Mission capable rates have declined for most Navy aircraft over the past decade.
Posted on 05/28/2016 8:39:40 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A Navy captain from Virginia Beach was testifying before Congress on Thursday about the shortage of flyable fighter jets at Oceana Naval Air Station. As he spoke, word came to military officials seated behind him:
A pair of F/A-18F Super Hornets from Oceana had “a mid-air mishap” off the coast of North Carolina, forcing four aviators to eject and sending their $57 million aircraft hurtling into the Atlantic Ocean.
Capt. Randy Stearns, commodore of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic, was briefed on the training accident involving two of his jets during a short recess from the hearing, then returned to the U.S. House committee room to answer additional questions about the difficulty of keeping aging aircraft flying – and pilots ready – after 15 years of relentless combat deployments.
Although the cause of Thursday’s accident is still being investigated, its timing put an exclamation point on recent warnings from naval officers and defense analysts that demands for Navy aircraft have outpaced the service’s resources, threatening its ability to respond to future conflicts – and making training riskier.
“I cannot connect today’s incident with that,” Rep. Randy Forbes said of Thursday’s crash, hours after leading the House Armed Service subcommittee hearing on Navy readiness struggles. “We do have huge concerns. … Our pilots are not getting all the training that they are supposed to get.”
The problems facing naval aviation have been building for years, according to data obtained this week by The Virginian-Pilot and the Investigative Reporting Program. The stats reveal a downward trend in the number of mission-ready naval aircraft over the past decade.
On an average day last year, according to the data, fewer than half of the Navy’s fighter jets were listed as “mission capable,” a status that
(Excerpt) Read more at pilotonline.com ...
Mission capable rates have declined for most Navy aircraft over the past decade.
The Navy? Try the USAF. I’ll bet it is lower yet than the USN.
We are nearly at the bottom of the barrel and the USAF just froze all Reserve hires and intend to cut some units by 50% while the mission remains the same.
Next stop, stop loss for pilots. Won’t that be lovely for them?
i guess getting the A6's out of storage and back into service while releasing the Bugs from being bomb trucks back into fighters is out of the question
Yet more fruit of the negro community organizer’s administration; i.e. “The Transformation of America.”
20 million a piece, possibly as low as 17 million a piece, and $3,000 per flying hour. Textron developed this little jet on it's own.
wonder how much redesign work/weight penalty to make them carrier qualified
I was wondering that myself. I see your point about the A-6. Tried and true.
yup, best bomb truck the navy ever had + doing EW and tanker duty let alone all Bugs are tanker junkies
The A-6 was an awesome jet. Just try to steer clear of them if you are in a ski lift.
yeah... that was a bad move of the first magnitude
Using F18s as tankers just makes perfect sense.
Losing longer range fighters like F14 s and not replacing that capacity is a good thing.
Less aircraft on carriers means more room on the hangar deck.
Sex harassment diversity LQTBG ABCDEFGHIJK training are funds well spent.
Hey, I’m thinking positive!
just damn... that IS positive thinking!!! we are soooo screwed
That would be from the bottom of the Atlantic
Sec Dick Cheney didn't want any left to threaten the Super Hornet program
Do we have enough bombers, submarines and ICBMs?
why does that NOT surprise me???
Well, fighter planes are the practical tip of the spear. ICBMs are never the first options to hit a target. Subs have operational limitations — its not easy to replenish a sub with missiles after it runs out of Tomahawks.
Yea, but how many units would it take to blow up all the major murdering moslem cities?
Probably three or four smoking piles would "make our point". The fighter jets would then come in real handy for taking pictures.
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