The Fighter Gap - Easy Call or Tough Decision?

There was an editorial by Robert Diamond in Defense News on Monday regarding the fighter gap. It is very, very tempting to just say buy more F-18s. That is what Mr. Diamond is saying.

There is an old-fashioned showdown taking place in the halls of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill right now. Officials are concerned about the emergence of a so-called "fighter gap" in the U.S. Navy. The gap refers to a projected shortfall in the number of strike-fighter aircraft the Navy requires to meet the needs of its 10 active-duty carrier air wings.

According to the latest figures released by the Navy and the Congressional Research Service, the Navy and Marine Corps will suffer a shortfall of 50 aircraft in 2010. That number could reach as high as 243 when the gap peaks in 2018.

Of course, the fighter gap deeply concerns Navy brass, but it should also worry the Army and Marines, who depend on precision combat air support on a daily basis.

The proximate cause of the fighter gap comes from the rate at which the Navy will retire the backbone of its current strike-fighter fleet - the F/A-18 Hornet-Super Hornet - while simultaneously introducing the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as its replacement.

Admirals, analysts and members of Congress have good reason to argue over the exact size of the upcoming fighter gap; after all, numbers matter. However, we must not allow reasonable disagreements to descend into petty quibbling. Everyone agrees that the problem is unacceptable and that we need an urgent answer to the problem.

Fortunately, the answer to that question is not complicated: Buy more F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

Easy decision right? Well, there are no easy decisions. I'm not a big fan of the Joint Strike Fighter, and have no intention of being a F-35C fan until it actually takes off an lands on an aircraft carrier with a Navy pilot telling me "That is what I need."

We are a long way from that moment.

But I am also not quite ready to jump on the "buy F-18" bandwagon yet. I am very happy to see the Navy has not jumped the gun and taken the quick fix solution here, and is instead letting the QDR sort it out.

I keep thinking that the Navy might be wise to not buy the full 243 that is being claimed as the gap, and instead only buys a limited number to plug the gap, instead of fill it in completely. I think that approach would make a lot of sense if the Navy also tries to get unmanned vehicles out on to carrier decks.

Yea, UCAS-N is clearly the long term option, but I'd like to see funding to get the Reaper a shot too, because it may be we need both types of unmanned platforms on our carrier decks in the time frame we would be building new F-18s. If the Navy doesn't get the increased range of unmanned systems on its aircraft carriers soon, then naval aviation will not be evolving at the speed necessary to keep pace with innovations in precision weapons, and thus become less affordable for the capability provided.

If buying fewer F-18s puts unmanned strike aircraft on carriers sooner (thinking money here), then I'm for buying fewer.