retain and upgrade 112 C-5A/Bs and complete the existing multi-year procurement of 180 C-17s. Although the MCS was due to conclude in August, release of the final draft has been delayed until at least February 2006.
The internal dispute sets up another major confrontation between the DoD and the USAF on the fiscal year 2007 budget, but it is not clear whether the MCS report will be a deciding factor. “These things are really political documents,” says the Congressional staffer. “They have as much influence [on the USAF budget] as the Office of the Secretary of Defense – it is an air force budget.”
Boeing officials are confident that the USAF will push for more C-17s in the FY07 budget, despite the study’s conclusions.
“The air force will have to look at the MCS and then study it themselves,” says Dave Bowman, Boeing C-17 programme manager.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE/WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
