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I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) analysis of tactical aircraft plans for the Department of Defense (DoD). That analysis appeared in a recent CBO study titled A Look at Tomorrow's Tactical Air Forces. I will highlight CBO's major findings in my testimony today.

Our analysis suggests that DoD's planned aircraft purchases for fighter fleets will be difficult to afford. CBO projected prices for the three new fighters the department plans to buy: the F-22, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), and the F/A-18E/F. The costs of two of those planes--the F-22 and the JSF--are likely to far exceed DoD's current goals. Since CBO released its analysis, DoD has released an estimate of F-22 program costs that sheds further light on the potential for cost growth in the fighter program. That estimate was part of a Congressionally mandated report on the F-22's cost. Prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Cost Analysis Improvement Group, that report expressed concerns similar to those raised by CBO about the potential for higher prices. I will have more to say about that later in my testimony.

Another problem for DoD will be the aging of its aircraft fleets. Even though current plans call for buying about 4,400 new aircraft between now and 2030, the planned pace of purchases will mean that to prevent shortfalls, the services will have to operate aircraft to unprecedented ages. The average age of aircraft today is about 10 years, reflecting the historical practice of replacing tactical fighter and attack aircraft as they approach 20 years of service. By 2003, however, the average age for all Air Force tactical aircraft will exceed 15 years, and it will peak at 18 years by 2010. The Department of the Navy's tactical aircraft fleet will also age but to a lesser extent, reaching an average age of 15 years by 2008. Joint Strike Fighters begin to arrive in quantity after 2008, so then the average age of the Navy's fleet begins to decline.

CBO's analysis presents policy alternatives that address the problems of affordability and aging. It lays out specific alternatives that illustrate the hard choices that DoD might have to make if current plans for tactical aviation prove to be unaffordable. After providing background on DoD's plans, my remarks will focus on the issue of affordability and the potential for growth in the cost of fighter aircraft. I will also discuss several alternatives that illustrate approaches to reducing spending.

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