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STATEMENT BY
GENERAL ROBERT H. FOGLESONG
VICE CHIEF OF STAFF
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
HOUSE ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MARCH 18, 2003 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide you with the status of Air Force readiness.  As the Air Force's Vice Chief of Staff, I want to thank you for your continued focus on the readiness challenges facing our airmen today.  The Air Force is committed to transformation and to maintaining a ready force while controlling cost growth, modernizing systems, and recapitalizing physical assets.

As we celebrate 100 years of powered flight this year, we are firmly focused on the next 100 years.  We are in the midst of more than a decade of unparalleled and unmatched air and space dominance across the full spectrum of operations -- humanitarian to warfighting.  We are proud of our record of success but do not rest on our accomplishments.  We have embraced the opportunities afforded by the information revolution and have marshaled the full resources of our service to leverage these technologies in the battlespace.  Our airmen have met the challenges of the changed security environment, and they stand ready for the next challenge.  Born as an expeditionary service, we remain true to those roots today, presenting our forces and capabilities through our Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF) construct.

Our three Air and Space Core Competencies are our source of strength as a service and form the basis through which we organize, train, and equip.  They are: Developing Airmen, Technology-to-Warfighting, and Integrating Operations.

Developing Airmen: The Heart of Combat Capability

A ready force is founded on its people.  The men and women who comprise our Total Air Force -- Active Duty, Guard and Reserve -- are the best America has to offer.  They are officers, enlisted, civilians, and contractors from every corner of the country and every walk of life.  World-class airmen are the key ingredients to sustaining our record of success.  We are dedicated to recruiting, training, and retaining professional airmen.  We can make no greater investment and have no greater resource than in our people.  They are our number one weapon system.

Recruiting.  We remain committed to an all-volunteer force.  Our volunteer airmen are dedicated, experienced, smart, disciplined, and representative of our country as a whole.  They are personally invested and grounded in our civilian communities.  We recognize a diverse force is crucial to maximizing our combat capability.  We recruit people from all backgrounds, all races, and all religions and rely on their unique and diverse experiences and capabilities to reach our full potential.

Last year the Air Force completed one of its best recruiting years ever, and we will exceed our recruiting goals again this year.  With a sharply increased advertising budget, enhanced hiring incentives and enlistment bonuses, and improved recruiter manning, the Air Force is making enlisted recruiting a priority, and it is paying off.  The Air Force also continues to attract the country's best and brightest to join our officer corps.  We have introduced additional incentives to recruit more students into ROTC, especially those with science and engineering proficiencies.  We continually adjust our goals to meet new force requirements and the demands of a competitive marketplace.

Training.  The Air Force requires sophisticated airmen who are trained to leverage technology and ready to perform in a fluid environment -- air and space leaders for the 21^st Century.  This will require targeted investments in the next generation of airmen.  To that end, the Air Force has introduced a coordinated effort to address all aspects of an airman's career development, professional education, and assignments in sum rather than individually.  This deliberate force development effort generates policies tailored to the needs of the individual airman throughout his career.  Comprehensive in scope, our training is doctrinally based and focused on three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic. 

The Air Force needs both expert specialists and broadly competent generalists, and we will offer our airmen opportunities to do both.  The Secretary of the Air Force initiated a program to increase advanced academic degree opportunities for officers, with special emphasis in science, engineering, and politico-military affairs.  We have teamed with the Naval Postgraduate School to build a joint program focused on providing graduate education across a range of space activities.  We are beginning to extend Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) graduate degree programs to our enlisted force for the first time.  All in all, we recognize the need for flexible and agile training and are dedicated to growing leaders with the skills and competencies needed to meet 21^st Century demands.

Personnel Mix.  Our number one personnel challenge is adapting to the new steady state -- a higher tempo of operations and a shifting skill mix requirement.  With a 30 percent reduction in manpower since 1990 and a significant increase in worldwide taskings over that same period, the Air Force is experiencing a dramatic jump in operations and personnel tempo.  We have discovered that while the number of airmen is adequate, the mix of skill sets and the military/civilian/contractor ratio must be adjusted to reflect new realities. 

