Observing Indecision of a "So Called" Fighter Gap

I think ADM Roughead is right, the industry can sustain itself even if the Navy doesn't buy more F-18 Super Hornets, but that isn't what is bothering me about this National Defense Magazine article nor what is bothering me about the whole "fighter gap" debate.

The Navy has enough tactical aircraft for now, says Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Further analysis will determine the extent of the so-called "fighter gap" that, McCaskill contends, will leave the Navy 200 aircraft short of what it needs to fill its air wings in the coming years.

The phrase "so called" has become a factor in this discussion, which is strange because the CBO recently released a report (PDF) suggesting the fighter gap is real. The CBO collected a lot of data from the DoD to create the report, so someone in the DoD thinks it is more than a 'so called' gap. As far as the fighter gap the Navy is suggested to have, it was the CNO himself, Admiral Gary Roughead, who first suggested the Navy was going to run into a fighter gap, and he did it in Congressional testimony last year.

The indecision regarding the "so called" shortage of fighters is one of the more interesting discussions surrounding the budget in my opinion. While it is true the Secretary of Defense increased the number of Joint Strike Fighters the Navy would buy, if you look closely the increase was actually for the F-35B model for the Marine Corps, not much for the F-35C which is the Navy's carrier version.

I think Gates is being inconsistent here. The F-18 is about the only weapon system in the war we are in, and Boeing is offering a basement price of $49.9 million for a purchase of 170. The F-18 is absolutely the mature, low risk choice while the F-35 is the immature high risk choice, so why is he making an exception here? 179 Super Hornets would replace nearly 20% of the entire carrier based fighter fleet. The Navy is reducing the number of planes in a squadron, while acknowledging a fighter gap between 2016-2020, and punting the decision to buy more aircraft to the QDR? I'm not even going to mention how the Navy is also putting Marine squadrons on aircraft carriers to make up for existing shortfalls.

This really seems like a no brainer for Congress. Why are we building big deck aircraft carriers at all if we aren't building enough planes to take advantage of their size? Hell, more Super Hornets E/F right now is also the same thing as adding refueling capacity to the Navy, since the Navy uses buddy tanking.

I have not seen a good estimate for what the F-35C will cost, but since the first F-35C has yet to fly at all, do we even know? Seems to me if we can lock in a fixed-price contract for 170 F-18s at the $49.9 million per aircraft offered, the Navy adds a great deal of cost certainty and low risk to carrier aviation. At that point, the Navy won't have to spend more money to insure the F-35C is developed on time without creating serious shortfalls, which is the high risk bet right now.

Besides, the fighter gap is reportedly bigger than has been suggested, so why is this decision being punted to the QDR if we have underestimated the problem to begin with?