Arlington, VA, Sept. 15, 1998 -- The acting secretary of the Air Force said today that being involved in a wide array of international operations is taking its toll on Air Force people and equipment.

"We are ready today, but our current pace of operations is not sustainable," Acting Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters said in an address to the Air Force Association's National Convention and Aerospace Technology Exposition. "In a nutshell, the Air Force is caught between a flat budget top line and increasing costs of operations. "

With the exception of domestic base infrastructure, Peters said that Air Force downsizing is complete. He noted that personnel strength has been reduced by over 40 percent, major bases overseas have been cut by two-thirds, and purchases of replacement aircraft have been reduced by 77 percent. But the strategy of squeezing more money for current operations by reducing the force and scrimping on modernization, military construction, real property maintenance, and investment in research and development has essentially run its course. "This strategy is no longer viable," Peters said.

In the area of weapons system readiness, aging aircraft are becoming more expensive to maintain, Peters said. In fact, some of the youngest pilots will be barely older than their aircraft, and most of the first-term maintenance personnel will be younger than most of the fleet. To take one example, spare parts shortfalls have increased costs per flying hour for the F-16 by nearly 4 percent a year since 1995. Such shortfalls, in turn, have driven mission capable rates down across the force by nearly 9 percent since the Gulf War. To try to cope, the Air Force has had to add $300 to $500 million per year to spares and repairs accounts.

The other side of readiness has to do with personnel retention, especially in first- and second-term reenlistment rates for the enlisted force. It is an Air Force-wide problem, Peters said, citing a 39 percent drop in the retention rate over the past five years for enlisted members who work on F-15 avionics, a 24 percent drop in retention of F-15 crew chiefs, and a 36 percent drop in the rate for air traffic controllers.

Peters said that Air Force personnel are concerned about such issues as military and retirement pay, personnel tempo, housing, medical care and other quality of life benefits. "We need to respond to these legitimate concerns," he said. He cited the 3.6 percent pay raise recently passed by Congress and the proposed raise of 4.4 percent for 2000 as a good start. He added that Secretary of Defense William Cohen has also initiated a review of the military retirement system.

But even the combination of recent pay raises, increased spending on spare parts, a reorganization of the Air Force into an Expeditionary Aerospace Force that spreads personnel tempo over 10 groupings of Aerospace Expeditionary Forces, and other measures will not solve the problem.

According to Peters, even as the Air Force works to solve readiness problems and enhance quality of life benefits, "we can't get where we need to be without internal savings from BRAC [another base closure and realignment round] and DRI [the Department of Defense's Defense Reform Initiative aimed at streamlining business practices] " and some added top line funds in the defense budget.

"Even in the face of these challenges, as we look ahead, we are determined to build on the progress yielded by all of our reforms currently underway and those, such as EAF [the Expeditionary Aerospace Force], which will be implemented in the near term," Peters said.

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