General Says The Entire System Needs To Be Recapitalized
One of the biggest challenges facing the Air National Guard
today is replacing its fleet of aircraft that are approaching the
end of their service lives, the Air Guard's director said here
today. "A big problem we have in the Air National Guard is figuring
out how to recapitalize our aging fleet," Air Force Lt. Gen. Harry
M. Wyatt III said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. The problem
extends to fighters, tankers, airlifters, airborne warning and
control systems and early warning radars. "It's the whole system
that is old and needs to be recapitalized," the general said.
It's an issue facing not only the Air Guard, but the Air Force
as a whole.
"To be quite honest with you, the Air Force has the same
recapitalization problem as the Air National Guard," Wyatt said.
"Ours is a little bit more acute and a little more immediate,
because our airplanes are a little bit older." And that immediacy,
he added, affects the readiness status of Air Guard units.
"If you take a look at our F-16s that do the air sovereignty alert
mission, 80 percent of those will be aging out within the next
eight years," he explained. "Right now, the recapitalization plan
for those units doesn't have [replacements] going to those units
until the mid-2020s, and that is several years too late."
Discussions are under way about how to retool the Air Guard
fleet. "We're working with the Air Force to address that problem,
and we're making some progress, but to date there is no plan that
addresses Air National Guard issues," Wyatt said.
One of the issues taking shape within those discussions is
rebalancing the force structure of the Air Force as a whole. Wyatt
said that rebalancing should come at the same rate across all
components of the Air Force. "In my opinion, since the Air National
Guard provides 34 percent of the capabilities of the United States
Air Force -- at 7 percent of the budget, I might add -- the smart
thing to do would be to take a look at bedding down whatever
capability the Air Force requires concurrently and proportionally
in the Guard."
Wyatt said he is afraid to see a return to the days of the Air
Guard flying castoffs from the active duty force, citing his
experience with the results of that formula. He flew the A-7
Corsair II for the Oklahoma Air National Guard in the early 1990s.
"When Desert Storm kicked off, we had some great capability within
the Air National Guard and the A-7 platform," Wyatt said. "But the
active duty [Air Force] was not flying the A-7, and they were
concerned with getting the top-of-the-line weapons in the fight,
and we were not asked to participate. That seems to me to be a
great waste of money," he continued. "It makes no sense to have a
platform that you're not going to use in war."
Another waste is not capitalizing on the years of experience
that Air Guard members bring with them, the general said. "We have
the most experienced pilots, the most experienced maintenance
crews," he told the group. "We are an older force, a more mature
force, and if you don't provide a platform or the capability within
the Air National Guard, then that great experience withers and it
dies. "It will take you generations to regenerate that," he said.
"What the Air Guard offers is the capacity on top of what the Air
Force offers."
On the recent debate on the future funding of the F-22 Raptor
versus the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Wyatt -- who describes
himself as a "platform agnostic" -- said capability is more
important than the platform. "I think we need to be in the same
platform as the Air Force," he said. "If the decision is made in
the future to acquire fourth-generation airplanes, similar to what
the Navy is doing with the F/A-18 purchases, then I would advocate
for the Air Guard to be in those same platforms, provided it's
fielded concurrently and proportionally to the Air Guard."
And that makes fiscal sense, said Wyatt, who added that the
planes and crews often pull double duty with regard to mission
sets, since many Air Guard aircraft are flown as part of the air
sovereignty alert mission, but can be deployed overseas as well.
"Those same airplanes that fly air sovereignty alert, they don't
just do air sovereignty alert," Wyatt said. "They're written into
the war plans. They do [air expeditionary force] rotations, and we
participate the same as the Air Force does, so we should have the
same equipment."
Wyatt said the biggest need is maintaining the Air Guard's
capability to stay current in the roles it fills. "What airplane we
put it on, or how it's acquired, that's basically a decision for
Congress to make," he said. "It doesn't make any difference to me.
We just want the capability, and we need it before we lose the
capability we currently have."
ANN Salutes Army Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy serving with the
National Guard Bureau.