The plane that shouldn't die
Thursday, May 25, 2006 at 1:34PM ARTICLE: "The Plane That Won't Die: Boeing, Congress and the Air Force Thwart Budget Cutters," by Leslie Wayne, New York Times, 24 May 2006, p. C1.
No offense, but this is a badly written and badly cast piece. Putting it in terms of porkbarreling and special interests really misses the point, especially the horrific statement from some expert about how much body armor one could buy if we cut just one C-17.
The C-17s should be the future workhorse of the SysAdmin force, in addition to long-hauler for the Leviathan. They are a pure expression of global reach, and should play a huge role in non-kinetic global power. These things are built to land on crappy, short runways, and have proven that capacity in war zone after war zone and--more importantly--in disaster relief op after disaster relief op. It's track record is over two decades old and it's spectacular.
Meanwhile, we're spending $70B in R&D alone for some super-sexy steathy penetrating bomber jet that's really only useful way down the road against the Chinese.
Obviously, the Air Force is being squeezed by Iraq and the GWOT in general, and it's trying to do the usual trick of slimming down all categories rather equally, which is what the Pentagon has done going all the way back to Cheney's reign. It's a weird, non-analytical approach. Frankly, with the last USAF pilot to ever be involved in a dog fight currently deep into his first star, there are better arguments for cutting those sort of acquisition hogs than anything as connecting and utilitarian as the C-17s, and yet the production line is under serious budgetary attack.
Add on top of that Senator McCain's enduring and way-past-the-point-of-having-any-point feud with, and persecution of, Boeing, and we're watching an acquisition tragedy unfold.
But frankly, this story largely buries that obvious lead and casts the piece in the usual unimaginative manner.
Reader Comments (2)
Let me start by saying, I love the USAF, so much so that my blood runs AF blue.
I think that the author of the original article was trying to get at a point that Tom makes quite often. The point being that we need to cutback on the bigger/faster/higher/farther style projects and get some funding for the ground pounders (supplies AND bodies), littoral ships, and smaller scale airframes that can help us increase presence globally. Isn't the airframe aspect of that arguement something Boyd proposed a LONG time ago? IF that was the author's intent, I would agree with them. If they specifically meant to call out the C-17, then I would disagree with them. The answer is not always in more technology. There are plenty of big-budget, wizbang, dream aquisition projects on the list of things that we could do without.
In a related issue, seems like more technology is a large part of the proposed answer to the border control problem. And again, it would be the wrong answer.
I mean, sheesh. If they're going to kill a program, it shouldn't be an air transport program performing one of the useful things the USAF does. It should be the F-22 or F-35.
They need stuff like that, and a workhorse bomber, and close air support craft - all the stuff that are the ugly stepchildren in the current AF, while high-ticket love-your-contractor items get the development attention.