Recognizing the new demands placed on us by the war on terrorism, we initiated a comprehensive manpower review to determine relative stress amongst career fields and to explore options to alleviate that stress.  We have identified nearly 26 thousand military or civilian positions that potentially could be converted to civilian or contractor positions, with the goal of redirecting uniformed airmen into those positions that reflect our distinctive capabilities.  We have realigned some new recruits into our stressed career fields and completed a thorough review of our training resources to maximize capability.  Additionally, we are exploring technologies to reduce the workload and corresponding manpower requirements.  We have several human capital initiatives underway to address this skill mix problem, but it will take focus, time, and funding to solve.  In the short term, we are aggressively pursuing personnel and authorization changes from less to more stressed career fields as well as voluntary retraining programs to address the skills mix problems.

Retention.  We have found that our high operations tempo and uneven workload are major determinants in an airman's decision to leave the Air Force.  It was difficult to accurately determine last year's retention rates due to Air Force implementation of Stop Loss.  Nonetheless, we will continue to use an array of force shaping tools, to include bonuses, mentoring, and re-recruiting efforts to sustain our record of retention success.  Air Force quality of life initiatives will ensure a suitable standard of living for our world-class airmen and their families and are essential retention tools.  While our increased accession levels, improved retention, application of Stop Loss, and activation of ARC volunteers have created a unique overstrength problem, we remain committed to meeting total end-strength goals.

Retention of pilots, navigators, and Air Battle Managers is of major concern.  Though pilot retention is the highest in four years, we still suffer from a long-term shortage of pilots.  We have increased the output of our pilot training courses, but training new pilots does not immediately solve the problem -- you cannot replace the lost experience.  The resulting experience shortage has detrimental effects on force management, leaving us with undermanned staffs, less experienced formal flying training instructors, stressed test programs, and fewer mentoring opportunities. 

Our flexible Aviator Continuation Pay (ACP) program is an important part of our broad-based plan to retain pilots, and we extended the program this year to include navigators and Air Battle Managers.  Encouragingly, the ACP long-term initial take rate rose sharply to 47 percent in FY02 from 30 percent in FY01.  So far in FY03, 54 percent of initially eligible pilots have signed up for long-term agreements of five years or more.

Retention for high tech specialties is also a concern as the pull from industry is strong.  This draw is exacerbated by long, frequent deployments in many of our high tech career fields.  In response, the Air Force this year introduced the Critical Skills Retention Bonus for highly stressed and highly skilled career fields.

The Air Force has reduced its civilian workforce by nearly 100 thousand since 1990, leaving only 10 percent of today's Air Force civilians with less than ten years in service and over 40 percent eligible to retire in five years.  We must revitalize our professional occupations with new hires while minimizing the impact on the existing civilian employees.  We have partnered with OSD to develop new civilian personnel legislation that will allow us to hire faster, simplify job changes, and make appraisals and rewards more meaningful.  It will also provide us more flexibility to further integrate civilians into the expeditionary force to meet the demands of the new steady state.

Recent pay increases are making a difference and have reminded our airmen that we value their service.  Targeted pay increases that reflect the realities of the marketplace are critical to meeting our toughest retention challenges.  We must retain the flexibility to put more pay where it is needed while ensuring that entry-level pay is very competitive.

Technology-to-Warfighting: The Tools of Combat Capability

When America sends its men and women into combat, they deserve the resources and support to guarantee victory over any adversary they face.  We are determined to give them those cutting-edge tools.  Moving technology from the drawing board to the hands of the warfighter is essential to maintaining a ready force. 

The Air Force was born out of innovation, and it remains our hallmark today.  With a pioneering spirit, we are dedicated to pushing technology's boundaries.  We are rapidly applying recent advances to dramatic effect, translating our technological vision into warfighting results.

Remotely Piloted Aircraft.  There is no greater example of technology-to-warfighting than the Predator.  It combines the dynamics of manned aviation with the remote operations techniques of unmanned satellites and information connectivity within a single system capable not only of collecting and disseminating information, but of producing combat effects.  In the midst of combat, we accelerated the Predator program to increase production and to retrofit existing airframes with improved capabilities.  The use of streaming video during recent operations was critical, and we are on track to add Hellfire missiles to the entire Predator fleet.

Global Hawk builds on the success of the Predator system by incorporating a robust reachback capability that reduces our forward operating footprint, lowers costs, and improves personnel tempo.  This long endurance, multi-intelligence platform gives us the persistence we need to keep the Joint Force Commander (JFC) informed up-to-the-minute.

We are aggressively developing additional unmanned platforms and are exploring their appropriate future role in combat.  We are eager to field these systems not because they are unmanned but because of their greater persistence and digital acuity.  They are responsive to dynamic tasking and afford us the ability to swarm the battlespace and overwhelm enemy defenses.

