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Joint-STARS needed for today’s wars

The budget cutters are at it again.

Now they’re after the E-8C Block 20 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, known as Joint-STARS, the only Air Force aircraft capable of broadly monitoring enemy ground movements.

It wasn’t enough, apparently, to halt production of the F-22 Raptor and C-17 Globemaster III, postpone a next-generation bomber and cancel the CSAR-X combat rescue helicopter.

Now, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants the Air Force to slash 3.8 percent, or $24.2 billion, from its five-year purchasing plan. Lt. Gen. Raymond Johns, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs, told senior Pentagon officials in August and made it clear what their priorities must be. Johns wrote of the need to protect “to the greatest degree possible” funding for three major aircraft platforms, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and the KC-X air refueling tanker, according to a report in Bloomberg News, which obtained a copy of the budget documents.

This flies in the face of the stated policy of preparing for the wars we’re fighting today. It contradicts Gates’ oft-quoted support for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. And it probably has Joint-STARS airmen wondering if anyone notices the sacrifices they make.

A plan to re-engine the 17-plane Joint-STARS fleet was scheduled for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Now, several key Air Force programs led by the Joint-STARS upgrade may drop out of the new fiscal year’s budget.

An upgraded E-8C made its first flight in December, powered by Pratt & Whitney JT-8D-219 engines that provide more thrust than the current Pratt & Whitney TF33-PW-102C turbojets. The engines generate more electrical energy to power an expanded E-8C suite of surveillance sensors.

A combat wing staffed jointly by Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard personnel operates the E-8C and expects to deploy to Afghanistan in the spring.

The Joint-STARS is a modified Boeing 707-300 acquired in used condition. A replacement that would have given Joint-STARS crews a new airplane, for the first time, was canceled by the Pentagon three years ago. Now, Joint-STARS crews may have to operate from high-altitude airfields in Afghanistan without the modernization package that was scheduled explicitly for those operations.

In addition to new engines, the upgrade plan included improving the E-8C’s phased array radar with a software package to allow it to track small, slow-moving targets. Under the right conditions, an airman in an E-8C would be able to track an insurgent intent on planting a roadside bomb. Part of this upgrade includes evaluating a “ground moving target indicator,” but the study has been delayed.

No other aircraft can do the job of Joint-STARS.

No one disputes the need for cost crunching by a government that is drowning in debt. But scrimping on Joint-STARS is just plain wrong. As one airman said, cutting Joint-STARS modernization amounts to “burning the furniture to save the house.”

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Robert F. Dorr is co-author of “Hell Hawks,” a history of an American fighter group in World War II. His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.