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In the past few years, the Congress has restrained spending on tactical aircraft in the Air Force. These funding decisions, and similar ones that could be debated in the future, will have important effects on the Air Force's ability to expand the size of its tactical air forces while also modernizing those forces with new aircraft and retiring older planes. This analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presents the effects of the Administration's current tactical aircraft plans on costs and modernization. It also presents alternatives to the Administration's plans. The results in this study, which was requested by the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, are preliminary and will be expanded in a subsequent publication. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective analysis, the study contains no recommendations.

The study was prepared by Lane Pierrot of CBO's National Security Division, under the general supervision of Robert F. Hale. John J. Hamre (formerly of CBO) provided assistance and supervision during the analysis. William P. Myers and Patrick L. Haar, both of CBO's Budget Analysis Division, contributed extensive cost analyses. The author wishes to thank T. Keith Glennan III and Jonathan W. Woodbury, of CBO's National Security Division, and Bert H. Cooper, of the Congressional Research Service, for their assistance. (The assistance of external participants implies no responsibility for the final product, which rests solely with CBO.) Patricia H. 3ohnston edited the manuscript, assisted by Nancy H. Brooks, and G. William Darr prepared it for publication.

May 1984
 
 

SUMMARY

The tactical air forces are composed of aircraft, supporting equipment, and personnel. In war they would counter the enemy's tactical air forces and deliver bombs and missiles against ground targets.

Direct costs to operate, support, and procure selected aircraft for the Air Force tactical forces amounted to $12 billion in fiscal year 1984, or about 14 percent of the overall Air Force budget. Indirect costs associated with these aircraft, though difficult to estimate, would add substantially to the total. These funds support 36 tactical air "wings," made up of six kinds of fighters and short-range bombers.¹ (A typical wing consists of 72 operational aircraft plus backups.) The funds also are used to procure two types of aircraft, F-15s and F-16s, and assorted missiles and equipment.

The Air Force intends to expand the current force structure to 40 wings by fiscal year 1989 and plans to increase annual procurement of the F-15s and F-16s from a total of 180 aircraft in 1984 to 312 aircraft per year by fiscal year 1988.² The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has analyzed these plans for consistency within the Administration's projected growth in the defense budget and has also considered the impact on those plans of less optimistic growth levels. This is a preliminary report of that analysis.

The Air Force has three key goals for tactical air forces that planned new procurements are expected to help meet:

• Expansion of the force from its current level of 36 wings to 40;
  
  
• Retirement of older aircraft after 20 years of service; and
  
  
• Modernization of the fleet with newer, more capable aircraft.

The CBO finds that these three goals can be met if the Congress approves new procurements at levels proposed in the February 1984 budget. (An addendum in Appendix A discusses the effects of subsequent revisions to the February 1984 request.) These procurements would, however, require real growth in the tactical air force budget averaging over 6 percent annually over the next five years with substantially higher growth in the near term. Lower levels of growth--such as the 5 percent real annual increases in budget authority approved by the Congress last year for the defense budget as a whole--would pose a problem if the tactical air forces' share of that spending remains constant at today's levels. In this case, the Air Force would find it difficult to pay the increased operating and support costs for the 40-wing force while also buying the aircraft necessary to meet the force requirements.

CBO examined several alternatives consistent with a 5 percent real growth budget. The analysis suggests that, if the goal of expansion to 40 wings is to be met, both the other goals will be sacrificed to a substantial degree. On the other hand, if the Administration decided to keep today's 36 wings, goals for retirement and modernization could largely be met with only 5 percent annual real growth in funds for tactical air forces. The Congress may wish to make these difficult choices now because, as an Air Force study contended last year, having plans that are roughly consistent with available funding leads to stable, more efficient purchases of aircraft.³

This analysis focused on funding problems over the next five years, but introduction of the new Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) in the 1990s could lead to even more severe problems in the next decade. Analysis suggests that the Air Force will have to continue large purchases of tactical aircraft into the 1990s, especially if it is not able to buy the large numbers of aircraft that it plans to purchase in the late 1980s. Yet the ATF is being designed to meet a wide variety of requirements; this could make it substantially more costly than the current generation of aircraft. If so, it may be extremely difficult to maintain a force of adequate size and age. Since many key decisions that will influence the cost of the ATF will be made in the next few years, the Congress may wish to ensure that the cost is an important design feature of the new fighter.

This document is available in its entirety in PDF.

1. Typically aircraft that have the mission of bombing surface targets are called "attack" aircraft rather than bombers as has been used to simplify discussion in the text. The reason for this designation is that the aircraft also carry air-to-surface missiles and precision-guided munitions in addition to bombs.

2. In April 1984, the Air Force released a plan that would reduce F-15 procurement below the levels submitted in the February 1984 budget while retaining the level of F-16s. In May 1984, the Department of Defense released a budget revision that would reduce F-16 quantities in the out years, cut F-15 procurement in fiscal year 1985 (with no information on out-year F-15 procurement), and defer the 40-wing goal to fiscal year 1990. Appendix A discusses the effects of these changes.

3. Affordable Acquisition Approach, a study prepared at the request of Air Force Systems Command, released in January 1983.