Integrated Architecture.  The integration of these unmanned platforms seamlessly into a network of manned, unmanned, and space-based systems will dramatically shorten the find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess (F2T2EA) cycle allowing us to anticipate our enemy's moves and to defeat him on our terms.  To that end, we are transitioning from a collection of independent systems to a horizontally integrated system of systems capable of machine-to-machine conversations. 

In the future, the Multi-sensor Command and Control Constellation (MC2C) will provide the JFC with real-time, enhanced battlespace awareness and decision-quality data through an improved network of air, ground, and space assets.  The Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A), a single wide-body platform, will replace many of our independent command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) functions and will relieve the stress on our Low Density/High Demand (LD/HD) assets like the Rivet Joint, Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), and Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS).  It will be a core element of the future Joint Cruise Missile Defense architecture by fielding the Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) sensor.  This next-generation sensor is capable of wide-area surface surveillance and tracking to find, fix, and track ground targets and airborne cruise missiles.  Its enhanced Battle Management/Command and Control (BM/C2) will enable dynamic execution against time sensitive targets, dramatically shortening the kill chain.

Because we recognize the Air Force never fights alone, we are coordinating closely with our sister services to ensure full interoperability of these future acquisitions and to eliminate seams between existing systems.

Unlimited Horizon.  This integrated architecture hinges on our ability to master the high ground of space.  We have partnered with the National Reconnaissance Office to begin development of an innovative Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA) which will leverage emerging technologies such as laser communications and internet-based protocols to remove bandwidth as a constraint to operations -- a key enabler of network centric warfare.  We are also developing new sensors and capabilities, such as Space Based Radar (SBR), that will give us the capability to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance deep into denied areas, day or night.  These and other space assets have the potential to revolutionize warfighter command and control.

Revolutionary Capabilities.  The F/A-22 is the cornerstone of the Air Force's on-going transformation.  America needs the F/A-22 for 21^st Century air dominance.  It is capable of countering anti-access threats from day one of any conflict, allowing joint and coalition forces to operate with impunity inside enemy territory.  The F/A-22 brings stealth into the daytime for the first time, enabling persistent 24-hour operations.  Its revolutionary capabilities are designed to defeat future air defense systems for decades to come.  The Air Force will continue executive oversight of the F/A-22 acquisition to ensure program success.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) also represents a revolutionary leap in technology and will complement the F/A-22.  This versatile multi-role fighter is optimized for all-weather, precision air-to-ground operations and provides the persistent force required for around-the-clock operations.  With a commitment to affordability, the Air Force is using the "Cost As an Independent Variable (CAIV)" approach to help ensure the JSF is not cost-prohibitive.

Integrating Operations: Maximizing Combat Capabilities

The Air Force effectively focuses the power of its people and the strength of its technology into a synergistic whole to generate immediate results in the battlespace.  We are developing effects-based capabilities rather than individual systems.  We are exploring and employing innovative operational concepts to maximize our combat capabilities.  Success in this new century requires a modern, ready force with the systems, infrastructure, and capabilities necessary to operate in both air and space.

Capabilities-Based Force.  The Air Force has transitioned from a platform-based garrison force to a capabilities-based expeditionary force.  Our emerging Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) are lending focus to our continuing transformation.  They define how we fight and drive our efforts to integrate our air and space capabilities with joint, allied, and coalition forces.  They support efforts to eliminate waste and free trapped resources for the warfighter.  They help articulate any disconnects between program development and desired end-user capabilities.

Recapitalization and Modernization.  Dedicated airmen employing innovative concepts are mitigating the impact of old systems and technology.  However, aging systems pose a real threat to our continued air dominance.  The average Air Force aircraft has about 22 years in service.  With some manufactured as early as 1955, our KC-135 fleet averages 42 years in service.  We have never dealt with a force this old.  Our aging aircraft are vulnerable to myriad problems, including technical surprise, vanishing vendors, and increased operational costs.  We have enjoyed a down payment on our recapitalization but require sustained funding to maintain the force capable of supporting the National Security Strategy and JV2020.  Eventually, new acquisitions will have to replace these legacy systems.  In the interim, we are finding innovative means to keep current systems operational in the near term and are taking advantage of new opportunities to employ old systems in new ways.

This and next year's budgets look to build on the FY02 foundation and accelerate modernization while maintaining gains in readiness and people.  We are investing short-term and long-term across all of our capabilities, balancing modifications of existing systems with the development of new systems.  Air Force modernization efforts are supporting our transformation goals while continuing to develop and field needed systems, with nearly half of our investment in RDT&E.

