Better smaller??

Scramble!

Yesterday a small Cessna flew close to the White House. Air space restrictions that have been in place since 9/11 seemed not to register with this pilot. The pilot seems to have been benign in intent, but it could have been different.

Figthers on 15 minute alert were scrambled from Andrews AFB, even getting airborne in 11 minutes, being 50 miles to the south it took precious time to get over DC.

It was an intercept that didn't work. The fighter pilots and the air traffic controllers were doing their jobs exactly as they should but the system failed, again.

WW III thinking?

The Pentagon has a problem, they have an air defense system that was designed to stop Blackjack bombers coming in over the Arctic, it was designed to be given hours of notice of an attack (if not days or weeks). It was intended to hit targets that were going to defend themselves.

The 9/11 airliners and the most recent Cessna are not the airforce's ideal targets. They pop-up quickly, they pop-up indiscriminately, and they are nearly impossible to predict.

Combat Air Patrols (CAP) was a feature of 1950's air defense. Back then the Air Force had thousands of fighters and was buying relatively cheaper aircraft at a rate we would consider remarkable (unthinkable?) today. Of course these aircraft were far less capable than say an F- 15.

Finding Options

In the early 80's the RAF realized that it did not have enough close in air defense for UK needs. One solution, albeit temporary, was to fit BAe Hawk trainers with Sidewinder missiles and 30mm Aden cannons. These were located at a couple of airfields to test the concept that they could defend the airfields from Soviet attack. The project was reasonably successful, the Hawks were agile enough to keep pace with fairly sophisticated fighters in a turning fight and were where they needed to be.

The US has advanced subsonic trainers that have weapons capability and could be stationed much closer to critical assets than say a thoroughbred F-15. These trainers need far less support - they are designed to be hardy - and could be placed close enough to critical assets that their lack of supersonic capability would not be an issue. Further, there less capable (lower power) engines tend to be far quieter and so can fly over densely populated areas without irating the populace quite as much as the bigger fighters.

While Air Force T-38's could play this role, the Navy T-45 may be a better fit, simply by dint of its heritage.

Where to put these aircraft?

National Airport is probably 2 minutes flying time from the White House. A pair of aircraft placed on turn outs at one end of National could provide rapid interception over any part of DC. Similar provisioning at Newark, La Guardia, or Tetterboro could provide the same cover of New York. Other cities could be covered in similar style.

The aircraft could be crewed by full time defense staff (be that Navy, Marines or Air Force) or by ANG or Reserve personnel.

These deployments would be cheaper and less stressful on people and aircraft than CAP's or trying to fly supersonic intercepts over hundreds of miles. The existing fighter support would be retained, but supplemented in this manner the 15 minute alert aircraft would offer support to the close in defenses, rather than being the first and last line of defense.