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Not aperfect world

The director of the Air National Guard chose his words carefully. “I’m hesitant to separate Air National Guard capabilities from those of the active-duty Air Force,” Lt. Gen. Henry M. “Bud” Wyatt said over the telephone. “At the same time, we need to recognize the fiscal climate and the economic situation.”

Wyatt and other Guard leaders pay close attention to what they say and how they say it so they don’t get out of step with their partners in the Air Staff and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The fact is, though, that the Guard could handle most of its missions, including the all-important homeland sovereignty — that’s shorthand for staying prepared to shoot down a hijacked airliner — without the latest, costliest and stealthiest fighters, which is what the Air Force continues to order up.

While Gates is proposing sweeping changes in fiscal 2010 that would shift the focus to lower-tech weapons, the defense secretary plans on adding four F-22 Raptors in the 2009 supplemental budget, bringing the fleet total to 187, and accelerating the purchase of the F-35 Lightning II from 14 to 30.

Wyatt is working hard to integrate the F-35 into the Air National Guard and wants more F-22s than the Guard is scheduled to operate.

“The world’s premier Air Force should be flying the world’s premier fighter,” Wyatt said, referring to the F-22.

But this isn’t a perfect world.

Both fighters — the Pentagon and industry describe the planes as “fifth-generation” to bolster their claims that the jets are a generation ahead of fighters in the world’s other air forces — are taking too long to develop and cost too much.

The F-35 has yet to reach an operational unit while its cost has risen and its value as an air-to-ground cure-all is being questioned. The F-22 Raptor doesn’t have a data link as older fighters do, making it useless in a net-centric battle.

“We can’t all have Generation 5.0 fighters,” said National Guard chief Gen. Craig McKinley, also in a telephone interview. “I will do what I’m told by the chief of staff of the Air Force but [within the Guard], our folks are saying, ‘Why not consider a modernized version of current aircraft?’ ”

In both his interview and at a March 25 hearing of the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee, Wyatt said fifth-generation fighters won’t help the Guard because 80 percent of its F-16s will be retired in eight years, before the replacement F-35 can be available in significant numbers.

“We are preserving our options to include a fourth-generation buy,” Wyatt told senators.

Wyatt is right but should have pushed his point even more.

U.S. forces — especially the Guard — need a combination of armed, trainer-type aircraft such as the proposed AT-6B Texan II and renewed production of the notional F-15SE Silent Eagle and F-16 block 70 Fighting Falcon to replace existing F-15s and F-16s. This would let the Air Force continue buying F-22s and F-35s — still needed to fight a modern, well-equipped adversary — at a realistic rate.

The right combination of all five kinds of airplanes can be achieved for less than a speeded-up, enlarged purchase of F-22s and F-35s.