Both Navy and Marine Corps aviation forces will see a slight drop
in the size of the fleet, but production of new aircraft will continue
at a healthy pace, said Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., director
of the Navy Air Warfare Division.
The Navy and Marine Corps, which now own 2,786 aircraft, will see
that number dip to 2,709 in 2006, and 2,641 in 2007.
The intent is to replace aging aircraft with fewer, but more technologically
advanced systems. In fiscal year 2006, the Navy requested funds
to buy 138 new airplanes. “We are doing pretty good,”
Kilcline said. He compared the current budget with the financially
grim days of the mid-1990s, when the Navy forecast about 40 to 60
new airplanes per year. The current projections—which are
likely to be revised—show new aircraft buys exceeding 200
per year by the end of the decade.
Despite delays in the MV-22 Osprey and the Joint Strike Fighter
programs, the overall level of aircraft production will remain high,
Kilcline told National Defense. Boosting the numbers will be a surge
in the manufacturing of T-6 training aircraft. Beginning in 2007,
the Navy will begin purchasing nearly 50 per year. “We need
those,” Kilcline said, to replace the outdated T-34s.
As the Pentagon’s budget proposal gets digested on Capitol
Hill, one of the issues causing heartburn among many lawmakers is
the termination of the C-130J cargo aircraft program. Kilcline,
who oversees both Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs, said
the cancellation of the C-130J is bad news for the Marines, who
had requested 51 new aircraft. Unless the Defense Department reverses
course on this, the Corps would end up with 33 C-130Js, instead
of 51. “Congress wants to make sure we get the Marine Corps
their allotment,” Kilcline said. If the Pentagon and Congress
fail to reach an agreement to extend the C-130J contract with Lockheed
Martin, the Marine Corps will have to upgrade older C-130s to fill
that gap, he added.
Among the winners in this year’s budget is the Super Hornet
program, which remains on track to deliver 148 aircraft by 2011,
and 90 EA-18Gs, to be produced by 2011. The Navy also will purchase
20 E-2C Hawkeye command-and-control aircraft.
Other aviation programs will get fewer aircraft than was previously
budgeted. The Joint Strike Fighter is being trimmed from 127 to
111 aircraft (for the 2006-2011 period), the MV-22 Osprey from 180
to 145, the MH-60S helicopter from 158 to 136, and the MH-60R from
159 to 153.
The Bush administration’s decision to shrink the carrier
fleet from 12 to 11, meanwhile, will not affect construction plans
for the Navy’s next-generation carrier, the CVN-77, although
its delivery date will slip from 2007 to 2008.
There is still a chance that the administration will reconsider
the elimination of an aircraft carrier, depending on the outcome
of the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is scheduled for completion
this fall.
Pentagon officials believe the Navy can do the job with 11 carriers,
as a result of a new readiness strategy, called the “Fleet
Response Plan.”
The FRP ends the practice of scheduled six-month or nine-month
rotations. It stipulates that the Navy will have six carriers ready
to deploy within 30 days, and two carriers ready within 90 days.
“The major change in the Navy over the past year or so, has
been the introduction of the Fleet Response Plan,” said Vice
Adm. Robert Willard, director of force structure, resources and
assessment at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The carrier force
at 12 was sized for the presence and rotation demands around the
world, and it was sized previously to supply about three aircraft
carriers and another on demand, at any given time,” he said.
“The Fleet Response Plan is a complete change in the way
the Navy is approaching maintenance and training and readiness of
its carriers,” Willard said. “The current Fleet Response
Plan is capable of providing for the president’s needs, regardless
of whether there are 12 or 11 in the top line.”
Although it could take the Defense Department two to three more
years to make a final decision on the number of carriers, supporters
of naval aviation stress that it may be premature to downsize the
fleet without a thorough analysis of the threats the United States
might face in the future.
“Our Navy is better than any other navy because of our air
power,” said Adm. John B. Nathman, vice chief of naval operations.