As questions about the cost and production schedule of the Joint Strike Fighter mount, a Boeing spokesman says he believes a souped-up, discounted F/A-18 Super Hornet that began production last year is more than adequate for Navy tactical aviation needs over the next two decades.
Bob Gower, F/A-18 program manager for Boeing, told Navy Times on April 2 that the company is building a so-called Block II, or 4.75-generation Super Hornet, which would carry better avionics and offer an improvement over the current Super Hornets, which first deployed in 2003.
His remarks came days after the release of a congressional study that found the nearly $1 trillion Joint Strike Fighter program is more than $38 billion over budget and could be delayed by as many as 27 months, putting pressure on Navy officials who hope to use it to replace aging legacy Hornets.
At about the same time, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead — in remarks prepared for a Senate hearing in March — wrote that heavy use of Navy Hornets could force the service to retire some of its jets before the F-35C is ready to replace them, creating what some are calling the "strike fighter gap."
"Because of the high op tempo of the current strike aircraft fleet, and despite JSF's initial operational capability and delivery in 2015, we anticipate a shortfall of strike aircraft from 2016 until 2025," Roughead wrote. "Further delays in JSF will exacerbate this strike fighter gap."
Gower said possible production delays, congressional objections to the JSF's $60 million per-plane price tag and the results of a study of whether legacy Hornets' life spans can be increased to 10,000 hours could lead to significant increases in a projected shortfall of 69 legacy Hornets —125 if the Marine Corps Hornet squadrons are counted.
Even if the study says the Hornets can be extended, Gower said, required inspections could run as long as 400 hours, shelving some Hornets for weeks, increasing flying demands on remaining Hornets and driving them even faster toward retirement.
"If you start changing variables, assuming only a one-year slip [in JSF production] and they buy 42 a year instead of 50, that shortfall jumps from 69 to well over 100 and it lasts for a decade and a half," Gower said. "We believe the strike fighter shortfall is very real and it could put three to four carriers' worth of airplanes at risk. The real issue is: Will there be carriers that don't have shadows on the ramp?"
Gower said Boeing has offered the Navy a $4 million discount on late-model Hornets — $49 million rather than $53 million — the Navy could buy to fill the gap. But he insists that Boeing doesn't see the Super Hornet filling the role of the JSFs, nor does he consider the proposal of additional Super Hornets as a reason to cut the 680 F-35s that the Navy and Marine Corps are expected to buy.
"The Navy's committed to both the Super Hornet and the JSF," Gower said. "For them, the issue is, when do you switch from buying Super Hornets to buying JSFs? The Navy conversation with us has been we are committed to the JSF program and we are committed to Super Hornet until we can reduce the risk of going to JSF."
Gower declined to answer questions about what would happen if the Navy determined that the JSF "risk" could not be reduced, but he said the Hornet production run at its St. Louis assembly line could be extended if needed.
"As long as you have a warm production line, it's easy to continue and extend it," he said, adding that the assembly line recently ramped up production to provide Super Hornets for the Navy and for the Australian military.
Hornet vs. Lightning
Lockheed officials and the Navy's F-35 program manager have disputed the GAO findings and say a Defense Department selected acquisition report due to be released this month will provide a more accurate picture of the program's status.
"We don't know where [the GAO] got that," Lockheed spokesman John Smith said. "We are on schedule as we currently sit to make our delivery of our production jets as scheduled. We don't know of any reason why we wouldn't be able to make that."
Not only is the F-35 development on schedule, Smith said, but its production schedule also can be moved up as much as two years if Congress provides more funding — something that could greatly reduce the projected fighter gap.
And Lockheed officials said the Super Hornet can't compete with the F-35, especially in the realm of forward stealth.
"No fourth-generation fighter, even the most advanced, can be considered a true stealth fighter," Smith said. "Incremental improvements are far short of the F-35's very low observable stealth. VLO can be achieved only when it is integral to an aircraft's design."
While Gower concedes that the improved Super Hornet does not rival the JSF's stealth capabilities, he said stealth improvements realized during the design of the Super Hornet, combined with other design features, make the improved Super Hornet a capable combat aircraft for the next two decades.
"The Navy optimized stealth for the Super Hornet and they feel very comfortable," he said. "Their comment is, 'We are comfortable with Block II, at least through 2024, going into the highest threat environment we see out there.'
"[With the Hornet], the Navy has always taken a balanced approach to survivability. So rather than putting all their money into stealth, they put some into stealth, some into survivability with the electronic warfare system. They also went into the whole piece with connectivity to understand where the enemy is. Let's not put all our eggs in one basket for fear that if, as mechanisms come up to overcome, that they didn't want to be vulnerable.
"I don't want to give the impression that the Joint Strike Fighter is worse or better than the Block II Hornet," Gower added. "The issue gets to be if the Block I was a good airplane but the Block II is where the awesome quantum step in functionality came (Block I began delivery in 2000). In 2007, we started delivering every plane as a Block II. That seven-year period is where the Navy did the development and put the systems in place. Now, JSF might be able to get there faster, but they're going to go through the same process, the first JSF are going to be the most expensive and the least capable.
"That's the same thing the Super Hornet did, but now we are on the sweet spot on the curve," he said. "Do you want to spend all your resources now buying the most expensive platforms, or do you want to optimize that and buy the less expensive platforms?"
A Super Duper Hornet?
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