After months of scrutinizing the military's requirement for nearly 3,000 new fighter aircraft, Pentagon leaders had little appetite for targeting tactical aircraft programs to pay for other Defense Department needs, according to a senior defense official involved in the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review.  

The QDR report, due to be delivered to Congress next week, makes no cuts to the 2,443 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft the United States plans to buy for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and slightly boosts the number of Air Force F-22A aircraft to be produced from 179 to 183, while extending the production line by two years to 2010.

This result effectively sets aside a recommendation by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's director of net assessment, who in September suggested in a “red team” QDR assessment that tactical aircraft programs should be cut by one-third, according to sources familiar with Marshall's assessment.

“Some people went into the QDR thinking tac air is going to be the piggy bank to pay for a lot of things,” said the senior defense official, who discussed the QDR in an exclusive interview with InsideDefense.com.

“The fiscal and program analysis showed that there was no way to make that happen within the [fiscal year 2007 to 2011] time frame,” the official said, adding that “nobody is interested in robbing tac air to pay for another program.”

The senior defense official said that Pentagon leaders guiding the QDR considered many options for cutting back tactical aircraft programs and did not see any opportunity in constructing the fiscal year 2007 budget request to cut money from the F-22A or Joint Strike Fighter programs that made sense.

“You can't eliminate any of the variants of JSF,” said the official. “By contracting the F-22 production line you could only do stupid things.”

Still, the matter of further consolidation of the total U.S. tactical fighter aircraft fleet is not closed.

Last spring, when he was still the Navy secretary, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England was among the top Pentagon officials who contributed to the expectation that these marquee weapon system programs could be pared back, possibly along with new Navy and Marine Corps F-18E/F fighters, when he said a “huge amount of money” was tied up in air power programs.

In brief remarks to Inside the Navy last spring, he said “the most efficient, effective way to construct our air assets” -- such as further integrating Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Army aircraft -- would be the subject of QDR debate.

While no cuts were meted out in the FY-07 budget request, due to Congress next week, a tactical integration study that England directed in August as part of the QDR is still ongoing.

The Vienna, VA-based consulting firm Whitney, Bradley & Brown is conducting a three-part study focusing on “what tactical aircraft capabilities and force structure are required to meet the nation's future security challenges,” according to a source familiar with England's guidance.

An objective at the outset was to determine whether the Defense Department might reduce the number of short-range fighter aircraft it buys. The first part of the closely held study was delivered to the Defense Department last fall. A second portion of the analysis is due in March; these recommendations are intended to be factors in the Pentagon's investment decisions for the fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2013 defense spending plan, which will be constructed this summer. A final portion of the study, due this summer, will focus on long-term needs, with a time frame beginning at the end of the decade.

“To my thinking, that [further integration of tactical aircraft programs] hasn't gone away” with the completion of the 2005 QDR, said the senior defense official.

“There is still some analysis that needs to come in before any decisions are made. I think there is a collaborative spirit that gives us a possibility, a probability that we'll come up with some integration. But, to date, a discrete decision to -- or not to [further consolidate] -- has not been given,” said the official.

This study aims to see what opportunities exist to replicate across the Defense Department the savings England sought to reap as Navy secretary. In 2003 he launched a campaign to consolidate Navy and Marine Corps fighters in a bid that involved shaving $35 billion from procurement accounts and increasing strike fighter readiness spending by $16.5 billion, which was designed eventually to net $18.5 billion in savings through 2021.

Through integration, the two services expect to trim a combined 68 squadrons to 59, a shift that will reduce the total naval strike inventory from 872 plans to 660. The naval tactical aircraft integration plan trims the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet by 16 percent, and the planned naval Joint Strike Fighter procurement by 38 percent. Even though the total size of the naval strike aircraft fleet is made smaller, Navy officials say higher readiness rates will mean more aircraft are available for a “surge,” if needed by combatant commanders.