Posted on 05/18/2012 8:14:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dave Deptula, a retired three-star general, knows the risks associated with flying older aircraft. While serving as the joint task force commander in 1998 and 1999 for Operation Northern Watch, Deptula flew 82 combat missions over Iraq. On one mission, as he was headed to a tanker to refuel, the master caution light came on, revealing a problem with the plane. His fuel gauge went to zero. Meanwhile, he was 500 miles away from his base. Fortunately, he was able to land safely.
“The insulation was so old it simply had deteriorated to the extent where it came off and all of the wiring shorted out,” Deptula recalled. “Those are the kinds of things that happen when airplanes get to certain ages.”
Deptula’s aircraft was grounded for repairs, requiring another set of planes to travel from Kadena Air Force Base in Japan, on other side of the world. It’s not an isolated incident. In the years that followed, the Air Force was forced to ground its entire F-15 fleet in 2007 after one fighter disintegrated during a training mission in Missouri.
These frightening experiences demonstrate the consequences of an aging aviation force. Deptula worries that fiscal constraints imposed on the military — including more than $492 billion of mandatory defense cuts on the horizon — will result in future challenges.
“I hear people talk about, well you know, the U.S. military spends more money than the next 17 nations combined,” Deptula said. “Well, the next 17 nations combined are not committed to maintaining peace and stability around the world. We are.”
The Heritage Foundation featured Deptula’s story as a part of a three-part series highlighting the risks of budget cuts to the nation’s military. The first part told the story of Col. Kerry Kachejian, an Army Reserve engineer, who relied on sport-utility vehicles during his service in Iraq.
Deptula uses the term “geriatric aviation force” to describe the current state of affairs. He has firsthand experience. He earned his wings and flew an F-15 for the first time in 1977. Thirty years later, another Deptula boarded the aircraft. His son, Lt. David A. Deptula II, flew the same F-15 at Kadena Air Force Base in Japan.
The Wall Street Journal documented the amazing father-son story last fall to illustrate the challenges facing the aging force. The elder Deptula recounted how the fighter was originally designed for a 4,000-hour service life. That was later extended to 8,000 hours.
“We have really flown these aircraft well beyond what originally would be believed as their replacement lifetime,” Deptula said of the F-15s. “And now, because of some of the fiscal constraints that are being imposed on the Department of Defense, there is consideration being given to extending the lifetime even further.”
Before retiring from the Air Force in 2010 as a lieutenant general, Deptula traveled to Kadena for a high-aspect mission with his son. He flew the F-15 and saw some of its deficiencies compared to newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35.
Heritage’s James Jay Carafano, an expert on defense and national security issues, worries that under the Obama administration, the military will continue to suffer from ill-advised budgeting.
“Today’s air forces are the oldest in the history of U.S. air forces,” Carafano explained. “Replacing old airframes and ensuring the U.S. maintains its superiority over potential adversaries is a national security priority. Yet Obama has done little to show he takes the challenge of modernizing the air fleets seriously.”
The result is troubling: The U.S. military is jeopardy of sacrificing dominance in the air environment that came with advancements in the 1960s and 1970s. Simply modernizing and updating aircraft won’t provide the same edge against adversaries.
With more budget cuts looming, however, will Congress do anything to reverse course?
Rob Bluey directs the Center for Media and Public Policy, an investigative journalism operation at The Heritage Foundation.
I’ve often wondered that if new, stronger metals and upgraded powerplants and electronic avionics and deadlier weapons if a P-51 wouldn’t suit our third world incursion wars much better.
first father and son BUFFs now father and son F-15s
And I know many of the young men who fly these ancient aircraft. You can only upgrade for so long.
We have flown our airplanes to death these last 20+ years.
Think about a car, no matter how much you maintain it and baby it parts wear out. Now, make it a race car built to the highest specifications with the metal stressed to the highest limits to save all the weight possible. Load it with tons of dead mass (bombs and rockets), driving on a rough track and see what happens. It will not last, the metal will fatigue and fail. If for some reason you don’t understand the analogy, we have built extremely high performance aircraft with the lightest frames possible, load them with bombs, fly them in very rough air, put them through high G maneuvers at high speeds and expect them to last forever. They simply will not last.
What this country is doing to our military is shameful. We will pay a terrible price for it some day. I am afraid it will not be long from now.
Further, I submit that there are sometimes cases where inspiration of a higher order have influenced development of materiel for the good of mankind. Two come to mind: 1) the marvelous 120 design-build-fly of the P-51 and a similarly impressive feat for the Willy’s Jeep.
Because of the limitations of the Mustang’s liquid cooled Merlin, I’ve been partial to the Skyraider, P-47 Thunderbolt, or F4U Corsair.
I can sypmathize, but to me the Mustang was true inspiration.
My father and I did the same thing. He went to Vance AFB for pilot training. He graduated with 66-A class. I was born there while he was in pilot training. Later I went to Vance for my pilot training. I graduated with 87-05 class. We later compared logbooks and had flown many of the exact same airplanes. Both T-37’s and T-38’s.
The B-52 is old just like the A-10 but those were the planes the Iraqis feared the most. I almost had a BUFF crash on top of me at Fairchild AFB.
Our planes are still the best in the skies.
The Atomic Bomb was a good one............
Even if it wouldn’t, they should build them anyway. It is the finest looking aircraft ever built.
They would and thus the reason for the Tucano or something like it.
The A-26 was such an outstanding counter insurgency aircraft they were completely worn out in the early days of Vietnam. We need a moderate performance, survivable aircraft with a high end weapons delivery system for these crap wars we continue to fight.
We do instead is take what is out best remaining high performance aircraft and fly it around for thousands of hours to drop bombs on people armed with shoulder fired weapons. It is the equivalent of making your daily commute in an Formula One race car.
The only part of sitting in traffic that makes it remotely fun is to see the guys in very high end sedans and sports cars creeping forward one foot at a time. I marvel at the waste and vanity. They have converted something like a thoroughbred I prize and appreciate into a nag pulling a trash cart.
Agreed. The Air Force found that out the hard way in Korea when the brass insisted on using Mustangs as ground-attack aircraft.
While not as pretty, the A10 Warthog probably fills that role very nicely.
“I hear people talk about, well you know, the U.S. military spends more money than the next 17 nations combined,” Deptula said. “Well, the next 17 nations combined are not committed to maintaining peace and stability around the world. We are.”
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And maybe we ought to rethink our self-imposed world policeman status.
Taking out an insurgents Toyota pickup truck with $500,000 cruise missles doesn’t make much economic sense either.
I doubt there are many parts left in the plane the father flew. Everything’s replaced over time. Other than a few airframe parts, it’s essentially a different plane.
Task the Air Force with selecting & operating all long range bombers, fighters and interceptors.
Let the Marines & the Army do the same for Close Air Support (CAS).
The Navy has veto on selection of all carrier based aircraft. ( A significant number are CAS. A hot-dog Air Force fighter/interceptor that can’t handle carrier landings is useless. Same for single engines)
True, to a point.
Some of these AC are like the “original” axe George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree.... They have replaced the handle six times and the head four...
Still...Most people would be amazed at what is allowed in the air.
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