The Air Force is experiencing “a hard time” launching an effort to develop a new long-range bomber because many within the Defense Department disagree over what kind of platform the military needs to conduct future strike missions, a senior DOD official says.

Though air service officials are moving forward with plans to field a new long-range strike aircraft around the 2018 mark, “the department is not behind” the effort because “the need is not fully understood,” said James Durham, director of joint force applications in the Pentagon's acquisition, technology and logistics shop. His comments came Aug. 30 during an industry conference in Silver Spring, MD.

During a brief interview at the event, he tempered those remarks a bit, noting there is widespread agreement within the department that a new long-range bomber is needed but that officials disagree on what kind of aircraft or missile should be designed to meet the requirement.

“It's a question of where it fits into the broad scheme of things,” Durham told Inside the Air Force, referring to the ongoing debate about the next-generation strike platform. “We all know we need it but we don't know how much or when.”

Air Force officials earlier this year revealed their intentions to begin work aimed at fielding a new long-range strike aircraft next decade. The service was ordered to begin efforts to build the new bomber aircraft by 2018 under mandates included in the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, which also directed that the air service stop work on its portion of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program. Meanwhile, the Navy has said it is moving forward with its part of the J-UCAS program.

ITAF first reported last week that the air service plans to seek $5 billion in its fiscal year 2008 budget plan for advanced research on the next-generation strike platform.

Since the QDR was made public, Air Force and DOD officials have said the air service plans to rely heavily on lessons gleaned from its J-UCAS work as it begins developing a new long-range strike program. Service officials are mulling whether the embryonic program ultimately will field a family of bombing aircraft or merely a single plane. Those same officials have expressed resounding interest in the possibility of developing an unmanned bomber.

To that end, the service officials have launched a broad study, called an analysis of alternatives, that will articulate a list of requirements for a next-generation long-range strike program. That AOA will be the service's first try at transitioning technical lessons taken from its J-UCAS work into the new strike program.

That assessment is being conducted amid an ongoing military-wide debate about just what kind of platform the Air Force will need to take out targets located out of reach of many fighter aircraft and some missile systems. A range of platforms have been mentioned by many defense officials, including a new stealthy bomber aircraft, a modified version of a fighter aircraft, a ballistic missile, an upgraded Tomahawk missile-like platform or some other missile. Some defense officials also have publicly questioned whether a new long-range strike aircraft should be able to take off from and return to Navy aircraft carriers.

The much-anticipated AOA is expected to help service brass determine the kind of platform the service will purchase to conduct future strike missions after the QDR's 2018 mandate. It remains unclear, however, whether the AOA's findings will produce enough consensus among senior Air Force and Pentagon officials to end the ongoing fervor over what kind of aircraft or missile the service should purchase.

For his part, Durham used the debate around the new strike program as an example of why defense officials are eying changes to the military's system development and purchasing process that would replace the Pentagon's often-used and detail-oriented AOAs with “evaluations of alternatives” (EOAs), which take a broader look at a set of requirements (see related story). Durham is a former fighter pilot and has held several key posts during his career in the defense realm.

Under the envisioned revised acquisition process, an “EOA,” says Durham, would have allowed the air service to take a broad look at the military's future strike needs -- as opposed to a detailed assessment like those AOAs typically produce. The Pentagon's acquisition shop could then have let “everyone compete for it and then said, ‘We want a medium-sized bomber. Air Force, that's what you do, go build it.'”

As the long-range strike program and the new acquisition reform effort both roll on, the air service is moving toward a potential “fly-off” for the new strike program, according to military officials.

The Pentagon's next six-year spending plan will spell out the Air Force's desire to get a first-hand glimpse of the platforms that eventually will square off to become its new long-range bombing aircraft , service Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley have said.

“We intend to come forward in the [fiscal year 2008] president's budget with a hard plan to essentially offer a fly-before-buy option so that we can in fact lock in a 2017 initial operational capability,” Wynne told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on March 29.

Wynne's mention of including plans for a fly-off of the field of platforms that likely will soon emerge for the multibillion-dollar long-range bomber contract meshes with comments made by Moseley during a recent interview with ITAF in March.

Moseley at that time said senior service officials had opted to move forward with plans to commission a fly-off to determine which industry platforms would be best suited -- by the 2018 benchmark -- to meet the nation's need for the new long-range bomber.

“I'm willing to look at some creative ways to give [industry] an amount of money and say, ‘You guys come back in X number of months and see what we got.' Let's fly these babies off and see what we end up with,” Moseley said on March 7 following testimony before the House Appropriations military quality of life and veterans affairs subcommittee.