Naval Aviation

The Navy has not made a compelling case for its $2.5 billion upgrade of the F-14 fighter plane. The upgrades offer improvements over existing capabilities and may not be available before the F/A-18E/F, the next generation strike fighter, is scheduled for deployment at the turn of the century. Although the Navy argued that the F-14 upgrade was needed to replace some capability that will be lost when it retires all A-6E attack aircraft by fiscal year 1998, planned upgrades will not include an air-to-ground radar for precision ground mapping that would permit crews to locate and attack targets in bad weather and poor visibility. In addition, no F-14s will be able to launch current or planned precision munitions or stand-off weapons, except for laser guided bombs.

GAO found that: (1) although the Navy has justified F-14 attack upgrades as necessary to replace the loss of A-6E aircraft, most upgraded F-14 aircraft will be less capable than F/A-18C aircraft; (2) although upgraded F-14 aircraft have greater range than F/A-18C aircraft, this capability may not be needed, since the Navy's shift to a littoral warfare strategy will bring the Navy's targets within range of the F/A-18C and other weapons systems; (3) delivery of upgraded F-14 aircraft is not scheduled to begin until after the A-6E fleet is retired, even though the Navy stated that the aircraft are needed to fill a gap between A-6E retirement and the introduction of the F/A-18E/F aircraft; (4) for several years, the Navy will deploy carriers without A-6E or upgraded F-14 aircraft and will rely on its F/A-18C fleet for all attack missions; and (5) the Navy has not adequately justified its $2.5-billion plan to upgrade the F-14 fleet.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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