GLOBAL REPORT / FINANCIAL TIMES
Air Force's Top Fighter Is Brought Down to Earth
By Peter Spiegel, Financial Times
It started as one of the dozens of military exercises the Pentagon
conducts with friendly governments each year, operations that are
as much about bilateral diplomacy as about testing military
capabilities.
But the exercise carried out in February, involving mock
combat between the U.S. and Indian jet fighters over the skies of
Madhya Pradesh in central India, has taken on a life of its own.
The reason? The U.S. lost.
Not only did the U.S. aircraft lose, but they lost repeatedly.
According to one member of Congress who was briefed on the
exercise, the U.S. Air Force's top-of-the-line fighter, the F-15
Eagle, was defeated more than 90% of the time in simulated
dogfights with Indian pilots.
As a result, reports on the exercise have not only reached the
highest levels of the Pentagon and Capitol Hill but have traveled
around the world to military procurement agencies in Singapore and
South Korea.
As details have gradually leaked out, the exercise has become one
of the prime topics of gossip at air shows and arms fairs around
the world. It also has opened a rare window into the overlapping
loyalties and increasingly cut-throat competition that mark
military procurement in an age of shrinking defense budgets.
The exercise, known as Cope India, was conceived almost two years
ago as part of thawing relations between New Delhi and
Washington.
Some Pentagon officials saw improved diplomatic ties with
democratic India as a way to balance the growing strength of
communist China. It was the first combat training exercise between
the two air forces in more than 40 years.
But U.S. planners also had an important goal: Air Force pilots had
never had the chance to go up against the Su-30 Flanker, the latest
Russian-built fighter designed by Sukhoi. India began acquiring
Su-30s in 1997.
Many of the details of Cope India remain classified. Accounts
conflict: Some say the F-15s lacked the Air Force's most
sophisticated radar, others that the Indians used special
helmet-mounted targeting systems unavailable to U.S. pilots and
still others that the Americans were outnumbered at least 2 to
1.
Whatever the reasons, the Air Force, which took delivery of its
first F-15 in 1974, might normally be expected to keep such a
defeat under wraps. But in recent weeks, senior officers have begun
leaking information about the exercise, freely admitting their
technical inferiority.
"We may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once
thought we were," said Gen. Hal M. Hornburg, head of the Air Combat
Command.
The reason for the sudden candor has little to do with the F-15 and
much more to do with another aircraft: the F/A-22 Raptor, a new
stealthy combat jet that the Air Force is desperate to save from
congressional and Pentagon budget-cutters.
The $72-billion program has come under fire from those who say the
U.S. no longer needs a fighter originally designed to fight the
next generation of Soviet MiGs. So senior officers have decided
that the risks of revealing the inadequacies of the F-15 are
outweighed by the opportunity to convince the government to keep
buying the higher-priced fighter.
"Something like Cope India, when we find that some of our
advantages aren't as great as we thought they might be, leads me to
remind people that we need to modernize our air-to-air capability,"
Hornburg said.
Lockheed-Martin, the prime contractor on the F/A-22, has been more
than happy to play along. In recent briefings, senior executives
have made thinly veiled references to Cope India.
"The bottom line is, the U.S. no longer has a technological combat
advantage, based on aircraft versus aircraft," said Ralph Heath,
the Lockheed executive who oversees the F/A-22 program.
It would seem only natural that the F/A-22's largest subcontractor,
Boeing, would play along too, except for one problem: Boeing makes
the F-15. The company recently won a competition to produce F-15s
for South Korea and is engaged in a heated contest to build 20 for
the Singapore air force. "We were concerned," said George Muellner,
head of Boeing's programs for the Air Force.
In an effort to save the F-15 from the Pentagon's
self-inflicted wounds, Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of
staff, briefed Singapore officials on the Indian exercise.
Singapore, which also is looking at the Eurofighter and the French
Rafale, has reason to be worried: China has bought the Su-30, as
have Malaysia and Indonesia.
I feel Eurofighter is the best choice for next generation. F15
so old designed. 
