US Air Force wants another $20 billion each year

The US Air Force wants to buy twice the sanctioned number of aerial refuelling tankers each year, twice the number of planned radar-evading F-35 fighter jets per annum, more more Boeing Co C-17 transport planes, more F-22A fighter jets, more combat search and rescue helicopters… It's like a want list for Christmas!

Topping the tree are requests for systems designed to enhance the US Air Force's situational awareness of events taking place in space, as well as developing and acquiring a new long-range bomber by 2018.

To be fair, new aerial refuelling tankers are urgently required. The present tankers are a 1950s design kept going with regular upgrades, but their sell-by date is long over.

The problem is the replacement - the object of an increasingly bitter battle between Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp. Both companies regularly trade barbs about each other's proposals, and each has four retired military officers to promote the airplanes they propose for the new generation aerial refuelling tanker.

The Air Force now says it would prefer to buy 26 new refuelling tankers a year once the winning bidder's production facilities begin to produce them, up from a presently planned maximum of 12 or 14 a year.

It is also keen to acquire Lockheed Martin's radar-evading F-35 fighter jets at about twice the currently planned maximum rate of 48 a year. The Air Force is also keen to buy all the 381 Lockheed Martin F-22A fighter jets it has said it needs, nearly double the 183 sanctioned by the Department of Defence (DoD).

The Air Force also would like to buy 30 more Boeing Co C-17 transport planes, so that it can retire 30 of its oldest Lockheed Martin C-5As. Other sundry items on the list include combat search and rescue helicopters.

But the really big-ticket items in the long run are systems designed to enhance the Air Force's situational awareness in space and acquiring a new long-range bomber by 2018.

None of these come cheap, and the Air Force is pressing for a budget jump averaging $20 billion a year, up nearly 20 percent from the $115 billion it spends at present, for the five years to come, after which it will likely go up, rather than down.

The Air Force hopes to obtain about $9 billion above its currently projected total for fiscal 2009, which begins on 1 October 2008. Annual increases will take it to about $28 billion by fiscal 2013, and for an unspecified period after.

But military budget increases have to be agreed to not only by the US President, they also have to be approved by the US Congress, which has the unenviable job of balancing claims for all quarters in the scramble for scarce US resources.

But then, the Air Force has 'warned', without the extra funds to replace aging warplanes, old infrastructure and cope with rising operating costs, "Future US air, space and cyberspace dominance is in question." It's a tough call, whichever way one looks at it.