An F-15C tooling around the sky in southern Missouri with 3 of his closest aeronautical acquaintances came apart during air combat maneuvers Friday and the Air Force grounded all F-15 Eagle aircraft pending inspections for service-life issues.
The grounding of an entire fleet of aircraft is not all that rare. Many aircraft types have experienced this after an mishap, pending the discovery of the cause of the mishap. 
This particular aircraft was 27 years old and “service life issues” is one of the determining factors in the grounding. Fuselage or wing fatigue concerns are a very definite question in the aircraft, and the fact that the C-model is the air-to-air version of the F-15 and this particular Eagle was engaged in ACM when the mishap occurred makes a fleet grounding apropos until inspections can be made.
There are between 550 and 688 (depending on which source you use) F-15 aircraft out there so a grounding of the fleet is no small thing.
Lieutenant General Gary L. North, the Air Force officer in charge of military aircraft in the Middle East, issued a statement yesterday saying he would be able to fill the gap with other fighters and bombers. But another Air Force official said the F-15 grounding will have a “significant impact” on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. “They will clearly have to work hard to pick up the slack,” the official said.
F-16’s and A-10’s will take up that slack in southwest Asia, as will whatever aircraft carrier airwing is deployed to the region.
General T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, who ordered the grounding this past Saturday said at a congressional hearing in October “The F-15s … they’re very capable airplanes”. “But against the new-generation threat systems, they don’t have the advantage that we had when they were designed in the late 1960s and built in the 1970s.“
Gee.…where have I heard THAT before?
Air Force grounds entire fleet of F-15s
Move in response to plane breaking in midair last week
By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times | November 6, 2007
WASHINGTON — The US Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-15s, the service’s premier fighter aircraft, after one of the planes disintegrated over eastern Missouri during a training mission, raising the possibility of a fatal flaw in the aging fighters’ fuselage that could keep it out of the skies for months.
General T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, ordered the grounding Saturday after initial reports showed that the Missouri Air National Guard fighter plane broke apart Friday in midair during a simulated dogfight.
Although the 688 F-15s in the Air Force’s arsenal gradually are being replaced by a new generation of aircraft — the F-22 — they remain the nation’s most sophisticated front-line fighters. US officials said the F-15s are used heavily for protecting the continental United States from terrorist attack, as well as for combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lieutenant General Gary L. North, the Air Force officer in charge of military aircraft in the Middle East, issued a statement yesterday saying he would be able to fill the gap with other fighters and bombers. But another Air Force official said the F-15 grounding will have a “significant impact” on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They will clearly have to work hard to pick up the slack,” the official said.
The health of the F-15 fleet has long been a concern for Air Force brass, who repeatedly have warned that the two-engine fighter had exceeded its expected life span and was straining under the workload imposed by the counterterrorism duty.
In addition, Moseley repeatedly has raised concerns that the plane is inadequate for increasingly sophisticated air defense systems being developed by potential adversaries such as China and Iran.
“The F-15s … they’re very capable airplanes,” Moseley told a congressional hearing in October. “But against the new-generation threat systems, they don’t have the advantage that we had when they were designed in the late 1960s and built in the 1970s.“
In May, another Missouri Air National Guard F-15 crashed in southern Indiana during a similar training exercise. The pilots in Friday’s crash and the May accident survived.
The F-15 that crashed Friday was 27 years old. Of the five versions of the F-15 used by the Air Force, four versions average 24 to 30 years of age. The F-15E, the newest version, is 15 1/2 years old, but has been grounded with the other versions because it has a similar airframe.
Air Force leaders frequently have cited the age and growing obsolescence of the F-15 as the main reason to buy the new, stealthier F-22, the most expensive fighter ever made.
Critics of the F-22, which was first designed to fight a generation of Soviet MiGs that never materialized, say it is an overpriced Cold War relic, but the Air Force insists it has adapted the plane to meet more modern threats and missions.
Lieutenant General David Deptula, a former F-15 pilot who is now the Air Force’s head of intelligence, said his son now flies the same F-15 aircraft that Deptula flew while based in Japan in the late 1970s.
“They have become serious maintenance challenges as they get older, and now I’d suggest that we may be facing a crisis,” Deptula said. “We must recapitalize our aging fighter forces — and fast.“
Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute who has consulted for aircraft manufacturers, said the accident probably was caused by metal fatigue, corrosion, or faulty maintenance.
