Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress

Publication Date: June 2007

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

Type:

Abstract:

This Issue Brief examines DOD's four largest tactical aircraft modernization programs. The background section provides a brief description of each program, and a discussion of how tactical aircraft fit into military air operations: the missions they typically perform and how they contrast to longer-range combat aircraft.

The Analysis section examines a number of policy issues including affordability, capability required, force structure, service roles and missions, industrial base, and transformation. The paper concludes with a synopsis of recent congressional action on these programs.

The Defense Department plans to buy the F-22 fighter for the Air Force, the F/A-18E/F fighter/attack plane for the Navy, and the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft for the Marines and Air Force special operations, as well as pursue a joint-service program to develop a multirole Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft in three variants, some of which might be operational around 2012.

Decisions in Congress and the Defense Department regarding these aircraft programs may have important long-term implications. The F/A-18E/F is in full-rate production. The V-22, and the F-22 are now in transition from research-development (R&D) to procurement and could remain in production for decades. The next-generation combat aircraft that are expected to result from joint-service efforts now getting underway through the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program might be in production through the 2020s. Decisions about the funding of these programs will influence which U.S. aircraft manufacturers survive in the aviation industry, and may well affect the division of combat roles and missions among the services in the next century.

Congress has questioned these tactical aircraft modernization plans on grounds of affordability and requirements. Because of the lack of consensus about future threats and defense requirements, there has been increasing skepticism about the need for some of these aircraft programs on grounds of cost and affordability, military requirements and force levels, and effects on the defense industrial base. Debate has also emerged on the need to balance modernization needs with military transformation goals.