Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz answers a question during a
hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 20, 2012, in
Washington, D.C. Both Schwartz and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley
were on Capitol Hill to discuss the Air Force's fiscal 2013 budget request
and the Future Years Defense Program. (U.S. Air Force photo/Jim Varhegyi)
by Tech. Sgt. Richard A. Williams, Jr.
Air Force Public Affairs Agency
3/22/2012 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force secretary and chief of staff discussed planned force structure changes, and efforts to balance service active-duty and reserve components, during congressional testimony here March 20.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said the service's fiscal 2013 budget request represents the culmination of many hard decisions regarding the Air Force's future given new strategic guidance and declining budgets.
"Finding the proper balance between force structure, readiness, and modernization has been our guiding principle," Donley said. "In short, we determined that the Air Force's best course of action is to trade size for quality."
Responding to committee members' questions regarding the Air Force's plan to divest its C-27J Spartan fleet and instead rely on the C-130 Hercules, Donley said the twin-turboprop C-27J satisfies a narrow piece of the direct support mission the Air Force provides the Army.
"As you look at fleet management overall, the better strategic choice, in our view, was to go with the C-130 because it is more flexible across the broader range of tactical airlift requirements," Donley said.
Schwartz said that while the C-27J is somewhat cheaper to operate on a per-flying-hour basis when compared to the C-130, there are several other factors to consider.
Schwartz said retaining the C-27J fleet would require the Air Force to cut $1.4 billion from other vital Air Force missions, while Donley added that the Air Force plans to mitigate the effects of the changes on the associated Air National Guard units.
"In recognizing the impact of the C-27 changes across the Guard, and specifically the units that might be impacted, where we could, we took mitigating action to bring in follow-on missions, [such as] MC-12 missions, remotely piloted aircraft, and mission control units," Donley said.
Schwartz said service leaders were careful to balance the active duty, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve components as part of its budget proposal.
"The fundamental question here is, with a smaller air force, how do you manage the activity level across the entire portfolio in ways that don't produce adverse effects on the active-duty side - activity levels that in a better economy might cause people to move on - or on the Reserve and the Guard side - activity levels that might make employers less hospitable to the support that they provide to our Guard and Reserve Airmen," Schwartz said.
To that end, the Air Force balanced the three components so that the active duty would maintain a deploy-to-dwell ratio of one-to-two, while the Guard and Reserve components would maintain a ratio of not less than one-to-four, the general said.
"A Total Force clearly gives us more depth, more breadth and more experience," Schwartz said. "The key thing is to get the balance right, and that depends on what we think the activity level is likely to be and how much force structure we have left."
Donley said this balance is especially important considering the demanding operational tempos, including both surge and rotational requirements, that are part of the current and projected strategic environment.
"As our force gets smaller, all of our components get smaller together and will become even more closely integrated," Donley said. "We remain fully committed to our Total Force capability and have proposed several initiatives to strengthen integration of effort."
Comments
3/27/2012 9:33:12 AM ET Force restructuring is a dynamic process requiring flexibility. Hence maintaining our ability always answer the call for whatever our country calls upon us to do. Inasmuchas the ultimate purpose of the armed forces is to maintain peace and save lives, we must remain cognizant of the fact that when there are cut backs it turns into a viable proposition for the threat to invest more heavily in making themselves stronger. These are the challenges/opportunities that we must embrace and excel in.
Ken Bueche, 433d Airlift Wing JBSA Texas
3/26/2012 8:02:56 AM ET Why not take the Army and the Air Force, combine them and create a new force structure and call it the US Army Air Force? This would save a lot of money and force the combined forces to work and play well together. This would also trim the budget by Combining duplicate training and resources and tons of money wasted every time the AF wants to change it uniform.
Tim, New England
3/23/2012 10:24:21 PM ET Suggest that the Air Force retire the entire legacy C-130 fleet and transfer C-17's to those units. Purchase current buy of C-130J to what is contracted.The C-17 can do the tactical mission of the C-130's more effectively. Use the savings to modify all the C-5A's, including those in the boneyard, and B's to C-5M configuration. The C-5M can do the strategic mission of the C-17 more efficiently.
Havoc01, South Florida
3/23/2012 4:28:23 PM ET ...where's my comment
Brad, NC
3/23/2012 4:23:14 PM ET The Defense Department and Air Force will downsize themsleves to the point they are ineffective - they've been doing it since 1991. You can only stretch a rubber band so far before it breaks. That was a metaphor...Retired USAF
Brad, NC
3/23/2012 12:24:05 AM ET So we are going to kill the C-27 after taking the project away from the Army.Boy... no one saw that coming. The AF has lost touch with reality at the altar of the JSF.
