Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

by Tom Clancy

  Still, despite fighters and jammers, there will be losses, to our own defenses if not to the enemy. And therein lies the next phase in military aviation: pilotless aircraft.

  PLANES, NOT PILOTS?

  Almost fifty years ago, test pilot Scott Crossfield stated that there will always be a need for pilots because no other guidance system can be produced so cheaply by unskilled labor. While the wisdom of his humor remains uncontested, there is a growing trend toward unmanned aircraft for aerial combat.

  Today, Pentagon pundits anticipate the day when drones will rule the sky. The buzzwords are many: “pilotless aircraft,” the un-PC “unmanned air vehicles,” and the more politically correct (and more absurd) “uninhabited air vehicles.” All refer to the same concept—an airframe remotely controlled from the ground or another aircraft.

  The phrase “pilotless” aircraft is not strictly correct. Drones or UAVs will certainly have pilots—but not on board. The “pilots” will control their birds via data link from afar, safely out of danger from flak, SAMs, and interceptors. There are advantages and disadvantages:

  While the FA-22 may be the Air Force’s last manned “pure” fighter, the close air support mission is another matter. Though forward air controllers presumably could direct drones to battlefield targets, that’s a separate issue from air superiority. At present, few people are standing up to predict CAS drones as an alternative to strike and interdiction vehicles. Friendly fire incidents are too common now: adding remote-controlled aircraft to the mix does not seem to bode well for drone use.

  However, for air-to-air combat, a drone should be unbeatable. Theoretically, anyway. Once at the merge, no human could compete with a UAV pulling 20 or more Gs. With thrust vectoring, a drone would be an even more formidable dogfight opponent. The preceding, of course, assumes that the ninety-year history of aerial combat continues unimpeded, and that even in the advanced missile era, aircraft will continue meeting at “the merge” and maneuver for a firing solution. All aspect missiles are a reality, and it remains to be seen how often increasingly rare fighter versus fighter encounters develop. “Launch and leave” missiles that provide their own homing have vastly simplified the pilot’s combat tasking, but they are complex systems that do malfunction. If history is any yardstick, there will still be some yanking and banking after the initial AAM picket is launched.

  With the potential for in-flight refueling, UAVs possess almost unlimited range or endurance, since aircrew fatigue is not a factor. Looming brightest of all, of course, is the human factor. With no onboard pilot or crew, the UAV may be exposed to high threat levels without endangering a life. Or, more precisely, without endangering friendly lives.

  Rating high on the disadvantage scale is SA: situational awareness. At present a drone operator, no matter how well informed by various media, cannot visually track multiple bogies (let alone bandits) like an experienced fighter pilot. On the other hand, it’s been noted that drones don’t come with oversized wristwatches or egos, and they don’t require retirement pensions. It should be noted, however, that it’s far too early to speculate upon the individual and collective mindset of increasingly youthful computer nerds who provide a growing pool of potential UAV pilots.

  THEORY AND PRACTICE

  All of this is well beyond the theoretical stage. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) jointly manage the effort to produce unmanned fighter aircraft. The Future Aircraft Technology Enhancements (FATE) program is working toward UAVs for air superiority, among other things.

  First in line was the X-39, a designation requested by AFRL. The concept combines several technologies including advanced materials, wings that change shape rather than use ailerons, advanced computer flight controls, and artificial intelligence (no snide remarks about the intellect of fighter pilots is implied, nor should any be inferred). The project is so “black” that at this writing it is uncertain whether an X-39 aircraft has actually been produced. Some observers speculate that its various components have been tested without assembling an entire airframe.

  Other Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) certainly are under way, including designs meant to perform their missions in space. But we are concerned with air combat within the Earth’s atmosphere, and several designs are taking wing. Most notable is the X-45A, which first flew in May 2002. Resembling a baby B-2, the X-45 has met with initial success, and Popular Mechanics quoted the program manager who described the flight as “a significant jump in our quest to mature the technologies and systems required to integrate UCAVs into the future Air Force.”

  According to industry reports, an X-45 (with a 33-foot span versus 172 for the B-2) can be produced and operated for 65% to 75% less than conventional stealth aircraft. Consequently, it’s far more expendable: capable of flying into the teeth of tomorrow’s more lethal air defense networks and knocking off some of those radars and SAMs. That means that UCAVs lend themselves to the dangerous SEAD mission—suppression of enemy air defenses—which are vastly more threatening than any hostile fighters now flying or likely to fly in the near future. As of 2003, the X-45 was expected to become operational in 2008.

  Not to be left behind, the Navy X-46 and X-47 concepts are being developed by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, respectively. The latter first flew in 2003. Meanwhile, the Army and Marine Corps are interested in the X-50, which is intended to operate without conventional runways. A combination fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft, the Dragonfly offers VSTOL performance and then some.

  How UCAVs are likely to be employed in combat is an exciting what-if. Tactical integration is well under way with current fighters and attack aircraft, but the path to the future assumes an all-drone force later this century.

  That eventuality certainly will be no cause for celebration in the 366th Fighter Wing.

