Press Releases

Today, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's hearing titled "Naval Strike Fighters—Issues and Concerns." For testimony and to watch the hearing click here.

"The subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on the current Readiness challenges facing the strike fighter fleets for the Department of the Navy.

I'd like to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses:

• Lieutenant General Jon M. Davis, Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Aviation

• Rear Admiral DeWolfe 'Chip' Miller, Director of the Air Warfare Division for the U.S. Navy, and

• Rear Admiral Michael T. Moran, Program Executive Officer for Tactical Aircraft

I thank you all for your service and look forward to your testimony today.

We have several important issues to cover today. Before we begin, I want to briefly highlight three areas of committee oversight concern— 1) overall strike fighter readiness, 2) the Navy's current strike fighter shortfall, and 3) the issue of increased physiological episodes in the F/A-18 fleet.

Last year this Subcommittee held a hearing similar to this one to conduct oversight on the capability and capacity challenges in the Navy's Strike Fighter fleets.

During that hearing, the witnesses noted that, 'aviation readiness is in a precarious position that extends well beyond the Strike Fighter force structure – it is particularly acute in the United States Marine Corps. Marines are flying, on average, 58 percent of the required flight time necessary to be ready for the Nation's call.'

The witnesses went on to explain this situation resulted from reduced capacity, increased operational demand and usage, under resourcing sustainment and spare parts, and F-18 depot production falling short of the required output.

Last summer I led a congressional delegation to Marine Corps Air Station – Miramar where I met with pilots and maintainers and heard first-hand their concerns regarding a lack of spare parts availability and not getting enough flight training time due to insufficient aircraft being available.

Just last month, the full committee held a hearing on the state of the military at which Admiral Moran, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, verified that well more than half of the Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 aircraft were out of service. We learned that 62 percent of F/A-18s cannot fly today.

The current crisis in military aviation readiness appears to be only getting worse. So we expect our witnesses today to help us better understand what can be done to reverse this damaging trend in Navy and Marine Corps aviation readiness.

In hearings two years ago for the fiscal year 2016 budget request, Admiral Greenert, then the Chief of Naval Operations, described a requirement to procure an additional 'three squadrons' of F/A-18E/Fs, or about 36 aircraft to improve capacity and address a growing shortfall in Naval strike fighter inventory.

However, as a result of increasing demand and operational use, combined with continuing resolutions and budget constraints, we understand the shortfall has now grown to over 100 aircraft.

For fiscal year 2017, to help address both the readiness and strike fighter shortfalls, the Committee added 12 F/A-18E/F aircraft, four F-35C and two F-35B aircraft. The House-passed Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2017 reflects those increases. The Department of Defense amended budget request for fiscal year 2017 also includes an additional 24 F/A-18E/Fs, and this Committee plans to work to ensure that request is fully funded.

We expect our witnesses today to provide us with additional information as to what mitigating actions and investment we need to make now in order to reverse this harmful trend of a shrinking strike fighter fleet.

Since 2009, the Department of the Navy has noticed a steady year-over-year rise in hazard reports, known as HAZREPS, regarding physiological episodes in the Navy's F/A-18 and E/A-18G fleets.

In fiscal year 2011, the Navy reported 15 physiological episodes in its fleet of F/A-18 A through D aircraft. In fiscal year 2016, 38 episodes were reported. For the first quarter of this fiscal year, there have already been 13 episodes. I am concerned about this growing trend—one that has a significant effect on readiness and one that needs to be fixed.

According to the Navy, physiological episodes occur when a pilot experiences a loss in performance related to insufficient oxygen, depressurization or other factors present during flight.

Last year, we were informed that the Navy had organized a Physiological Episode Team, to investigate and determine the causes of these physiological episodes.

In response and as a result of the subcommittee hearing, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 required the Navy to establish an independent review team to evaluate the Navy's plan to solving this problem.

We look forward to receiving an update on these efforts from our witnesses today, and request your professional opinion on what we as Members of Congress can do to help with this process.

In closing, as I have said at our previous hearings, there is a military readiness crisis.

Continuing down this path of budget driven defense strategies rather than capability driven defense strategies places too great a burden on our men and women in uniform.

We need to close out fiscal year 2017. We need to address the additional funding requirements that we were unable to cover in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, and finally we need to work with the Administration to develop a topline budget request for fiscal year 2018 that is as close as possible to the $640 billion topline figure identified by Chairman Thornberry in his Views and Estimates letter to the House Budget Committee."