Current projections show all three Air Force bombers (B-1, B-2, and B-52) should be structurally sound for the next four decades.  While all of our bombers have key modernization needs, modernization of the bomber force can meet requirements through the foreseeable future.  The Air Force is committed to SOF modernization through fielding the CV-22.  The approved Multi-year Procurement of 180 C-17s will support mobility requirements to move 54.5 million ton miles per day, with six additional bases receiving C-17s starting in FY05.

Readiness.  From 1996 to 1999, readiness rates for our major combat units dropped from 91 percent to a low of 65 percent.  Since then, they have climbed and remained at roughly 70 percent.  Shortages of personnel, higher tempo, and aging aircraft are keeping readiness below our targeted levels, which is a cause for concern.  However, we have been able to hold steady in the face of increased operational demands on our force.

Our aircraft readiness continues to be a success story.  In FY02, we enjoyed our highest overall readiness rates in six years -- the largest improvements since the mid-80s.  Sixteen of 20 systems improved mission capable rates, at a time when all of our systems were flying more hours.  These gains are the result of robust support for spare parts and are a testament to a dedicated workforce, fleet modernization efforts, and process improvements from depots to the field.

Our engine readiness rates reflected impressive gains as recent investments continued to pay dividends throughout FY02.  Our U-2s sustained their mission capable rate while flying their most hours since the Gulf War, 35 percent higher than FY01.  Our Predator fleet posted its best readiness rates ever while averaging almost 200 hours per month.  Our C-5s posted their best readiness rates since FY96 while flying the most hours since the Gulf War.  The B-1 consolidation is paying dividends, as our B-1s posted dramatic gains in readiness, with current rates at historical highs.  All of our fighters are experiencing a steady decline in cannibalization.  We have made great strides in reducing the number of aircraft in depot for maintenance, putting over 25 percent more aircraft on the ramps for the warfighter since 2000.

We have taken some risks in Depot Purchase Equipment Maintenance (DPEM) funding mostly due to the rising costs of aging systems.  This may translate into deferred depot maintenance on engines and aircraft that could ultimately affect our readiness.  While maintenance readiness challenges remain, we are confident the dramatic gains we experienced last year provide the momentum the Air Force needs for continued improvements.

Our people are ready.  We are sustaining our personnel readiness rates in the face of higher OPSTEMPO, manning shortages, and reduced training opportunities.  Operation NOBLE EAGLE alerts and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM deployments have left our operational units with less capability and opportunity to train.  Fortunately, our pilots are flying adequate hours.  Despite uncertainty in taskings and mission profiles, the Air Force fully funded the flying program in FY02 and FY03 and will continue to fly 100 percent of the flying program.  For the past three years, the Air Force has executed its budgeted O&M flying hours without requesting additional funding for contingency flying hours.  Our airmen are gaining real-world experience you cannot create in a training environment.  Today, over 70 percent of our rated aircrew is combat experienced!

However, many of our aircrew instructors have been pulled to fulfill priority operational requirements, making it difficult to train new aircrew to relieve the combat stress.  This is especially true of our LD/HD assets which have been working at "surge" capacity.  We recognize that some of the most significant detractors to unit readiness are lengthy, frequent deployments.  Once airmen return from deployments they require up to a 90-day reconstitution period, primarily for personnel training.  Maintaining our AEF rotation schedule helps stability and predictability, but most of our stressed career fields are exceeding the 90-day goal.  While the Air Force has taken steps to mitigate the impact of lost training, sustained operations will remain a challenge.  As long as the current OPSTEMPO persists, we expect Air Force training to remain at current levels, if not decline, as training currencies and continuation training are harder to achieve.

Another concern is mid-grade officer and enlisted manning levels.  We have a skill level mismatch: too many new apprentices and not enough experienced journeymen.  The resulting imbalance means higher expectations for our less experienced airmen and greater stresses on the remaining mid-level leaders, managers, and trainers.  We cannot afford to lose this experience; it will translate into lower readiness. 

While there is clearly room for improvement, we are pleased with our recent gains in equipment readiness and are proud that we have maintained overall readiness despite increased demands.

