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.
Turbofan Killer Bee: Rutan ARES “Mudfighter” for U.S. Army Close Air Support
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9LlHcX8lg
http://www.scaled.com/projects/ares
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES
The A-10 went through my mind, of course. However, the WWII equivalent of the A-10 was the Republic P47 Thunderbolt, often called “The Jug”. Like the A-10, the Jug was a flying tank that could drop ordinance, blast the crap out of a target with its 8 airborne version M-2s and take a holy hell beating.
However, the P-51 was pure elegance, taken from idea to flyable prototype in 120 days! Pure beauty, inspiration and a viper’s bite rolled into one machine.
Yes, and probably also C-130s and KC-135s.
The British Canberra were in service for almost 60 years.
Missions that cannot be funded, will not continue. And that particular bit of Neo-Con grandiosity has simply run into a brick wall.
Defense is headed for a 50% haircut, just like the rest of the Federal budget - whether Welfare Statists and Neo-Cons like it or not. That's half the aircraft, half the ships, half the carrier battle groups, half the personnel, 2/3 of the bases, 3/4 of the land-based ICBMs and 100% of the nation-building administrative overhead. That leaves room for expanded funding of badly needed technologies that don't reward Congressional repsentatives, defense contractors, and generals with so many shiny new toys: drone technology, cyber-defense, ground and space-based anti-missile systems, and modernized intelligence-gathering capabilities.
You can kill a terrorist with a Craftsman screwdriver if you know who he is and what he is going to do. Government thinks it needs to use an F-22, instead. :)
Likewise, true to a point.
The head and handle changes apply to a lot of structures but not so much the high performance airframes... there are only so many of those.
Wings on t-38s have been changed like socks but we’re all out of socks.
Eventually the attachment points wear out as well and it is not just the 38s though they are probably the worst of the lot for having been around the longest. An airplane can only be banged into the ground so many times even though they are amazingly rugged.
Heck, this is nothing. Many of the guys flying BUFFs (B52 bombers) are younger than the planes they fly!
Mark
If the F-15 community started in the mid 1970s how about the bomber community? The B-52H’s still flying are 1960 and 1961 manufactures - that's a decade older than the F-15 story lead. Plus they are expected to remain in front line service until the 2040s.
Look at the HC-130, rescue aircraft. Most of them are mid 1960 builds - a few years older than the B-52.
The KC-135s are from that same era.
Most of the tactical airlift, C-130s, are from the same era.
Why do I bring this up? In 2009 I came across a young AF Captain, navigator, type whose name tag read “Savage”; I pronounced in the French manner and was immediately told I was the only one who had done so in years. Why did I know how - I flew with the man's father as student navigators in 1970/71. Capt Savage was going into the AC-130 community - the same community I transferred to in 1975. While not a father/son story it shows how old almost all of the Air Force's tactical platforms really are.
Again, another statement that is only true to a point.
The pilots flying the airplanes are younger than the B-52s they fly and so are most of their father’s now who flew the same aircraft.
The same point can be made for the T-38.
If you’ll look at the tail numbers on most USAF aircraft the first two large digits of the SN are the year the AC was accepted into inventory.
The radiators on liquid cooled fighters like the P-51s are too vulnerable.
And the best part, the eight .50s on a P-47 can chew up anything.
Should have read your post before I posted mine. Can’t beat those big P&W radials.
Put F-15 out to pasture?
We have a new fighter mentioned in the article, the F-22. It’s extremely costly, and a linked-to LA Times article states that the F-22 was designed to compete with a new Russian fighter that never came into existence.
The LA Times article says that the F-15’s problems can be fixed, and we know that their weaponry and electronics can be upgraded, so the question to be answered is whether the F-15 still plays a useful military role. Does the F-15 do certain jobs just as well as the F-22 but at a lower cost?
Furthermore, we may be moving toward pilotless aircaft and increasingly precise guided missiles. I’ll bet maintaining and upgrading old planes like the F-15 and B-52 makes sense.
The A26 was not worn out they put turbo-prop engines on it to increase the speed of it. Do not lie the reason for this mess is the fighter mafia alone with there billion dollar toys that they now refuse to fly......
The 26 is still flying in 8 countries . I know cause I was a 26 weapons mech an worked on Brazilian 26s at Opa Locka Airport in Miami.....Great planes like the 135 are still flying with new engines while our great fighters sit on the ground over engineering failures...The USAF Fighter Types refused to buy the F5 Tiger 2 an 6 years later had to buy them as agressor planes cause our F4s were getting shot out of the air over Nam....They buy the wrong a/c the 747 is as old as the c5 yet it flys triple the hours of the 5 an turn around as much as 4 times every 48 hours. It takes 72 hours to turn a 5 around....
The Army issued me with a musket that had “Down With The Redcoats!” carved into it.
Ping to article of interest.
And to you, you would be well advised to take much greater care whom you accuse of lying. If I were where you are there would be consequences.
It is a comfort to know there are geniuses like you around working for Brazil and other countries.
You are insignificant and will always be so.
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