If maintenance problems turn out to be the culprit, Thompson said, the F-15 fleet could be returned to flight relatively quickly. Similarly, corrosion could be fixed by examining other aircraft for similar problems.
If the Missouri crash was the result of metal fatigue, however, it could lead to a much more extended grounding, as it would suggest that time and intense use of the aircraft since the Sept. 11 attacks have caught up with the aging fighter.
“The whole fleet was already flying on flight restrictions due to metal fatigue,” said Thompson, noting that a fleet-wide grounding is extremely rare, especially for a fighter.
“In this case, the planes that are grounded are supposed to be America’s top-of-the line air superiority plane,” Thompson added. “This is not like grounding some cargo plane. These are the sinews of our global air dominance.“
Despite fears over the plane’s safety, it remained unclear whether all F-15s were on the ground or would stay there.
–Pinch Paisley
F-22 critics do fail to accept the fact that the current fighter fleet is aging and needs to be replaced. Punting recapitalization off to the future adds two types of cost: sustainment costs for aging airframes and R&D costs for the replacement aircraft. We’ve already paid the R&D costs for the F-22 and the longer we wait to replace it the more we will pay in sustainment costs.
> F-22 critics do fail to accept the fact
> that the current fighter fleet is aging
> and needs to be replaced.
I am not a “critic” of the F-22; personally I think it has its place in the US arsenal and that one problem with the cost may be that the US is not buying enough of them fast enough.
But F-22 proponents really do need to come to grips with the per-unit cost of the F-22 vs. the (F-15K + latest radar). The F-15 is still winning international competitions so it can’t be as utterly obsolete as some would prefer.
Cranky
Cranky, the F-15 has NOT been winning against the F-22. No new top of the line fighter is cheap. They whined about the cost of the F-15 when it was new also.
The Newer F-15 models still have lots of life left. But we do need to start thinking about replacing them all.
Cranky, the per unit cost is driven up by only buying 183 fighters out of what was originally to be a 700 plus fighter program. If you buy less aircraft, you still have to expend the R&D dollars, the capital equipment cost to build the aircraft and finally you have to pay the wages of the people who work the production line. Reduce the size of the fleet by 2/3 and the per unit cost increases.
The F-15K with an AESA radar is a good export aircraft that isn’t really survivable in a high-threat environment. There is a place for such jets. Even the Air Force recognizes that since you probably noticed the earlier defensetech post on the great radar race to put AESA on the legacy F-15 jets in the US fleet. Of course, the problem is that is an expense radar to lose if the jet falls out of the sky from metal fatigue or corrosion.
In a world with Su-35s and Russian T-50s, I don’t think we should be putting pilots in the air with sub-standard equipment just to please the bean-counters. We did that to the ground forces when they asked for body armor, Humvee armor and MRAPs. Let’s not repeat that experience.
This would give a boost to the plan to get 20 more Raptors, maybe. In the meantime the Air Force might go on yet another plan to refurbish and overhaul the F-15 airframes to slap on a few more years of life; we already saw the AESA upgrade plan.
Perhaps you American’s could buy some Eurofighter Typhoons from us Brits? One beat off two F-15’s on training…
The newer F-15s are all attack models, and they’re at least 10 years old. The older F-15s are out of life and need to be replaced. The avionics haven’t had a serious upgrade in years — a CF-18 pilot I knew said that some of the equipment was even more obsolete than the stuff on the CF-18s at a late ‘90s Maple Flag. The fatigue problem is serious, and not easy to fix. A lot of the airframe was built using semi-manual methods, so replacement components have to be custom made (I recall reading an article about problems with wing skin panels in an SAE journal.) Buying new planes might be an option, but the air-to-air variant has been out of production for 20 years. The simplest solution would be to just buy more F-22s, which are already in production and reflect the latest technology. Another option might be to start buying F-18Es — wouldn’t be the first time that the Air Force has flown a Navy tactical aircraft.
Here’s the thing I’ve never understood: Why cant we just build more F-15s? We already payed the R&D, and the airframe works well enough for Israel to hop into Syrian airspace undetected.
Did they literally break the mold after building 600 or so planes?
I said
» I think it has its place in the US arsenal
» and that one problem with the cost may be
» that the US is not buying enough of them fast
» enough.
to which doc75 replied:
> Cranky, the per unit cost is driven up by only
> buying 183 fighters out of what was originally
> to be a 700 plus fighter program. If you buy
> less aircraft, you still have to expend the R&D
> dollars, the capital equipment cost to build the
> aircraft and finally you have to pay the wages
> of the people who work the production line.
