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     How The U.S. Air Force Pulled An About-face On F-15 Production

Steve Trimble
Indecision has plagued the U.S. Air Force’s approach to managing a fleet of about 230 Boeing F-15C/Ds. Only two years ago, top Air National Guard officials floated a proposal to retire the U.S.-based portion of the air superiority fleet. After that idea withered under the heat of a Congressional backlash, the Air Force last year opted to deprive its F-15C/D units of a critical electronic warfare upgrade, making the entire fleet vulnerable to a near-term retirement decision. Again, Congress intervened and voted to partially restore the program in the enacted fiscal 2019 budget.

But Air Force leaders now seem poised to perform the budgetary equivalent of the F-15’s about-face Immelmann turn. Instead of launching another attempt to retire the F-15 fleet, the Air Force is likely to ask Congress for money to order new F-15s for the first time in 19 years. The anticipated policy reversal has prompted calls for the Air Force to justify such a sweeping, strange request in fleet strategy.

“We’re in a bit of a pickle, and the pickle is we don’t have the capacity we need,” Matt Donovan, Air Force undersecretary, explained on Jan. 18. 

·         Fourth-generation fighters regain appeal in U.S. force structure

·         F-35 program not directly impacted by any new F-15 orders

Donovan was careful to clarify that he was neither confirming nor denying reports that the F-15X would be included in the Trump administration’s upcoming fiscal 2020 budget, but he still offered a preview of the Air Force’s newly formed argument that the time has come to reverse its nearly two-decade-old position. Instead of insisting that acquiring more non-stealthy, manned fighters in the modern era is futile, Air Force officials are now pleading for more air superiority aircraft overall, regardless of whether they are less observable to radar.

This marks a dramatic shift in Air Force policy. When the Pentagon launched the development phase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 in October 2001, the Defense Department’s press release said the new single-engine fighter and the Lockheed F-22 would allow the Air Force to transition to a nearly all-stealth fighter fleet by 2025. At the time, Donovan was still a lieutenant colonel, commanding an F-15C/D squadron in Florida. In 2002, a base newspaper story about the future of the F-15C quoted him as saying that the already 30-year-old design was scheduled to be replaced by F-22s before 2018. Now, two years beyond that once-planned milestone, Donovan is well aware of the plan’s failure, even if he declines to elaborate. 

With most Air National Guard F-15Cs approaching the 40-year mark, the U.S. Air Force is open to replacing them with a non-stealthy fighter to bolster capacity until a next-generation air superiority fighter becomes available after 2030.  Credit: Jim Hazeltine/High-G Productions

“Well, things happened. We don’t have to plow back through F-35 acquisition program history, but we all know what happened,” Donovan said on Jan. 18, speaking at an event hosted by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute. Illustrating the problem with a single metric, Donovan pointed to the F-35A delivery rate during most of the past decade. “We never quite got to the procurement ramp that we needed to,” he said. He further noted: “By now, we were supposed to have 736 F-35s. We have 174.” It is true that Lockheed is in the final year of a 36-month push to nearly treble F-35 delivery volume, with aircraft output rising to 130 aircraft this year from 46 in 2016. Lockheed delivered 91 F-35s overall in 2018, exactly as planned. But the pace of F-35A deliveries to the Air Force never recovered from the program’s stumbles during the development phase. Instead of receiving 100 single-engine replacements a year for a combined total of about 1,700 F-16s, F-15Es and A-10s, the Air Force is taking only 48 F-35As a year before the program enters full-rate production. Any interest by the Air Force in reinvesting in F-15 production is not a direct reflection on the F-35 itself. “We’re very happy with the F-35s that are coming off the line today,” Donovan assured the Mitchell Institute.

Photo Credit: Airman 1st Class Alexander Cook/U.S. Air Force

But the slower rate of orders for the F-35A has forced the Air Force to seek options. The service still plans to receive all 1,763 F-35As in the program of record. Instead of taking delivery of the entire fleet by 2025, the last F-35A is now projected for delivery in 2044. Perhaps acknowledging that reality, the Air Force released an acquisition notice in early January calling for proposals for an electronic warfare system upgrade that would preserve the operational relevancy of at least 899 F-16s through 2046. Other U.S. and international air branches with F-35 orders are taking similar steps. In January, the U.S. Marine Corps announced that it had awarded Raytheon a contract to upgrade its Boeing F/A-18C/D fleet with active, electronically scanned array radars, even though the type is scheduled for retirement by 2027. International F-35 customers also are searching for new options. Israel, for example, plans to buy another round of improved F-15Is, even as it continues to buy more F-35Is. Of course, the fate of the Air Force’s F-15C/D fleet was never directly tied to the production ramp for the F-35A. The Air Force originally planned to replace most of the F-15C/Ds with F-22s. When the Air Force canceled F-22 production in 2012 after ordering 187 aircraft, the replacement strategy for the F-15C/D shifted to the so-called F-X, the aircraft or system of systems that will be procured for the Penetrating Counter-Air mission after 2030. But deliveries of the F-22 and F-15C/D replacement will not begin until 2030, when the youngest F-15C in the Air Force inventory will be 41 years old, according to a report published in December by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Replacing all F-15Cs with a next-generation fighter will not be cheap. In 1998, the Air Force estimated an F-15C cost $29.9 million, which is equivalent to $46.5 million in 2018, according to the Commerce Department. A next-generation fighter entering service after 2030 will cost $300 million on average, according to the December CBO report. The disparity in replacement costs drove the CBO to examine more affordable alternatives. After considering proposals to refurbish F-15C or buy newer versions of the same aircraft, the CBO concluded the latter was preferable. “New versions of older-model aircraft would probably result in more aircraft that are available (not in depot-level maintenance) and mission capable than a similarly sized fleet of refurbished aircraft,” the CBO report states. Major upgrade programs are not limited to the F-15 and F-16 fleets. The fiscal 2020 budget request will be the first fiscal planning document released by the Pentagon after the F-35 completed a 17-year system development and demonstration (SDD) phase. The F-35 entered a months-long initial operational test-and-evaluation phase in December as the final graduation exercise for the Block 3F version of the F-35. Last October, the Pentagon approved the acquisition strategy for a decade-long modernization program of the F-35 fleet. In addition to upgrading nearly all aspects of the F-35’s sensing and attack capabilities, the Block 4 program also introduces a maritime strike system and a nuclear weapon to the F-35’s capabilities. Although the original plan rolled-out the upgrades in a series of two-year increments labeled Block 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4, the Pentagon more recently carved each increment into a series of smaller packages delivered on roughly six-month intervals. With the exception of the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System upgrade now in flight test, the sequencing details of this Continuous Capability Development and Delivery program have not been released. The F-35 Joint Program Office has described a plan to deliver 56 software-enabled improvements to the F-35 over the course of the Block 4 program (see graphic). Underpinning those upgrades is a plan to replace the flight computer with a new Harris-supplied system at the end of Block 4.1. The fiscal 2020 budget proposal also might offer the first glimpse of the Pentagon’s plans for improving the F-35’s propulsion systems. Pratt & Whitney has offered to upgrade the turbomachinery in Block 4.2 to improve thrust by 6-10% without increasing fuel burn. Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation are developing the Adaptive Engine Technology Program engine, which proposes to replace the F135 with a new propulsion system featuring an adaptive bypass ratio and a 25% improvement in fuel efficiency.