Wednesday, December 12, 2007

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.

7 comments:

  1. My favorite story regarding the Eagle fleet is of a particular F-15C airframe that a certain Lt. Col. was flying over northern Iraq back in the late '90s patrolling the no-fly zone when suddenly everything electrical in the cockpit went black. Turns out the insulation had gotten rubbed off some wires, shorting out the electrical system on the bird. The airframe was one he had flown when he was a brand new butter bar straight out of flight school.

    The kicker? He's now a one-star and his son, who is a captain, has flown the same airframe.

    Not to make light of it, but the timing of 9/11 really shafted the USAF. I cannot think of a worse time for a war starting event than on the very front end of a major recapitalization cycle. The only solution is a major increase in the budget to allow for continued recapitalization and the increased optempo, but of course that is not forthcoming.

    In the meantime, looks like the stateside lawn dart pilots are going to be quite busy.

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  2. This is just a peak under the carpet of a budding mess insofar as our aging inventory goes. Next on the docket - the tanker and the MPA fleets. In the meantime, burning up the FLE on the Falcon and legacy Hornet fleets meeting commitments left by the Eagle groundings...
    - SJS

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  3. We thought those B-52s were over the hill in 1970, when as a AF Security Cop we humped around them at frozen Griffiss AFB, NY....then they were only a dozen or so years old.....it's a wonder their safety record is still as good as it is.

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  4. Mike: I posted my favorite Aging-Eagle story here . But you probably remember it; it wasn't that long ago.

    SJS said: This is just a peak under the carpet of a budding mess...

    Full-blown mess, if you ask me, SJS. You know it's bad when the Big Dogs (generals and flag-officers) begin to go public with their qualms and fears. That's been going on for quite a while now...the F-15 issue just kinda frosts the cake. But...you're a lot closer to it than I, so I might be all wet.

    Pat: The B-52 went operational in 1955, so they were nearly 20 years old when you were on the ramp at Griffiss. About which: I always felt bad for you and your peers...especially when I saw guys like you heading for the flightline in the dead of winter at Minot. Griffiss might have been bad, but I think you'd find way more than a few guys who'd say Minot was worse. Or so I've heard. ;-)

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  5. Buck, didn't we, in just the past few years, go through all the hoopla of choosing a brand new fighter jet design? How long does it take to go from the trials and the decision to purchase, to delivery and insertion into our fleet?

    Are we waiting for the new planes to be ready? Are there other models, such as new tankers, cargo jets, etc. that we're choosing or looking at?

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  6. Just snuck a look at the latest brief for the third round of groundings - oh boy it is ugly. These are no minor, little fractures that are being dealt with here and there may be more to come. Luckily the E's seem to be un-affected.
    - SJS

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  7. benning said: Buck, didn't we, in just the past few years, go through all the hoopla of choosing a brand new fighter jet design? How long does it take to go from the trials and the decision to purchase, to delivery and insertion into our fleet?

    Yes, we did, and the F-22 is being deployed into the force as we speak. It takes a long time from the release of an RFP to the point where you see "rubber on the ramp." In the F-22's case, the RFP was released in July of '86 and the first F-22 squadron became operational in December of 2005... The big issue here is we're only adding 20 F-22s a year to the fleet, compounded by the fact the AF sez it needs over 300 F-22s but the budget will only allow for the purchase of 183.

    SJS: Sounds worse than we know, eh? By "we" I mean us guys that aren't dialed-in...

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