Mr. McDONALD. Aye. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Emery. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Stump. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Badham. [No response.] Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Hutto. Mr. HUTTO. Aye. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Davis. Mr. DAVIS. Aye. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. White. Mr. WHITE. Aye. Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Nichols. [No response.] Mr. BATTISTA. Mr. Chairman, on that vote we have nine members voting aye, and none voting nay. The CHAIRMAN. Motion agreed to. However, we will proceed in open session until such time as any of the witnesses indicate that the information is classified. General, you may continue. General MOORE. Our Tactical Air Operations Central-85 as I said, will be truly expeditionary. It will give the commander the capability of proceeding in the high-intensity battlefield situation we envision in the late 1980's and the 1990's. This system is fully operable with the Marine integrated fire air support system. Now, I'd like to move into a program that was talked about last Friday, and review in detail the program that we are undertaking to replace our aging CH-46's and CH-53's AID models. I'm sure each of you are aware that these were the workhorses for the Marine Corps in the Vietnam campaign. We have undertaken a program that we refer to as the HXM. This will replace the CH-46 and the CH-53 AID with one aircraft. I would like to show you our requirements and our deficiencies for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. Within the Department of the Navy, we have requirements for approximately 830 aircraft. Today, to meet that requirement, we have in existence 817 aircraft. You may look at the top of the viewgraph, at the very slight line that starts downward to about 1990. That's nothing more than a loss of aircraft to operational losses. If you project that line on down after 1990, you can see that our force, within about a 1995 timeframe, rapidly falling off, where we lose the service life of existing aircraft. Now, I'd like to take this and break it down. First, looking at the Marine Corps-— Mr. DICKINSON. General, I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you said. Were you saying this was just a normal attrition rate? General MOORE. Yes; through operating losses, attrition of the aircraft through the day-to-day operations. Mr. DICKINSON. Thank you. General MOORE. Now, looking at the Marine Corps requirements, our requirement is based on two things: Moving a Marine amphibious force from ship to shore, with the subsequent operation ashore of one Marine amphibious force. This comes out to a requirement for approximately 434 aircraft. Today, to meet that requirement, we have approximately 365 aircraft. We are taking all actions possible in the near term to increase that inventory by taking some 47 aircraft out of desert storage-24 CH-46's and 23 CH-53's. These are all the aircraft in storage that we can put back into the inventory. And that's where you see the slight rise in about the 1984 time frame. Then, we get into the attritional loss for the Marine Corps, and the steep decline in the 1990's, which is the end of the service life of the CH-46. We are able to keep the CH-46's going until that time, through a service life extension program that has been ongoing, and will provide the CH-46's a life cycle until about 1990. |