Exhibit VF-9. Retyped

AIR-506:GS 11

June 1973

MEMORANDUM

Subj:  Navy Fighter Program

Ref:    (a) DepSecDef memo to SecNav dated 7 June 1973

1. This memorandum is intended as a working level protest against the decisions and program plans revealed in reference (a) to curtail production of the F-14A and to seek less capable alternatives. The immediate reaction of all those directly involved in the development and analysis of naval aircraft has been one of outspoken incredulity followed by unprintable expletives. Although the rationale for the decision is not available to me as of this writing, it appears to follow previous concepts espoused by Dr. Foster and Dr. Gardner and others whom I place in the category of speculative theorists. Their advocacy of Prototyping, High-Low Mixes, Designing to Cost, and similar buzz words as solutions to the very real problems of our inadequate naval air budgets ignores completely the lessons of the past.



2. From my admittedly somewhat limited viewpoint, our most pressing problem for the last 15-20 years has been to provide within the naval aviation budget an adequate number of airplanes of sufficient quality to do the job. We have tried to reach the best compromise in the design of our airplanes and weapons between the conflicting goals of cost and effectiveness, and we have attempted to adopt contracting methods to get the most for our procurement dollar. In particular, it must be noted that we stopped the practice of competitive prototypes with no production concurrency because it cost too much, not because of technical undesirability. We stopped buying parallel production models (F9F/F2H, FJ-4/A4D) because we could not afford the multiple development bill. We stopped CPFF development contracting and went fixed price on the CH-46, CH-53, A-7, OV-10, etc. because we could not afford the overruns we experienced on the A3J, A2F, and W2F . A better way to achieve a "Design to Cost Ceiling", or to incentivize a contractor than giving him a fixed price contract is difficult to imagine.



3. It is quite illogical to me that we should now spend our scarce resources to develop a second best type of fighter. It is ridiculous that we are developing plans to reduce the production rate of our most cost/effective fighter thereby increasing its cost in order to provide "alternatives" which would have been rejected as inadequate at least 10 years ago. The airplane we started in 1954 is still in production, and is now being sold to countries which could use them against us. To start an airplane now with little increase in total effectiveness is incomprehensible.



4. There seems to be a feeling in certain of the less experienced analytic groups that quantity can always be used to prevail over quality, somewhat in the manner that the Lilliputians were able to tie up Gulliver. The fallaciousness of the theory should be readily apparent when one contemplates the problem of stopping a high performance threat such as Foxbat, or even an SST, with an inadequately equipped, but inexpensive, fighter such as the XF-16 or XF-17. A thousand of them would have no effect except to pollute the environment. We made the decision years ago we couldn't afford to build the type of fighter required to match the very high speed threats, then possible, and now existent. We compromised by building an airplane with a superior fire control system but with only enough airplane performance to reach launch positions to fire its missiles. That capability is just as important in offensive missions as in defensive missions. It should be clear that numbers have a significant effect in some contests, but absolutely none in others.



5. In carrier aviation the high/low mix concept has little validity. The basic theory mixes a few high capability machines with a large number of low capability devices. In practice on a carrier, however, the space is constant, and the number of fighters tends to be a constant. So we end up with a mix of 12 capable, and 12 incapable aircraft. A smaller force of machines, each of which has a fair chance of winning a fight, is a far better solution.



6. There seems to be a great tendency on the part of those newly installed in positions of authority to appoint ad hoc study groups to render advice on complex or controversial problems. The ad hoc groups are given such short deadlines that independent analyses cannot be conducted, but reliance must be placed on previous studies, opinions, contractor estimates, etc. The results of years of effort can be overturned by superficial judgements rendered from an inadequate examination of the conflicting views of some of the parties involved. The recent Flax effort on the F14/F-16 effort is typical. Time did not permit the assembling of either data or experts to conduct truly independent cost or performance analyses of the various models under study. It is equally obvious that no independent operational analysis could have been conducted. Great credibility is usually given to the "estimate" produced by an OSD group that turns out to be somewhere between that of the "biased" contractor and the "biased" service. In my experience, Navy estimates of cost and performance tend to err on the side toward those of the contractor because of the very real problem we face of eventually justifying our estimates to the contractor. It appears that those opponents of the F-14/Phoenix system who have failed to convince the juries over the past several years have finally won the case without allowing us, the defense, to even enter the courtroom. Those of us at the working level feel we were entitled to the courtesy of some form of rebuttal prior to the final decision, if, in fact, the report contains the type of data which I have assumed.



7. The overall plan of reference (a) possesses so many conflicting elements that detail criticism is not warranted. A few basic facts should suffice:



1. "Prototyping" must have been assumed to be inexpensive. Previous DDR&E studies have alluded to values on the order of $50M. If little enough development is done, this figure is attainable.
2. T&E elements in OSD are insisting on operational evaluation prior to a production release. If the prototype program is cheap the equipment produced is not suitable for operational evaluation.
3. Without a full development test program, operational testing cannot be accomplished. A full development program is not inexpensive.
4. If inexpensive prototyping is done, availability of production aircraft for the fleet would not be available for four years, at best, This hardly gives a production option to the decision maker for the following fiscal year's budget.



8. The possibility of attaining a significant increase in total carrier effectiveness is lost when the AWG-9 capability is legislated out of the F-14. Detail planning had been started to implement a concept, always desirable but now attainable, which would permit an all-weather attack capability without loss of fighter capability. Once achieved, the carrier complement would be reduced by one type, enhancing support and providing a significant increase in flexibility. It is probable that the decision to eliminate the Phoenix capability downstream was made without knowledge of this fact which would have benefitted both carrier and Marine aviation.



9. This memorandum has been prepared and forwarded without the knowledge of my superiors. I am confident, however, that it represents the viewpoints, in general, of all of us who have spent this weekend attempting to implement a decision with which we thoroughly disagree, and which we think is inimical to the best interests of the government. It ranks well up with other money saving decisions originated within OSD, such as TFX and HLH, and probably for the same reasons, erroneous information to the decision maker.

                                                                George A. Spangenberg

Copies to: CNO, CNM, OP-05, AIR-00, AIR-01, AIR-05