Trying To Keep A Good Program Up -- Raptors and Helicopters

There is no doubt that the ending of any major acquisition program if it either in production or development is difficult. Companies lose a great deal of future money, people lose their jobs, the services feel like they lose capabilities no other system can provide and politicians look weak or strong. There has been a long history since World War II of systems ending earlier then some want. Be it the TSX aircraft in England in the Sixties, the U.S. Main Battle Tank (MBT) in the Seventies, the DIVAD air defense system in the Eighties, the on-again-off-again V-22, or more recently the Crusader artillery system.

People can try different things to keep the programs alive. The most important though is to keep Congress funding it. The Obama Administration has obviously canceled several programs in their 2010 budget. VH-71, F-22 production, Future Combat Systems, some Missile Defense programs and so on. All are controversial for some reason to somebody. It can be a hard sell to end the investment especially if there are still requirements and needs for some capability in that area. Finally in the current economic situation there are the arguments to keep things going just to prop up employment and investment in the United States.

Because Congress is the ultimate “decider” of these things as they get to keep providing funding above and beyond the Executive Branch’s request that is where the battles are fought. Congressmen and Senators do different things to try and convince a majority of the legislators to support keeping a program alive.

One is to have the services write reports or make statements that contradict the planning of the Department of Defense and President. While all services will support the budget to Congress as submitted in public if asked specific questions they must answer them honestly. In this example Senator Chambliss (R-GA) asked the commander of the Air Combat Command (ACC) which controls the F-22 aircraft to provide a risk assessment to the U.S. ability to execute its planned military strategy with the 187 F-22 proposed by the Obama administration. General Corley responded that the true requirement to meet U.S. strategy is actually 381 and 187 creates a “high risk” of not being able to meet the strategy’s needs. This may be true and does not undercut the 187 figure as while it is a risk the needs of the country may be met.

Of course this allows Chambliss to tell his fellow legislators that the Air Force really needs more F-22 Raptors. Major parts of these are made in his state and continued production will help that out. The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has left money in the 2010 funding bill to keep production going beyond the last six currently paid for. Maybe Chambliss can convince Senators to keep the funding in their version of the bill.

Another way is to send letters to all of the members of the House or Senate stressing the view of one or more Congressmen or Senators on a situation. These may help influence a vote one way or another and since there is no ban on a legislator lobbying others the Services or contractors can provide information for this letter. Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA) has just written such a letter on the VH-71 and had it distributed.

The letter states in part “The sensible and most cost-effective solution for this problem is not to shut down the entire program, but rather to finish the program as originally intended and produce capable Increment 1 aircraft. Current reports indicate that Lockheed Martin could finish the program and produce between 19 and 23 Increment 1 helicopters for a net cost of approximately $6.4 billion.” Like several others Murphy is advocating building all of the planned aircraft to the lesser requirements of the Increment One program in order to get use out of the $3.3 billion or so already spent on them. The major cost increase and schedule growth seen by the program came from the much more stressing Increment 2 requirements.

The HASC has language to this affect in the bill and it is fairly easy for the Senate and House to vote to do this. It allows them to go on record supporting something although there is a good chance that it won’t happen.

There will definitely be more such efforts over the next four or five months as the bill works its way through Congress and certainly predicts that the 2011 bill will be more interesting.

Photo of the F-22 from Rob Shenk’s Flickr photostream.