  Conclusion

  AIRPOWER is a tool with many limitations, but in its short history it has profoundly transformed the nature of war. As a navy can move across oceans to strike without warning at a hostile shore, so too aircraft can appear over the very heart of a country on the first day—or in the first minutes—of hostilities, bringing the war instantly to people and places which in the past could only be reached after years of campaigning and the loss of countless lives. At the same time defenses against air attack—interceptors, ground-based anti-aircraft guns, and surface-to-air missiles—have also improved rapidly, in testimony to the threat of this new military capability. But the race in military history between offensive and defensive technologies generally works in favor of the offense.

  America has recently developed two revolutionary offensive capabilities. The first, stealth, denies an enemy the ability to detect, and therefore protect against, a deep and damaging strike. Stealth is not black magic; it is a technical fact. When used properly in the design of an aircraft, missile, ship, or even submarine, stealth gives the attacker a decisive advantage over almost any kind of sensor from radars to sonars. The second capability, precision-guided munitions (PGMs), gives the attacker the means not so much to do explosive “surgery” as to use his weapons with a far higher degree of efficiency. No longer is laying down a carpet of bombs on a target a viable political or military option. Given the worldwide abhorrence of collateral damage from air strikes, use of PGMs is not only desirable, but may become required in the future. The combination of these two technological capabilities offers our national leadership opportunities unknown since the demise of a small and vicious sovereignty in the Middle East whose name has come into the English lexicon as a curse—Assassin. During the Middle Ages, from their mountain fortress in Lebanon, the military-religious Order of the Hashishin preserved their independence by killing any caliph, khan, sultan, emperor, or shah who dared to threaten them.

  War is, after all, nothing more than organized murder, sanctioned by a government. And while war might sometimes be necessary, the more quickly and efficiently it can be concluded, the less harm is done to innocent p
eople in the process. The very horror of war has, in recent times, sometimes deterred its necessity. This is a source of hope for the future survival of our species. The first sign of that hope was the inability of “civilized” nations to bring themselves to use their most potent weapons—thermonuclear arms—during the Cold War.

  Despite deep and fundamental differences in philosophy that throughout history were the basis for major conflict, the balance of terror that thermonuclear weapons imposed (known euphemistically as Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD) kept the peace, such as it was. The weapons and the military units designed to use them, we ought to remember, were in place for two generations, always ready for a push of the button. Yet the button wasn’t pushed, because rationality somehow took precedence over ideology. Thank God.

  Part of that rationality was motivated by the advance of airpower (if we may include strategic missiles and orbital satellites in the definition), and the immediate future could well see a further application of the same principle. Thus, the mating of stealth technology and PGMs today means that the decision-makers who send young men off to die can now be targeted directly. No one is truly safe from such a precision attack, and personal vulnerability might well make a dictator think twice and then again before committing his country to war—if, that is, America develops the doctrine and installs the capability to target those who instigate war. Clausewitz liked to talk about an enemy’s “center of gravity,” meaning those things which a nation had to protect in order to survive. But the real center of gravity of any nation is its decision-makers, be they presidents, prime ministers, dictators, or juntas. No person becomes a chief of state, or group a leadership team, in order to suffer. The exercise of power, especially for despots, is heady wine indeed. Hiding in deep bunkers (which may no longer be safe in any case) cannot be fun. Nor is traveling about with the constant knowledge that a single enemy intelligence officer, or a domestic traitor, needs to finger the target only one time. What has emerged, then, is the ability to apply the well-named MAD principle of nuclear arms to conventional weapons, to fight a war with ultimate efficiency.

  This idea is still what some might call “blue-sky”; but it is a fact that the capability now exists (even though we never quite managed to turn off Saddam Hussein’s personal radio transceiver). The ability to strike deep and strike accurately could well become the best excuse for people to find something other than war as an instrument of international policy.

  To use airpower effectively one must understand its limits, as well as it capabilities:• Airpower Is Costly. It is easy to be appalled by the notion of a twenty million dollar fighter, a fifty million dollar fighter bomber, or a five hundred million dollar stealth bomber. But the dollar cost of an aircraft does not even begin to measure the true cost of airpower. It costs thousands of dollars an hour to keep even the simplest jet trainer in the air. An effective air force requires a vast infrastructure of training, maintenance, and administrative support. It requires a whole range of specialized industries that draw talent and productive resources away from other sectors of the economy.

  • Airpower Is Fragile. On June 22nd, 1941, most of the Soviet “Frontal Aviation” tactical aircraft were caught on the ground and destroyed by the German Luftwaffe. Six months later, on December 8th, virtually the entire U.S. Army air force in the Philippines was caught on the ground and destroyed by Japanese air attacks on Clark Field. On June 5th, 1967, most of the offensive power of the Egyptian Air Force was caught on the ground and destroyed in a single morning’s work by Israeli Air Force attacks. Even more fragile than the airplanes themselves is the network of radars, command centers, communications facilities, fuel systems, and munitions depots that make airpower possible. An entire air force can be wiped out in a few hours. As the Iraqis learned in the Gulf War, even the most strongly built shelters cannot protect an air force that has lost control of the air space above them.

