In some ways, the institutional challenges faced by the F-16 pale in comparison to those faced by the F-18. The program faced cancellation by Congress in every year of the F-18’s development. The Navy first caught the ire of Congressmen when the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) blatantly disregarded their direction. Congress wanted the Navy to select a derivative of the Air Force’s winner, still undecided at the time. In a September 18, 1974 conference report, the House Committee on Appropriations said that “Adaption of the selected Air Force Air Combat Fighter to be capable of carrier operations is the prerequisite for use of the funds provided.” $20 million provided by Congress was then fenced off for the winner of the Air Force competition. But Navy participants did not feel that they have a voice at the source selection board determining the joint service aircraft.
Realistic speculation that Congress would only fund a derivative of the Air Force winner drove the teaming arrangements for Navy designs. Northrop first approached Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) to help on the YF-17, but LTV turned them down because by the summer of 1974, it looked like the YF-16 would win the Air Force competition. LTV took an inferior offer from General Dynamics, pushing Northrop into a deal that made them the junior partner to McDonnell Douglas on the navalized YF-17. The teaming arrangement mattered greatly, because both General Dynamics and LTV were based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, the home state of Chairman Mahon. And it was clear to all involved that a joint service aircraft ensured plenty of defense dollars for local jobs. While Mahon’s congressional district was a couple counties away from Fort Worth, perhaps affecting his opinion, junior member Dale Milford served the suburban area in between Dallas and Fort Worth, and Milford railed loudest against the Navy’s decision. “Will Congress surrender its constitutional prerogatives,” Milford asked with a hint of excess, “by permitting an executive agency to act in clear defiance of the law?” He called the Navy’s actions a “ripoff” due to the projected $2 billion savings provided by commonality; a projection perhaps not made by the most independent of sources, Milford’s own constituents, General Dynamics and LTV.
On May 9, 1975, LTV submitted a formal protest to the Navy’s decision citing Congressional language. Apparently, many in the Navy were unaware of the matter until after the protest. NAVAIR General Counsel Harvey Wilco exclaimed “Holy moly! We are in trouble!” Indeed they were. Within a couple weeks, Representative Milford brought the protest and a personal statement before the Senate to discuss the matter. The two issues Milford later identified werefirst, is the F-18 cost-effective? And second, did the Navy break the law?With respect to the first, the Navy built a convincing case that all proposed F-16 derivatives were unsuitable for carrier operations. LTV’s navalized 1600 model, for example, added 38 percent to the empty weight of the YF-16 and increased the wing area and horizontal tail areas by 32 and 76 percent, respectively. The 1600 model also proposed a different engine than the F-100 used in both the F-15 and F-16, reducing commonality further. By contrast, the F-18 was only 23 percent heavier than the YF-17, 14 percent larger wing area, and saw no change to either the horizontal and vertical tail areas. But the required changes do not speak to effectiveness. Admiral Kent Lee and the source selection committee found that, the unlike the LTV proposals, the “F-18 substantially meets or betters all… requirements.” The YF-17’s natural operability at low speeds put the F-18 in a good position to win the Navy effort. Appreciating the deficiencies of their designs, LTV argued that they may have won had they also deviated from the Congressional requirement of commonality with the F16.87 The claim did not hold water, considering LTV submitted three designs of 60, 15, and 1-2 percent commonality with the F-16. Of the least common 1602 model, Admiral Kent Lee said that “It was essentially a new airplane.”
The Navy made a convincing case that the F-18 was more cost-effective than an F-16 derivative, and OSD’s independent cost office verified that the F-16 program was cost-effective enough to proceed without the benefits of joint production orders. Yet all sides agreed that the Navy went against the language of the conference report, and the matter ultimately came down to legality. The Congressional Research Service wrote a legal opinion on September 12, 1976, stating that “matters resolved at conference and passed by both Houses of Congress must be absolutely determinative.” Though the opinion went against the Navy, it was overruled by the General Accounting Office (GAO) on October 1, 1975. The GAO decided that the Navy’s F-18 award was valid because conference report language is not legally binding. The GAO went further to say that the Navy award “does not represent a violation of moral or ethical standards.
The Navy’s successful defiance was a rather unlikely outcome, and demonstrated to many the need for additional Congressional involvement in the requirements definition of weapons systems. Senator Barry Goldwater’s sentiments may have been typical of Congressmen. “I want to make it clear,” Goldwater said, “that I don’t oppose the F-18 weapon system. I oppose the way that they have gone about obtaining it.” And like many Congressmen, Goldwater still held hopes that joint service programs would generate substantial savings. He admitted that “This may only be an impossible dream that some of us have, but… we cannot continue forever to pay for these separate air forces.”
That was an excerpt from my 2018 paper, “Processes of Weapon Systems Innovation.” There’s a lot more of interest on the birth of the F-16 and F-18. I bring this story up as a backdrop to the legal issues surrounding budget reprogramming going on today. This event set the precedent for the Trump administration’s defiance of Congress in the border wall reprogramming.
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