CNO Caudle: Navy must launch F/A-XX program now to penetrate Iranian airspace in 10 years

WASHINGTON — The Navy needs to jumpstart its F/A-XX stealth fighter program, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said today, because the rapid spread of advanced anti-aircraft systems means adversaries like Iran are increasingly able to shoot down the Navy’s current mainstay F-18s.

“When things heated up in Iran, guess who steamed over there, right? It was the United States Navy and the [USS] Abraham Lincoln strike group,” Caudle said. “Imagine what that looks like in ten years from now, with a different Iran, with different capability [that] can go against the F-18 capabilities of today.” (It’s not clear if F-18s were also among the “fourth-generation” non-stealth aircraft participating in last June’s Midnight Hammer strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities).

Only an aircraft with the full package of capabilities envisioned for F/A-XX — stealth, range, electronic warfare, and the ability to control flocks of unmanned “loyal wingmen” — can reliably penetrate future air defenses, Caudle told the Apex Defense conference here.

Caudle’s comments come just a week after House and Senate appropriators agreed on an $838.7 billion defense spending bill — $8.8 billion over the Trump administration’s request. Of the additional money, $897 million is dedicated to F/A-XX. That plus-up came with a congressional mandate that the Pentagon use the money to award a development contract aimed at “accelerated Initial Operational Capability.” If passed by the full Congress, the funding bill would overrule the administration’s original plan to delay the Navy fighter program in order to concentrate limited funding and industry development capability on the Air Force’s F-47.

“I know these things are expensive, and I know the defense industrial base is compressed, but we have got to figure out how to walk and chew gum here with aircraft, Caudle said.

Caudle widening the aperture to regional powers like Iran is a departure from F/A-XX supporters in Congress and thinktank analysts who tend to emphasize the need for F/A-XX in a high-intensity conflict with China.

Increasingly, non-peer adversaries, such as Iran, that he’d historically not considered all that dangerous “will gain capability that the F-18 will not match against,” he said. “Our ability to fly with impunity with our existing airframes is fleeting. And so if I don’t start building that immediately, you’re not going to get it for some time.”

The Navy wants the F/A-XX to bring a complex package of new capabilities to the carrier deck, including more advanced stealth than the service’s current F-35s, which are replacing the oldest F-18 Hornets. It’s expected to have 25 percent more range than than the F-35C variant. It’s also expected to have more sophisticated jammers than the current EA-18G Growler, and the built-in capability to control multiple unmanned loyal wingmen, formally known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs), Caudle noted.

“The next-generation airframe, F/A-XX is so vital,” Caudle summed up. “It’s vital because of, one, the CCAs it will command and control. Its penetration — the Growlers won’t last forever, so it’ll be our electronic attack airplane as well. Its range will be coupled with the MQ-25 [unmanned tanker] for clandestine refueling and organic refueling from the carrier.”

Also in the conversation was Hudson Institute naval strategist Bryan Clark, who mentioned that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels could be a risk as well. While a non-state threat, the Yemini Houthis nevertheless managed to acquire long-range anti-ship missiles and drones that targeted Western warships off their shores. Such threats could push even US carrier strike groups further out to sea, said Clark, putting a premium on longer-range fighters like the F/A-XX.

The fundamental problem is “the ever-lowering cost of entry” into the high-end air defense game, Caudle told Clark in their on-stage discussion. Advanced adversaries like China and Russia are sharing or selling their technology to lesser anti-American actors, while other advances are driven by the rapid improvements in commercially available electronics

In the meantime, though, the Navy “requires no chinks in the armor, in our current readiness of current platforms, while we bridge to the next thing,” Caudle said. “So our F-18 fleet will need to be maintained.”