Posted on 12/04/2007 9:39:23 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
With the third grounding today of up to 450 A-D model F-15s, the United States Air Force is in trouble. The math, fate and the stars are lining up to look like a bad horoscope.
The USAF, having old airframe problems with hair on them, is now holding Aces and Eights: The dead mans hand.
Part of the Air Force plan to get new fighter aircraft into the fleet was to extend the life of some newer F-16s and F-15s and upgrade them with new avionics. This plan came about because the USAF decided to extend production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) out to 2038-40 because of rising costs in the program.
Where the F-15 fits into this is that for the C model, 178 airframes with good health were declared “golden eagles”. These aircraft would get improved upgrades and fly out until the year 2025 or so to cover the reduced number of F-35 purchase arrivals vs. the original F-35 production schedule.
Now with the latest F-15A-D grounding, the whole golden eagle program is at risk. Worse is that with C-130 problems, C-5 problems, tanker replacement problems, C4ISR upgrade problems, F-35 cost problems, to name a few, the USAF is flat out of money. The big recapitalization of airframes this year were some obligatory C-17s, some C-130Js, a handful of early production F-35s, a handful of F-22s, UAVs and a new generation 737-700 with winglets for the VIP fleet, That isn’t the whole list of new orders but you get the idea.
The F-22 in 2005 dollars if ordered up to 750 airframes would be about $59 million each. However, it is unlikely with its political baggage, to see such a number. F-35 is a large unknown quantity now reported at $100 million each, not counting inflation according to a recent article by Bob Cox of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The bosses of the USAF have drawn a line in the sand saying that there will be no more USAF purchases of F-15Es and F-16s. However, unless someone can come up with a workable value solution to cover the F-15s that are grounded, the statement by USAF now has to be reconsidered. Under the original plan above, early F-16s start getting pulled from the USAF within the next 10 years. F-22 can only cover so much mission need. F-35 is still an unknown performance quantity with so little test hours. New F-15s might be too expensive. USAF has an existing knowledge base and support structure to fly the F-16 into combat. Unless USAF can come up with workable solutions for the fighter roadmap, more F-16 purchases may be needed to keep from losing air superiority commitments for the AEFs in the coming years. This idea may have some value because the F-15s that are being grounded can only perform air-to-air missions. An order of F-16s would put an airframe into the force that can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. Increasing the buy of F-22s is a good idea. Combining this with a buy of F-16s is good value.
I thought this might interest you.
Looks like Lockheed is trying to cover its bets.
I'd love for us to get 240 Block 60 F-16s. However, getting new F-15's is not that expensive. The production line is still open for orders of modified Strike Eagles to Singapore and South Korea. I don't see why we can't get a single-seat varient with upgraded electronics. The F-16 is nice but it is not the F-15. It lacks range and payload and is single-engined.
Of course, the Air Force, like the whole military is worn down. We should have fixed this in 2001-5, but fiddled around with Cheney-Rumsfeld's RMA and then were blindsided by gurellia warfar in iraq and Afghanistan.
That has been 99% of the wars, killing, political and economic destruction since WWII, but don't tell the Pentagon or weapon contractors.
If we bought 750 of them the cost would be 59 million is the author's contention I believe.
Simply buy Eurofighters. ;)
Regards from good old Europe
A.B.
yes, many people fail to realize that there are sunk costs in these development contracts. one way or another, the mfr must be paid for them. so, if Congress decides that it simply can’t afford the number that it originally intended to purchase, they reduce the number that they want to let the USAF buy. however, what those morons often fail to realize is that it often does very little to reduce our total overall costs. It simply removes the unit cost of each fighter that they refuse to buy, it does not reduce the fixed development costs at all. It simply spreads those costs over fewer planes and viola! you have a $159,000,000 fighter that should cost $59,000,000. So, our country has a less capable defense, the press has a story about government waste on military hardware, and some dhimmicrat gets to call for the program’s cancellation. Did I get that about right?
Due to p*** poor management which is SOP for that outfit.
That was for amortizing the full development costs over the small original run. The recent order for the recent batch got the price down into the mid-$80s as I recall
Not really. Just for starters. When you take into account the millions of air miles the AF has been flying since 9-11, let’s not forget the proficiency training sorties that ALL pilots must fly just to maintain minimum certifications. This creates all kinds of maintenance requirements that cost money.
The need to upgrade aircraft with new and better technologies that require extensive developmental and testing costs to fight and win the war on the islamofascists.
The fact that they are also responsible for many, if not all of the space programs outside of NASA and the fact that airplanes use really expensive fuel right now. And these are just some very basic examples of how the AF spends the US taxpayers money
How would you consider that “p*** poor management”?
I take it you’re not a big fan of the AF?
SZ
I'm sure that there are folks that know, but I don't. And it isn't anything you could calculate from anything I've seen, since published articles about sales includes total package price, with spare parts, amortized costs, and other things factored in.
God help us.
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