Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Air Force Strategic Initiatives

Statement

Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - Air Force Strategic Initiatives

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REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the chairman's comments concerning strategic and visionary thinking. And I want to thank you, Secretary Wynne and General Moseley, for your efforts in not only leading the Air Force strategically but also in trying to give us a picture of some of the variables that you face in thinking -- as a vision for the future.

Your presentation has included descriptions of cutting personnel, aging aircraft, escalating costs in acquisition and modernization, long lead times for replacement, congressional restraints on retirement, and declining and projected shutdowns of industrial base. Those are pretty significant variables that impact the ability of the Air Force in its future strategic thinking and in being visionary.

As you know, in my district we have Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is a base that is focused on our advantage on the battlefields of tomorrow, and that tomorrow is the future that we all look to you for as to how we're going to ensure that we have air dominance, and you have brought to us some significant issues that are impacting your ability to project our success in the future.

In thinking on a visionary and strategic basis, looking at the restraint that you have on retirements, I was wondering if you could talk for a moment about that policy because I want to echo what Mr. Saxton has been saying on the restraint of retirements, specifically on the C-5 and C-17 area. But I don't see any real good policy basis for the restraint that you have, and if you could give us some insight as to how a restraint on retirement fits within the Air Force or limits the Air Force and its ability for strategic and visionary thinking.

SEC. WYNNE: There's a belief which we apparently have been unsuccessful in disproving that if you park the airplanes on the side of the ramp, somehow when the balloon goes up, those will magically turn into five-year-old airplanes or 10-year-old airplanes. It is a problem that I think we have tried to attack from several perspectives, but I must tell you -- be disappointed with myself to tell you that we have been yet successful.

There is clearly money to be saved and manpower to be saved in not maintaining these airplanes any longer. It's scary for the crews, frankly. It's getting that way, although we have a fleet viability board that tries to make sure that we don't violate the safety of flight.

GEN. MOSELEY: Sir, I feel frustrated in not being able to articulate something as simple to an aviator is having an airplane on these restrictions and not being able to retire it and move to the next generation; it seems so simple to me.

So I suspect this is a failure upon myself. I don't want to accuse my boss, but it seems we have been unable to articulate what I perceive to be the obvious on being able to manage our inventory and being able to put the money in the right place to meet the strategic vision of re-capitalization and modernization in the new technologies. While we are managing the oldest inventory we've had in the history of the Air Force, and still have the restrictions on us that we have to attach a tug to an airplane every seven to 10 days and tow it to keep the tires from going bad that we have no intention of flying. Or that we have to take to an engine test stand and run every 25 or 30 days just to keep it in the status that is required by the language. So I accept this as a failure and I'm unable to articulate why this is a bad idea.

REP. TURNER Well of course, I don't -- I don't see it as your failure that you're having to operate within a restraint that's imposed upon you. I see it as a great benefit that you're ensuring that we're well aware, and continuously aware, of how this impacts your ability to strategically and visionarily -- have vision for moving forward. On the issue of personnel. It seems to me, and I was a little confused by the discussion, you're proposing significant reductions in personnel in attempts to fund your modernization and re- capitalization. But I did not believe that that was strategically where you wanted your personnel level to be; it's not as if you decided where your personnel should be and from that looked where you would take those cost savings. You looked at your immediate need on equipment re-capitalization and modernization and then sought where you could find savings. How does that impact the future of the Air Force?

SEC. WYNNE: If you re-capitalize on a reasonable schedule, what we note is that you save maintenance manpower almost immediately. If you can retire the airplanes on a schedule, you save maintenance man. We have forecasted that savings.

REP. TURNER Thank you.

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