Italy Must Decide on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

by Dr. Stephen Bryen***

Italy must decide whether to stay in the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) program.  The F-35 is America’s newest fighter aircraft and it is going to be a vital defense asset globally.  The new Italian government is getting in the mood to trash the program in that country.  Their idea is based on a badly flawed ideology. A wrong decision will expose Italy to considerable risk in the future. Italian politicians have not been honest with the Italian people about the significance of this program for Italian national security, nor have the told the truth about the economic and employment implications of dropping out.

Italy is a member of the NATO alliance.  NATO, which has been gradually weakening over the years as the existential threat to Europe lessened, is again in the spotlight because of the turmoil in the Ukraine and the risk that the disease of instability might spread.  Today there are clear echoes of Munich in the air; the consequences of weakness at this critical juncture are plain for all to see.  Europe talks and does nothing. America does the same.

But a weak and indecisive, wobbly American government is exactly why Europe should be trying to shore up its main patron and protector.  In the end NATO is only viable with American leadership.  But if the European instinct is to “Let George Do It” meaning George Washington, then that is a true assurance of risk and failure.

The reality is that the European front line will always be the European countries, not the United States.  And Europe must be strong.  In times of austerity, this is hard to achieve, and the Europeans have over the years left most of the responsibility to Washington while they charged off their defense programs to social welfare and industrial subsidies.

This is no longer possible for two reasons: America no longer has the infinite resources it seemed to once have.  It has squandered trillions on peripheral wars, and the American economy is not what it once was.  American largess and willingness to carry more than its fair share of the burden is, now, over.

Italy has a fine air force and a top notch aerospace industry.  It not only produces aircraft and equipment for its own use, but its products are sold abroad.  Today the Italian C-27J is flying with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Special Forces.  Its hot-stick advanced trainer called the M-346 in Italy (the TF-100 in the US) is the leading candidate to replace the old trainers in the U.S. inventory.  These programs are good for both countries, because they create jobs and save defense dollars in the U.S. that would otherwise have to go into platform development (so called nonrecurring R&D expenses).  But if Italy opts out of the F-35 program, can Italy hope to win the trainer competition?  Will Italy be regarded as a reliable partner?

Italy has sticker shock on the cost of acquisition of the F-35.  Americans have the same sticker shock.  How can it be mitigated?

As an investor in the JSF program ($1 billion+), Italy has already gained support for producing parts of the aircraft and for a final Final Assembly and Checkout (FACO) facility.  But buying the aircraft does put a tremendous burden on the country which cannot be denied.

Israel recently bought the Italian M-346 advanced trainer in an offset deal.  A wise Italian government could pursue the same idea with the United States.  While America “officially” does not support offsets, deals like this happen all the time.

The new government of Italy is being pushed around by a bunch of ideologues who don’t want to spend a Euro or a Lira or a Dollar on defense.  They are leading Italy’s new Prime Minister into a black hole.  Ruining Italy’s reputation and diminishing its position in NATO is not the way to kick start a non-elected government.  Mr. Renzi, the new Prime Minister, should think before he jumps.

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***Full disclosure: The author is a former senior official in the U.S. Department of Defense and the former President of Finmeccanica North America, Italy leading defense, aerospace and high technology company.  The author is not currently connected in any way with the U.S. Defense Department, Finmeccanica, or any other organization with any interest in the JSF program.

 

 

 

Use C-27J’s For Firefighting –We Already Own Them and They Are Better

by Stephen Bryen

CEO, SDB Partners LLC

[Editor’s Note: Since this was written early on July 2nd, 2012, the Air Force has decided to ground ALL C-130’s used in firefighting pending a review of the latest accident.]

An Air Force C-130 attached to Northern Command crashed on Sunday night, July 1st, while on a firefighting mission in South Dakota.  The reason for the crash remains to be determined.  The plane belonged to the Air Force National Guard based in California –eight of the aircraft have been equipped with a system called MAFFS –Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System–which can spray some 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant.

MAFFS is a successful system and the C-130′s supported by the Guard and the Air Force are well maintained.  The models with MAFFS are the C-130E and the C-130H.    The C-130H first entered service in 1956, and the C-130E entered service in 1962.  Even though the airplanes were manufactured over a number of years, those in service are old.

The main vulnerability of all C-130′s is the wing structure and cracking in the wing box has been a major problem for many years.  When these cracks appear, the entire wing box must be replaced –work that takes a long time and which costs millions of dollars.

An older model, C-130A, in private use had its wings shear off in a fire fighting operation in California.

In the United States fire fighting is typically done by private companies who provide services to the U.S. Forest Service. Many of the aircraft are old and maintenance is an issue.  The Air National Guard and the Forest Service, with MAFFS, hoped to solve part of that problem by making the National Guard C-130′s available by having a modular, removable kit for C-130 E’s and H’s that otherwise performed cargo operations.

Today the Air Force is under pressure by the Air National Guard units around the country to retain the C-130′s smaller brother, the C-27J.  Using C-27J’s for fire fighting would make great sense and MAFFS can easily be adapted to them.

The C-27J is a twin engine aircraft, but it uses exactly the same engines and has a cockpit very similar to the modern C-130J (that is not used for fire fighting).  But the really special feature of the C-27J is the wing.

Unlike the C-130′s which have a single spar wing that puts all the stresses on the wing box, where cracking is a problem, the C-27J has a triple spar wing that has never had a cracking problem (it is the same wing design as the venerable G-222 that saw some 30 years of service in the Italian Air Force).

It is true that the C-27J carries less than the C-130 –but not that much less.  Other than specialized “only use” fire fighting aircraft, the C-27J is a capable cargo and support aircraft already combat proven.

We cannot do without modern fire fighting aircraft -and we already own C-27J’s.  What we don’t want is another accident, risking the lives of our pilots and crew members.   We never want to see a crash where the wings come off.

(A video of the C-130A crash can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A4QZAxrb28 )