  • Airpower Is Not a Substitute for Clear Military Objectives. Especially when it is used piecemeal, for limited political purposes. This was the clear lesson of Vietnam, where hundreds of American and South Vietnamese aircraft were shot down between 1964 and 1972 without inflicting strategically significant damage on the elusive enemy. Years earlier, political limitations on the use of airpower helped to turn the Korean War from a decisive Allied military victory into a protracted stalemate. Even the Israelis, so skillful in the political employment of airpower, have conducted hundreds of air strikes on “terrorist bases” without significant impact on the political base of the terrorist threat to the Israeli people. The “limited punitive air strike” may play well on the evening news to a domestic audience, but it generally only serves to solidify the enemy’s will to resist. All too often, it also serves as a “hostage delivery system,” leaving hapless downed aircrews as bargaining chips in the hands of the enemy. A good example was the 1983 raid by U.S. Navy aircraft on Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon. The result was two aircraft lost, another damaged, one pilot killed, and another captured by the Syrians, requiring the intervention of the Reverend Jesse Jackson to obtain his release. A lousy trade for a few AAA guns!

  Ironically, naval and land power can serve as limited political tools where airpower cannot, because an airplane does not establish presence. For decades, the presence of the U.S. Army in Europe and Korea deterred Communist attack, even when that Army turned into a hollow shell in the post-Vietnam period. The presence of the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean has a similar stabilizing geopolitical influence.

  Consider the current attempts of the Western powers to influence events in the former Yugoslavia. NATO combat air patrols (Operation Deny Flight), airstrikes on Bosnian Serb military positions, and a multinational naval blockade in the Adriatic have failed to change the behavior of the Bosnian Serbs in any significant way, because they do not reach the Serbian center of gravity in Belgrade. But the token presence of a few hundred U.S. paratroops as a UN peacekeeping force in Macedonia has preserved the existence of that fragile republic. Even Serbs are not crazy enough to directly challenge United States ground forces. Symbolically speaking, when you shoot down my airplane, that is an unfortunate incident, but when you kill my soldiers or sink my ship, that is an act of war.

  Perhaps airpower will never conquer ground. Perhaps airpower cannot linger in place as long as ships. But airpower can take the fight to the enemy’s heart and brain in a way and with a speed impossible for the more traditional fighting arms. It is, moreover, almost entirely an American invention which, like democracy, has changed the face of the world, and, as shown in Operation Iraqi Freedom, continues to shape and define the tactics and execution of modern warfare.

  GLOSSARY

  A-12 Lockheed high-altitude, high-speed, low-observable interceptor developed in the 1960s. Never went into service, but served as the basis for the development of the SR-71 Blackbird. Not to be confused with McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger, a 1990s Navy program for a stealthy carrier strike aircraft, canceled due to cost overruns and program mismanagement.

  AAA Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA), also called “triple-A” or “flak.”

  Aardvark Nickname for the F-111 fighter bomber, derived from its large nose and ungainly appearance. The F-111 never received an official name.

  ABCCC Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center. An EC-130E aircraft equipped with communications equipment and staff.

  ACC Air Combat Command. Major command of the USAF formed in 1992 by the merger of the Strategic Air Command (bombers and tankers) and the Tactical Air Command (fighters).

  ACES II Standard USAF ejection seat built by McDonnell Douglas based on an original design by the Weber Corporation. ACES II is a “zero-zero” seat, which means that it can save the crew person’s life (at the risk of some injury) down to zero airspeed and zero altitude, as long as the aircraft is not inverted.

  ACM Air Combat Maneuvering. The art of getting into position to shoot the other guy, preferably from behind, before h
e can shoot you.

  AFB Air Force Base. NATO or Allied bases are usually identified simply as AB (air base). The Royal Air Force designates its bases by place-name, i.e., RAF Lakenheath.

  Afterburner Device that injects fuel into the exhaust nozzle of a jet engine, boosting thrust at the cost of greater fuel consumption. Called “Reheat” by the British.

  AGL Above Ground Level. A practical way of measuring altitude for pilots, even though engineers prefer the more absolute measure ASL, “Above Sea Level.”

  AI Airborne Intercept; usually used to describe a type of radar or missile.

  AIM-9 Sidewinder Heat-seeking missile family, used by the Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, and many export customers. Variants are designated by a letter, such as AIM-9L or AIM-9X.

  AMC Air Mobility Command. Major USAF command that controls most transports and tankers. Based at Scott AFB, Illinois.

  AMRAAM AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. First modern air-to-air missile to use programmable microprocessors with active radar homing (missile has its own radar transmitter, allowing “fire and forget” tactics).

  ANG Air National Guard. Air Force reserve units nominally under the control of and partially funded by state governments. Many ANG flight crews and ground crews work in the airline or aviation industries.

  Angels Altitude in thousands of feet. “Angels fifteen” means 15,000 feet.

  AOC Air Operations Center.

  API Armor-Piercing Incendiary. A type of ammunition favored for use against armored ground vehicles.

  Aspect The angle from which a target is seen. From the front an aircraft presents a relatively small target; from above or below it presents a comparatively large target.