The Aging of Your Air Force

You may have read elsewhere that the USAF has grounded…twice…its entire fleet of 442 F-15s (with the exception of the “E” model) following the crash of an F-15C back in early November. The latest grounding is “indefinite” and would appear to put a serious kink in our…read that as USAF’s and by extension, the nation’s… global airpower capabilities. You can’t take 442 fighters out of the mix and not feel some sort of major impact, both here in the USofA and in the war zones. Still and even, USAF’s operational responsibilities aren’t diminishing in the least. Operation Noble Eagle is one such example.

December 12, 2007— Air Forces Northern, headquartered at Tyndall AFB, Fla., has continued to conduct Operation Noble Eagle, despite the Air Force's grounding of its F-15 A-D fleet. As we've reported earlier, units that fly other fighters are substituting for F-15 units normally tasked with ONE alerts. The latest data, covering the month of November, shows ONE crews racked up 50 more sorties in November than in October.

(Graphic and caption from the Air Force Association)

Air frames can be repaired and retrofitted to correct structural deficiencies, but there is a limit to what can be done to counter the physical aging process of any mechanical system including, and perhaps especially, aircraft. The current F-15 issues may only be the tip of the iceberg, given the ages of the aircraft in the Air Force’s fleet. The charts on pages 63 and 64 of the current Air Force Almanac show the average ages of the USAF and Air National Guard’s inventories (pdf alert). You’ll note the F-15, with an average of (just!) 19.7 years is less than half that of the B-52 (44.8 years) or the KC-135 (44.5 years)…and that’s in the regular Air Force. The Guard and Reserve fare much worse, given as how they tend to fly aircraft quite a bit older than the Regular AF.

USAF’s senior leadership have been warning…for years…that the service faces a major fiscal challenge in the recapitalization of the fleet, an effort that will require billions and billions of dollars, not to mention time. It’s a serious problem:

After four years in Iraq, five-and-a-half years in Afghanistan, and 16 nonstop years of combat operations throughout Southwest Asia, the Air Force stands at a strategic crossroads. One path leads to continuation of a dominant air and space power, while the other leads to something less—perhaps a lot less.

Such was the import of somber public remarks from the service’s senior officials at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla.

The Air Force must find a way to sustain today’s creaking equipment, modernize the force with next generation systems, and provide airmen to support the proposed addition of 92,000 troops to the Army and Marine Corps.

It must do all of this with what officials openly concede is an inadequate budget for Fiscal Year 2008, which begins on Oct. 1, and years beyond.

Read the whole thing, as it’s said. The bottom line is we’re sending our Best and Brightest up to fight in aircraft that, in some instances, are much older than the pilots and aircrew themselves.

That ain’t right.