Infrastructure.  We continue to focus on existing infrastructure.  The quality of our facilities and communities sends a direct signal to our men and women regarding the value we place on their service.  We have accelerated our housing investment and expanded our privatization program.  We will eliminate inadequate housing at all CONUS bases by 2007, except at four northern-tier locations where it will be completed by 2008.  We will improve more than 3,600 units at 26 bases and support privatization of 7,000 units at seven bases.  We also have an ambitious program to house our unaccompanied junior enlisted personnel.  Committed to sustained improvements, the Air Force has increased this year's MILCON request by 20 percent.  The Air Force has embarked on a strategy for three world-class depots and has increased funding for essential depot facilities upgrades and equipment modernization as part of our "Depot Maintenance Strategy and Master Plan."  When you consider our level of effort across the entire infrastructure spectrum, we plan to invest more than $4.4 billion in FY04.

Reconstituting our expeditionary basing capability is critical to our force projection capability.  We have expanded our Afloat Pre-positioning Fleet capabilities, restructured Readiness Spares Packages, and repositioned assets to contingency sites.   These recent investments will help address some of our shortages for bare base systems, vehicles, spares, munitions, and pre-positioning assets. 

At the same time, the Air Force must dispose of excess infrastructure.  The Air Force is working to prepare for the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round which we need to fully achieve initiatives that could not otherwise be obtained.  The Air Force is committed to meeting the statutory deadlines and ensuring our analytical processes are unbiased and defensible.  We will continue to work with the local reuse authority at each base closed under previous rounds of BRAC to minimize the impact on local communities.

Additionally, Air Force ranges are under increasing pressure from urban growth at a time when new weapons systems require more airspace.  The Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative (RRPI) clarifies specific environmental statutes and protects Air Force access to training resources while continuing to protect the environment.  By focusing on our principles of ensuring operational readiness, partnering with stakeholders, and protecting human health and the environment, we remain leaders in environmental compliance, cleanup, conservation, and pollution prevention.

Precision Munitions.  With the advent of precision munitions, the Air Force has effectively transitioned from "one target, many sorties" to "one sortie, many targets."  Our use of precision munitions maximizes our combat capability while limiting the threat of collateral damage.  They give us the ability to destroy targets in any weather, day or night -- they are critical to our success.  Today, we have more precision weapons than ever.  The Air Force will double its production capability for laser guided bombs this summer.  To replenish our stocks depleted in operations over Afghanistan, we are currently producing 2,400 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) each month for our air and naval forces and will reach a sustaining rate of 2,800 per month this July.  We are effectively managing the procurement of both the bomb bodies and tail kits necessary for precision munitions. 

Future Total Force.  Like never before in the history of the Air Force, we are a Total Force.  Mission success demands the interdependence of Active Duty, Air Reserve Component (ARC), civilian workforce, and contractors.  ARC forces are essential to our success; they comprise nearly half of the forces assigned to AEFs and contribute the majority of forces in some mission areas.  We have begun to consolidate, when practicable, two or more components into a single wing with a single commander.  We stood up our first "blended" wing, the 116^th Air Control Wing, in October at Robins AFB, GA.  This and future blended wings will leverage each component's comparative strengths to increase efficiencies, synergies, and capabilities.  We have also used the Associate Unit concept for many years, placing Reserve members into Active Duty units for added stability.

Under our new steady state, the ARC will continue to assume more and more of the Total Force mission.  As such, they need compensation, benefits, and entitlements commensurate with these increased responsibilities.  We are working to facilitate seamless movement between the components by minimizing appointment and accounting burdens.  We are exploring options to relieve surge stressors such as the use of civilian contractors.  We are committed to using ARC volunteers versus mobilization whenever possible to allow the units and members the flexibility they need.

We are also closely monitoring ARC recruitment.  Historically, the ANG and AFRC gain nearly 25 percent of separating Active Duty members.  Continued high OPSTEMPO may threaten this source of recruiting and force the ARC to explore alternative options to make up the loss.

Summary.  The greatest testament to Air Force readiness is our continued success in on-going operations to protect America from its enemies.  We have the finest airmen in the world and are the most respected Air Force in history.  We enjoy the confidence of the American people and are committed to maintaining their trust.  This record of success and promising future would not be possible without your support.  For that, you have our deepest thanks.  Our recruiting and retention success, dramatically improved maintenance rates, infrastructure improvements, and weapon system modernization are a direct result of your recent investments.  We are especially grateful for your continued support for pay raises for our people.  You share our conviction that adequate compensation is not a luxury but a necessity.  Together, we have laid the foundation for continued dramatic improvements and further transformation.  Let me assure you, your United States Air Force stands ready, whenever and wherever we are called.