WASHINGTON – The head of U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command wants the service to consider installing new engines on its aging B-52 fleet, but budget realities could intervene.
"I've got people looking at it. I can't say I'm going to gain any traction on it, but I've got people looking at it," Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson told reporters Oct. 8 at an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute.
While noting that there is no money planned in the fiscal 2016 budget request for such a program, Wilson said industry representatives have expressed confidence that putting newer engines on the bombers could reduce fuel consumption and sustainment costs.
"Look at what the airline industry is doing — they're all re-engining," Wilson said. "Why? Because it saves you a lot of money. If there is a commercially available engine which can give a 25-30 percent increase in either range or loiter, you have my attention.
"I'm hearing from industry that is saying they are putting engines on airplanes today and they won't take them off-wing for over 20 years, so there's [also] a manpower savings in this. There's a depot savings in this," Wilson said.
Improving fuel consumption rates would also cut the number of tankers needed to support bombers during missions, he said.
Wilson cited industry figures showing that installing new engines on the fleet would pay for itself by the mid-2030s — not as quickly as the service would like, but since current plans call for the B-52 to operate through 2040, one that makes sense.
Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group, agreed that the engines make sense from both a fiscal and operational viewpoint.
"You'd cut fuel and maintenance in half just for starters, and you can lift more and do it faster," Aboulafia said. "It's better across the board and cheaper across the board. There are no drawbacks."
The B-52 flies on eight Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-3/103 turbofan engines, a power plant first produced in the late 1950s with production ending in the 1980s — and one based on an old and inefficient design.
Aboulafia said the logical replacement would be the PW2000, another Pratt engine that is used on the 757 commercial jet, which ended production a decade ago, and the C-17 military cargo plane, which is ending production in 2015.
With a new engine design prohibitively expense, Pratt would likely welcome a way to keep that line open. A spokesman for Pratt & Whitney declined to go into details on the issue, noting the company "has options and we are discussing those with the US Air Force."
Competitor Rolls-Royce noted that "if the Air Force releases requirements for a B-52 re-engine plan, we will review them carefully against our product portfolio and decide how to respond."
But while the logic of a re-engining program is strong, the reality it faces is the same many modernization programs face: a budget structure that firewalls off sustainment and upgrade funds.
"You pay for equipment up front in the procurement accounts, but you harvest the benefit over the long term in savings in [operations and sustainment], and the two budgets don't talk to each other," Aboulafia explained.
As an example, imagine the Air Force has to pay $50 million per engine set and that would provide $5 million in operational savings. In 10 years, that would pay for itself. But that $50 million cost comes out of procurement and the $5 million in savings goes into operations, making it hard to argue for modernization in times of constrained budgets.
Wilson acknowledged this challenge, but expressed optimism a solution could be found.
"It may require a modification of existing regulations," he said. "I can take energy money and apply it to fixed installations, but I can't do that to airplanes. If there is a way to change that to allow the energy savings to pay for fuel savings in the future… Industry has talked to us and they think there is a way."
Such optimism rarely pays out for Pentagon officials, warned Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute.
"Current Air Force leadership believes that the color of budget money is the same and that they can shift money from [operation and support] to acquisition for new programs," Eaglen said. "Unfortunately, to close budget watchers, this is no surprise. But to leaders who don't have to normally deal with the budget and the politics of the budget, it is a rude awakening every time.
"The strategy-resource mismatch has been around for nearly two decades now for the Pentagon and it's only getting worse due to the unbudgeted costs and internal defense inflation within the defense budget," she added. "This steals savings right out of the proverbial pocket before any chief is the wiser every year."
Those budget challenges are what sunk the idea in the past, and Aboulafia remains convinced it will sink it now.
"It was a great idea a quarter century ago," he said. "It's still a great idea now. But it's probably impossible and technically even more difficult now than it was back then."
Aaron Mehta was deputy editor and senior Pentagon correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Defense Department and its international partners.
