Posted on 12/07/2007 5:57:05 PM PST by Kaslin
Military Strength: For the second time in a month, America's front-line air superiority fighter has been taken out of service. The aging of our air fleet suggests we are spending much too little, not a little too much, on defense.
In May, Gen. Ronald Keys, head of the Air Combat Command, warned that the Air Force was simply wearing out because of its commitments and the lack of new aircraft.
The average Air Force warplane, he noted, was 23.5 years old — older than some pilots — compared with 8.5 years in 1967.
Keys expressed concern that lawmakers would pay attention only when a plane crashed "because a wing fell off."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
I most definitely have questioned whether it was wise to slash procurement of the F-22s to under 200, and I would support any reasonable expansion of that program, but maybe more F-35s should be looked at also?? For the forseeable future there is nothing to match our 180 or so F-22s in the air superiority role, so maybe more F-35s (at 1/2 the cost) could take up some of the burdens?? I don’t claim to be able to assess any of the detailed needs and would just about always support a lot more F-22s (I have seen 5 F-22s flying simultaneously, what a treat!!), but I think perhaps the numbers of F-35s should be looked at closely again and also of course the delivery schedules......
They got some serious problems with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and they are years away from being operational and in sufficient manufacture numbers to be effective.
Makes me wonder if retiring some of our workhorses like the F-14 was such a good idea? And there have been others too like the Intruder.
What about the current run of F-16’s? you know, the ones we just sold UAE that more advanced / better than ours and our own AirForce is envious of.
Both of those planes had huge maintenance requirements. It’s time to build 150 F-22’s for the next 7-8 years and watch our enemies crap their pants.
One of the biggest reasons why the F-22 costs so much is because the Airforce wanted it to be “multi-mission”.
They wanted it to drop bombs, and gather elint and all sorts of other crap that wasn’t in the original design specs.
You see, single mission aircraft like the F-15 and the A-10 are not “sexy”, and the Airforce thinks that without the sexy multi-mission aircraft with all the bells and whistles they’re not going to attract anyone to join.
It’s an extension of that fighter pilot mentality that they’ll get all depressed if there isn’t someone around telling them how great they are every 5 seconds.
The other big reason is because of Lockheed Martin. THEY are the ones inflating the costs, and demanding more and more “cost plus” contracts.
And a few months ago it came out that F-22 pilots can not “handle” the aircraft, so Lockheed Martin is pushing for the Airforce to buy more expensive and less capable 2 seat models instead of the single seaters.
Good question, and one also asked over at F-16.net:
December 4, 2007 (by Eric L. Palmer) - 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.
Would you rather do maintenance or be without airplanes? All but the newest F-15’s are grounded, hundred of them. The joint strike fighter has serious development problems and may be years before any production actually sees service. If so then the navy is screwed because the super 18 cannot do what the 14 did as far back as 30 years.
So here we have the navy with an airplane that can’t fly as fast, nor as far, nor carry the weapons the old 14 did and their future hopes for a replacement is years away. And the air force just grounded hundreds of their frontline fighter.
Maybe a little maintenance is not out of the question. Beats not having airplanes.
Oh I agree that things are screwed, but the way out of this is with new planes, not old ones. It’s time to stop spending my tax money on band-aids.
I bet the Russians would sell the US Navy some SU-30’s and ski jumps. :-)
“Whoa, can that figure of $59 million possibly be right?? I realize that there are massive “sunk costs” in R&D for the F-22 no matter how few or many are ordered, but it we could actually produce 750 of the F-22s at anywhere near $60 million each then why is anyone even talking about building new F-16s or any of the other “solutions”??? I’m definitely not one of the FR experts, I’m just asking the question, can unit costs for the F-22 really be brought down that far, and if so, then why would we try to make do with only 188 of them when our 1970s airframes are in such trouble?? I thought the current figure for the F-22 was around $180 million each based upon current production plans??”
That $59 million figure was probably for a bare-bones single mission fighter.
But the Airforce being the Airforce wants all the bells and whistles and other gizmos on their planes.
Russian aircraft are crap
I seem to recall that the USAF tried to cancel and then later retire the A-10s entirely a couple of times but fortunately were not allowed to do so......we certainly need a replacement in the pipeline for them but I don’t know of any...... my dad is an Aeronautical Engineer (now retired) who worked on the A-10, among many other aircraft across a number of companies in a long career. He is always quite disdainful toward the USAF’s lack of concern for the ground support role which matters so enormously to our troops; they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the A-10 and it almost got cancelled a couple of times, but look at what enormous value it has had on the battlefield. My dad has worked on much “sexier” projects (according to the fighter jocks) but the A-10 was always one for which he felt enormous pride and satisfaction.
Uh, I was being sarcastic.
Oh darn, I was hoping that Don Henley and Glenn Frey got into another big fight and they had to cancel their tour.
The Airforce wants to kill the A-10 because it’s “only” a single mission aircraft.
The basic airframe is good, so there really isn’t a need for a whole “new” aircraft per se.
What I would do is open the A-10 line again and build new airframes allowing newer technologies to be imbedded into it.
They can put new engines on it, give the aircraft more growth potential, equip it with modern ECM and IRCM gear as well as lightweight anti-radiation missiles similar to the old SideARM.
And since it’s doing to be getting down and dirty at low levels it doesn’t need stealth.
Use the new prismatic coatings on it (an F-117 was tested with these coatings in daylight and it all but disappeared against the sky)
But the Airforce won’t do that because it’s “only” a single mission aircraft.
That’s why the F-15 has been neglected over the past several years because it’s “only” a single mission aircraft.
So was I
:D
Great ideas - I’ve wondered why that isn’t done but of course the USAF brass still may not grasp how uniquely valuable an updated A-10 is on the battlefield. They experimented with an “A-16” version of the F-16 with a 30 mm Gatling gun but found it could not possibly match the role of the A-10 .... DUH....
Low and slow with great firepower and cluster bombs, etc. has its essential role for CAS, doing things that are not exactly matched by either the helicopters or the high-flying fighter jocks..... there are still things that cannot be seen or properly dealt with from 15,000+ feet flying at 500+ mph.
“I most definitely have questioned whether it was wise to slash procurement of the F-22s to under 200, and I would support any reasonable expansion of that program, but maybe more F-35s should be looked at also??”
There are serious problems with both programs, cost foremost among them, but there are real physical problems as well. The F-22 is still getting software issues resolved, and now the earliest versions are showing premature corrosion problems.
That pales in comparison to the debacle that is the F-35 program, though. The F-35 was supposed to be the “cheap” supplement to the F-22, but at present, the F-22’s flyaway costs are 130 million. The initial versions of the F-35 are now estimated to cost over 233 million apiece, before “settling down” to a cost of over 100 million a pop. And this is a plane that is far less capable than the F-22.
The Pentagon should simply scrap the F-35 program and buy more F-22’s. The Navy doesn’t want the damn things anyway. It’s basically being forced on them.
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