Air force F-35s, drones may square off in budget battle.

• Author: Parsons, Dan

Unmanned aerial vehicles have become a potent portion of the U.S. Air Force inventory and an indispensable weapon in the global war on terror.

But a budget crunch and turf wars with old-guard pilots could threaten progress made during 10 years of combat, experts said.

"There's not going to be a way of putting this genie back in the bottle," retired Navy Vice Adm. Joseph W. Dyer told National Defense. "The world has changed. That doesn't mean advocates of today's manned aircraft won't try to put it back in the bottle. But it ain't going."

The Defense Department is aiming for greater integration of all unmanned systems, to include aerial vehicles, submersibles and ground robots, according to the Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, a Defense Department report detailing the use of UAVs through fiscal 2036.

For the Air Force, the biggest challenge is figuring out how UAV procurement relates to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, said Peter Singer, senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative The Air Force's desired procurement numbers have not changed for the troubled next-generation fighter while program costs have ballooned. At some point, Air Force buyers will have to make a decision on which platforms to buy and how many.

In a Jan. 5 press conference outlining the Obama administration's new defense strategy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials were tightlipped about potential cuts to the F-35 program. They deferred all questions about the costly aircraft until the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal is released in February.

However, they were less reticent about areas where the department would increase investment. Unmanned toms and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies were on their list of items that may see funding boosts rather than cuts.

While the F-35 has been in development, the Air Force has added more than 300 strike-capable Reaper drones to its inventory. But the Reaper is flying and F-35 is not, Singer added. He expects an alteration in procurement numbers for the F-35 before 2020.

Nothing is certain until UAVs become programs of record.

"In the past, these systems were primarily funded out of contingency operations," said Singer. "So they were not directly competitive with manned systems. That is starting to change."

The 25 most expensive Defense Department programs of record share one thing in common--none of them are unmanned.

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