Ten years ago, at the start of the 1980s, jet aircraft designers began to concentrate their efforts "super-fighter" designs which mix high maneuverability with stealth requirements and "smart” integrated weaponry and defense system technology. The result of all this effort has been the creation of unduly sophisticated aircraft of incredible complexity and cost. For instance, the latest announcements by the USAF and USN are that the F-22/23 ATF and the Navy A-12 are projected to cost $80 million apiece or more, depending on the size of the production runs.
Looking back in history, we find that in the 1960s, a new F-4 Phantom cost about $4 million. It was a robust and useful multi-role aircraft, massed produced and proven in combat. The new wave of "teen" fighters which followed in the 1970s incorporated the key lessons learned in Vietnam -- that a fighter should have uncompromised maneuverability and effective weaponry, including a gun. Extensive electronics to detect the enemy and survive in combat were also desirable, if not critical.
The advanced, state-of-the-art fighter design was achieved but at an alarming increase in cost. The brand new F-16s and F-15s came rolling off the assembly lines with a price of $16 million and $24 million respectively. By 1982 the newer, multi-mission capable F/A-18 cost $38 million, $6 million more than the complex F-14 Tomcat which had been in production for several years already.
The same cost escalation problems have occurred in Europe and elsewhere with the advent of sophisticated and expensive jets like the Mirage 2000 and Panavia Tornado fighters. Other projects, like the EFA, Lavi, Rafale, and Gripen, have either been killed off or considerably delayed due to cost. Even Russia, which is only just now catching up with the rest of the world in fighter technology, has been faced with aircraft complexity and sticker shock as evidenced by the slow production rates of their new Fulcrum and Flanker fighters.
However, it is the U.S. that has really gone "bonkers" over fighter design. We kicked off the ATF design studies in the eighties with the irresponsible view that "money is no object"! This Alice-in-Wonderland mentality, which is unfortunately being copied by other countries, has resulted in the design of aircraft which cannot be built in sufficient quantity to be justified. It must be remembered that aircraft are expendable weapons systems. They will be put in harm's way and they will be destroyed in combat.
Is it smart to have 48 superfighters which can't be used because the war they were built for hasn't begun and the little guerilla war in progress doesn't allow the risk of losing such a valuable machine? Or is it smarter to have two wings of F-16s at the same cost which can fight in either war effectively? The answer seems obvious.
I predict that the nineties will see the demise of the superfighter concept due to lack of cost-effectiveness - they are just too expensive. Israel dropped the Lavi because the cheaper and available F-16 could do just as much at $20 million a copy as the $50 million Lavi could. This will be true of other designs. Will the Rafale or Grippen truly be any better than an F/A-18? Not enough to justify their costs.
What I believe will happen is that only a few ATF super wonder fighters will be built. They will be a testing ground for advanced technology but they will not revolutionize aerial warfare as their designers predict until they can be mass produced at reasonable prices. This may take ten or twenty years to happen and by then weapons to counter stealth technology will exist, bringing us back to square one.
More than likely, the nineties will see a rational return to functional and affordable fighter planes. We are already seeing this trend in the development of upgrades to existing fighters in the form of improved electronics, engines, and weaponry attached to older airframes, the Phantom being one such case. An upgrade to an F-4 costs $5 million to $6 million and makes it nearly as good as the current $30 million fighters.
Practical weapons are important. I believe two dozen multi- role upgraded F-4s equipped with AMRAAM missiles can do much more in a war than half a dozen stealthy ATF equipped with the same missiles. More importantly, the F4s are expendable enough to risk against ground forces. I can't envision an ATF being sent diving through flak and SAMs to bomb a bunker. And while it may be true that plane-for-plane an ATF can defeat an F4 every time, can the few available ATFs be where they're needed when dozens of the cheaper planes strike multiple targets at once? Not hardly.
Much is being made of the ATF and A-12 and of their capabilities. I am reminded of how much was made of the German wonder jets at the end of World War II. For all their capabilities, there were never enough of them to make a difference in the outcome of the war. They were eventually overwhelmed by the numerous piston engine fighters swarming the skies!
Certainly, there could be a place for a machine like the ATF in a balanced force of warplanes, but the USAF wants to quit building perfectly good aircraft like the F- 15 and F-16 to fund their wonder toys and this is a mistake.
What we need in our Air Force is not a few high-tech, electronic whiz-planes that can only be flown from special bases, mainly at night, and which are only effective when combined with equally expensive wonder missiles, but lots of tough, easily maintained and serviceable jets that ran show up with effective missiles or a ton of bombs, as needed, when needed, and where needed. I solicit your views on this.
Back to Table of Contents -- Air Power # 9
Back to Air Power List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 1990 by J.D. Webster
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com