Aviation force gets smaller, but new aircraft spending on course.

Both Navy and Marine Corps aviation forces will see a slight drop in the size of the fleet, but production of new aircraft will continue at a healthy pace, said Rear Adm. Thomas J. Kilcline Jr., director of the Navy Air Warfare Division.

The Navy and Marine Corps, which now own 2,786 aircraft, will see that number dip to 2,709 in 2006, and 2,641 in 2007.

The intent is to replace aging aircraft with fewer, but more technologically advanced systems. In fiscal year 2006, the Navy requested funds to buy 138 new airplanes. "We are doing pretty good," Kilcline said. He compared the current budget with the financially grim days of the mid-1990s, when the Navy forecast about 40 to 60 new airplanes per year. The current projections--which are likely to be revised--show new aircraft buys exceeding 200 per year by the end of the decade.

Despite delays in the MV-22 Osprey and the Joint Strike Fighter programs, the overall level of aircraft production will remain high. Kilcline told National Defense. Boosting the numbers will be a surge in the manufacturing of T-6 training aircraft. Beginning in 2007, the Navy will begin purchasing nearly 50 per year. "We need those," Kilcline said, to replace the outdated T-34s.

As the Pentagon's budget proposal gets digested on Capitol Hill, one of the issues causing heartburn among many lawmakers is the termination of the C-130J cargo aircraft program. Kilcline, who oversees both Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs, said the cancellation of the C-130J is bad news for the Marines, who had requested 51 new aircraft. Unless the Defense Department reverses course on this, the Corps would end up with 33 C-130Js, instead of 51. "Congress wants to make sure we get the Marine Corps their allotment," Kilcline said. If the Pentagon and Congress fail to reach an agreement to extend the C-130J contract with Lockheed Martin, the Marine Corps will have to upgrade older C-130s to fill that gap, he added.

Among the winners in this year's budget is the Super Hornet program, which remains on track to deliver 148 aircraft by 2011, and 90 EA-18Gs, to be produced by 2011. The Navy also will purchase 20 E-2C Hawkeye command-and-control aircraft.

Other aviation programs will get fewer aircraft than was previously budgeted. The Joint Strike Fighter is being trimmed from 127 to 111 aircraft (for the 2006-2011 period), the MV-22 Osprey from 180 to 145, the MH-60S helicopter from 158 to 136, and the MH-60R from 159 to 153.

The Bush administration's decision to shrink the carrier fleet from 12 to 11, meanwhile, will not affect construction plans for the Navy's next-generation carrier, the CVN-21, although its delivery date will slip from 2007 to 2008.

There is still a chance that the administration will reconsider the elimination of an aircraft carrier, depending on the outcome of the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is scheduled for completion this fall.

Pentagon officials believe the Navy can do the job with 11 carriers, as a result of a new readiness strategy, called the "Fleet Response Plan."

The FRP ends the practice of scheduled six-month or nine-month rotations. It stipulates that the Navy will have six carriers ready to deploy within 30 days, and two carriers ready within 90 days.

"The major change in the Navy over the past year or so, has been the introduction of the Fleet Response Plan," said Vice Adm. Robert Willard, director of force structure, resources and assessment at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The carrier force at 12 was sized for the presence and rotation demands around the world, and it was sized previously to supply about three aircraft carriers and another on demand, at any given time." he said.

"The Fleet Response Plan is a complete change in the way the Navy is approaching maintenance and training and readiness of its carriers," Willard said. "The current Fleet Response Plan is capable of providing for the president's needs, regardless of whether there are 12 or 11 in the top line."

Although it could take the Defense Department two to three more years to make a final decision on the number of carriers, supporters of naval aviation stress that it may be premature to downsize the fleet without a thorough analysis of the threats the United States might face in the future, "Our Navy is better than any other navy because of our air power," said Adm. John B. Nathman, vice chief of naval operations.