Massenburg: Affordability is Key to Future of Naval Aviation

Sea Power, Oct 2004 by Burgess, Richard R

As the commander of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), Vice Adm. Walter B. Massenburg oversees the development and life-cycle support of the aircraft, aerial weapons, and associated support and training systems, managing $24 billion of the $39 billion budget of Navy and Marine Corps aviation. He leads a team of more than 27,000 program managers, depot artisans, engineers, acquisition experts, test pilots and logisticians to provide cost-efficient readiness and dominant maritime combat power to the Navy and Marine Corps team.

A naval aviator, Massenburg served as a P-3 pilot in three operational patrol squadrons, commanding the third, Patrol Squadron Six. His antisubmarine warfare background led to assignments in Naval Facility Antigua, Air Test and Evaluation Squadron One, the Tactical Training Team in Patrol Squadron 30, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations as ASW Aircraft Inventory Coordinator and the Joint Staff as branch chief of the Tactical Forces Branch in the Force Structure, Resources and Assessment Directorate.

Within NAVAIR, Massenburg commanded the Maritime Surveillance Aircraft Program Office. After his promotion to rear admiral, he served as NAVAIR's assistant commander for logistics and assistant commander for aviation depots. He helped create the Naval Aviation Readiness Integrated Improvement Program (NAVRIIP) to identify and reduce costs in naval aviation.

Massenburg spoke recently with Managing Editor Richard R. Burgess about the affordability and readiness issues that continue to face naval aviation.

What is the primary challenge facing naval aviation?

Massenburg: Affording our future. In the past, we tried to recapitialize our force, but money was transitioned out of readiness accounts in order to do that. Of course there was not enough money to do it all. There was not an understanding that we were actually mortgaging our future to recapitalize the force.

In 1998, then-Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. [Jay] Johnson started a study group under Adm. [Archie R.] Clemins to look at how do we do business in naval aviation. We found that we had lost our way in aviation. The new CNO, Adm. Vern Clark, knew about the disconnect, that trying to recapitalize was important, but it was at the expense of the sailors and Marines that are serving. We didn't know what the inputs were to get to the output.

How did the CNO attack the problem?

Massenburg: The first important piece in implementing his organizational strategy was the lead type commander [making the air commander in one of the two fleets the lead voice for the whole community]. The first lead type commander, then-Vice Adm. [John B.] Nathman, commander, Naval Air Forces, found things very disconnected, but the CNO told Adm. Nathman, 'You've got all of naval aviation. If we don't have one single process for naval aviation we'll never get our handle on whatever our today is, and our connection to our future.' Commander, Naval Air Forces became the single process owner for naval aviation.

Adm. Nathman found out we didn't know how to measure readiness. In essence, we were looking in the rear-view mirror at what we were producing, not what we could produce or what we were supposed to produce. In the 1998-99 timeframe, we were, in essence, allowing the at-home training cycle to starve in order to keep deployed forces ready, with no connection of the costs those things actually drove, what I would consider a bad behavior. So he started the [NAVRIIP].

Did naval aviation readiness improve?

Massenburg: During Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), when the CNO asked for eight carriers to deploy, he got somewhat less. It showed some very serious shortfalls in the way we did our business. One of the reasons why we couldn't get the numbers of carriers abroad was the lack of support equipment. Between OEF and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Adm. Clark took the initiative to make sure we were getting the proper readiness. In the process, we saw this rotational force that we had was frankly a bad business bargain for the country.

Adm. Clark weaned us from the rotational force we had to one we now call the Fleet Response Plan, one that would present our country more options in time of crisis. He wanted to provide a force that at anytime could provide six carriers in 30 days and two more in 90 days. During OIF, we deployed seven carriers with seven fully up air wings, with tremendous readiness, certainly the highest readiness we had seen. We also had a carrier ready with an air wing at home ready to go.

How can you improve on a record as good as that?

Massenburg: In July 2003, the NAVRIIP board of directors, led by the new Commander, Naval Air Forces, Vice Adm. [Michael] Malone, sat down with our industry consultants to decide our next step after two years of NAVRIIP. This was a seminal event, where naval aviation started to question itself, to start to get away from a near-term focus. We decided that NAVRIIP had solved the various problems we had, but we started to question whether we had overcorrected.