Budget traps: navy on a mission to cut the cost of aviation.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: NAVY AVIATION

Expectations of a smaller force and leaner budgets set the tone for an ongoing, sweeping review of Navy aviation programs.

An estimated $40.4 billion a year operation, the Navy's air force for years has been under pressure to cut costs. In the latest round of scrutiny, the Navy might determine how much of its aviation enterprise can be downsized to help pay for the service's number-one procurement priority--its shipbuilding plan, officials tell National Defense.

The chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, last year directed a detailed review of aviation assets, and its outcome will shape spending plans beginning in fiscal year 2008. Among the issues that will be probed is the extent to which aviation expenditures will need to drop in order to help fund the expansion of the fleet from 289 to 313 ships during the next three decades.

One of the senior Navy officers in charge of the aviation enterprise, Vice Adm. Wally Massenburg, says that the CNO will seek to "properly size" the force in the context of a 313-ship Navy.

How many of its 3,823 aircraft and 182,000 people--if any--the Navy air force may lose has yet to be determined. But it is fairly certain that lean times are ahead, says Massenburg, who runs the Naval Air Systems Command.

"My feeling is that, unless we learn how to do things differently in the Navy, if we are going to afford the Navy for the future at the same time we have to fight today, we need a different business model," Massenburg says in a recent interview. The model assumes that each of the Navy's warfare communities--aviation, surface and undersea--is expected to sacrifice assets "for the greater good of the Navy."

The aviation force is beginning to come to grips with this reality, he adds. "If it's the greater good of the Navy, it's up to us to become as efficient and effective as possible ... In the past, I'm not so sure we understood the connection."

A concerted campaign to lower the cost of flying airplanes in the Navy began in the late 1990s and gained momentum under the former chief of naval operations, Adm. Vernon Clark.

"Adm. Clark was very unhappy with us in naval aviation," Massenburg says. "He looked at us as not understanding our business. He saw us as ever increasingly expensive to operate, with no end in sight."

Notably, Clark spearheaded the merging of the Navy and Marine Corps' air forces, which allowed the services to eliminate hundreds of aircraft from their future procurement plans.

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