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Sea Power, Jun 2002 by Kreisher, Otto

Naval Air Fleet Suffering From Old Age, Corrosion, and Cost Problems

There is widespread agreement that the performance of U.S. naval aviation in Afghanistan removed any doubt about the value of seabased air power and demonstrated the new capabilities of the Navy's land-based P-3C patrol planes.

"A year ago, people would have argued that the day of the carrier was over," Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, deputy commandant for programs and resources, told a seminar audience at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition. "We now know ... [the carriers] are not going anywhere in our lifetime."

But the increasing age of today's naval air force is causing a myriad of problems that could threaten its future combat effectiveness. Moreover, some of the actions the naval services are taking, or are considering, as means to cure naval air's geriatric ills could further reduce the capabilities so dramatically displayed in Operation Enduring Freedom. The problem of aging aircraft has become one of the Navy Department's top concerns.

"Our current aviation force contains the oldest mix of ... aircraft in naval history," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark told the Senate Armed Services Committee's Seapower Subcommittee on 9 April 2002. "Yet those aircraft are being tasked to unprecedented levels in the ongoing conflict."

Only Two Years to Go?

"Our average airplane right now is almost one-third older than our average ship," noted Vice Adm. Joseph W. Dyer Jr., commander of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in a March 2002 interview. "We have to recapitalize if we are to have a strong, secure, and affordable future."

The average age of the Navy's warships is 15 years, about half of their notional service life of 30 years, Navy officials said. But the average age of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft is 18 years. Because carrier-based tactical airplanes have a nominal service life of 20 years, that is an extremely troublesome statistic.

The causes of naval aviation's "aging crisis" are a decade-long "procurement holiday" and the current slow rate of procurement caused by low budgets and competing needs.

"The 18-year number is ... a factor of not buying airplanes" since the buildup of the 1980s, said Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, director of the Navy's aviation plans and requirements office.

More recently, "manpower costs have prevented us from meeting our modernization goals for aircraft and ships," said Vice Adm. Michael G. Mullen, deputy chief of naval operations for resources, requirements, and assessments. The fiscal year 2002 defense budget provides $24.3 billion for total Navy procurement-but more than $33 billion is needed, Mullen said. "My job is to find that additional $10 billion. I will do everything in my power to ensure that we build more than five ships next year and buy more than 83 aircraft." The amount proposed for Navy procurement in the FY 2003 defense budget is $24.9 billion.

Dyer said that the shortage of procurement funds is aggravated by the aging problem, because older airplanes cost more to operate-8 percent more, on average, for each additional year of age.

A Big Problem Times Three

Aircraft aging, Moffit said, is "kind of a three-dimensional thing," consisting of how the structural part of the aircraft is holding up, whether the internal systems have become obsolete, and how much it costs in operations and support to keep the planes in service. Those factors are more significant than the "nominal" service life assigned to each major type of aircraft, he said.

The nominal life expectancy for landbased aircraft is 30 years; the average age of the P-3 Orions, though, is 23 years, and that of the KC- 130 Hercules refueler/transport is 24 years. The nominal service life for helicopters in general is 25 years, but the H-46 Sea Knight helicopters average more than 30 years.

The reason the tactical aircraft's nominal life is only 20 years is because of the stress of carrier operations, Moffit said in an interview in early April. The Navy's S-3 Viking sea-control and tanker aircraft, EA-6B Prowler electronic-attack aircraft, and F-14 Tomcat and Super Tomcat fighters have an average life expectancy of 25 years, 19.5 years, and 17 years, respectively.

But service life used to be based primarily on an aircraft's structural strength. And the services are learning that rapid gains in technology-particularly in the avionics field-can create large problems in system obsolescence, Moffit said. While NAVAIR is working to improve the structural endurance of aircraft and to upgrade systems, the OPNAV (office of the chief of naval operations) staff is scrutinizing operating costs, he said, because "it's just getting more and more expensive to keep flying these aircraft."

One big problem is finding spare parts for aircraft that no longer are in production. "The further you get from that last production, that last aircraft off the line, the leaner that parts supply is"-and the more expensive it is, therefore, to find companies to make the parts, Moffit said. "So we are seeing some pretty significant increases in the cost of parts-- purchasing contracts."