> Reduce the size of the fleet by 2/3 and the per
> unit cost increase
Uh, ok. That’s exactly what I said, in more detail.
I am aware of what was said in response to my post and I will stand by it. I don’t have any problem with anyone disagreeing or saying I am wrong, but I think it would be better to be proactive about this thought before the meataxe arrives at the neck of the USAF budget in 2010 or so (regardless of which party wins the Presidential election).
Cranky
J Mac,
Restarting production on a fighter aircraft isn’t a minor undertaking, particularly when the air superiority model hasn’t been built in a couple of decades. Hopefully the tooling still exists, but it may have been modified for F-15E production. There would also be problems with the supply chain, as many of the thousands of subcomponents may no longer be available. On top of that, you’ve got to get all of the production workers retrained to build the older aircraft and put the engineering team back together to support the builds. Building something like this is never as simple as dusting off the blueprints and cranking out some more fighters — there’s a lot of highly perishable knowledge that goes into it, and relearning it can be nearly as expensive as a complete redesign.
Is that a real picture?
Make new F-15s, why. We have the F-22 now. Realize one F-22 shot down 9 “enemys” in a recent war game. F-15s still have some life, but we have newer, and far better, why make remake an airplane that is only going to be state of the art for another 5–10 years.
On the picture, I have no idea but I have seen that maneuver done before. The F-22 can actually float for about 2 seconds in midair doing that maneuver (more like a stall but it looks like a hover).
The photo is real and it’s nothing spectacular — it’s just an F-15 taking off. A lot of pilots like to go vertical immediately upon leaving the ground.
so what happened to the pilot of this disintegrating F-15?
Forgive my cynicism, but it sounds to me like this is a ploy to get funds for more F-22’s. “Yeah, we need 200 more F-22’s cause the F-15’s are falling out of the sky.” This is the usual political crap the generals pull.
What F-22 critics fail to come to grips with is that building more F-15s is not going to get you a modern fighter force.
According to the logic used against the F-22, we would be better off maintaining a fleet of 10,000 el-cheapo P-51 Mustangs than 700 or so F-15s or, by extension, 200 or so F-22.
As has been noted by other, in war game after war game, F-22s consistently shoot down 9 or 10 F-15s and F-16s at a time. That’s a lot of “cheap” F-15s you’d have to build for the privilege of being shot down by a small fighter fleet of “expensive” F-22s.
Right on JH.
Heck ever since WWII America has always taken the quality over quantity approach to war. It sure has worked so far. The F-15 still has life left, and id say a lot of life, but it still has no way near the capabilities of the Raptor.
Anyone have a link to a F22 vs F15 engagement with guns only, or simulating a F22 getting jumped at close range by a flight of F15s? I’d like to see that instead of all the wiz-bang, we don’t need guns anymore because the electronics are so good the F22 can kill at 9 to 1 because it sees them first.
Don’t like all the eggs in one basket.
Let’s build 700 F22s and 700 F15E
Rix, this was no ploy for the pilot who had to pull the ejection handles.
cal11, the pilot had a dislocated shoulder, broken arm and minor cuts. He was released from the hospital on Saturday. Details at http://www.kctv5.com/news/14514883/detail.html
Link includes a good aerial shot of the crash site.
Lots of inaccurate comments being posted here regarding the performance of all these aircraft…
The obvious and real fact is that these airframes are all extremely old. If one doesn’t remember the F-15 came out of the F-X program in the late 60’s early 70’s, the same generation that the F-14 program was created and look at where the F-14 is now..retired due to age/maintenance. A different solution that no one on this board has provided is using more F-16’s to supplement a stop-gap measure to loosing some of our oldest F-15’s. F-16’s are still being produced in this country for export, currently the Block 60. Get rid of the oldest F-15 airframes now and build brand new F-16’s. Couple this with buying several new F-22s, fewer F-35’s in the future, retaining the F-15E’s, and you sustain an effective fighting force coupled with some of the latest technology. You also have simultaneously reduced the overall maintenance cost due to improved airframes and maintenance measures.
Some of you are just nuts, its like saying lets build 1969 Ford Mavericks again with bias ply tires, points, plugs, condensors, etc.
The modern fighter jet has reliability and maintainability benefits that allow you to have less maintenance, less often for less money. The F-22 needs less airlift support to deploy, and far fewer maintenance personnel as well.
If the F-22 kill ratio is true and sustainable at 9:1, ramping up production on the F-22 is a no brainer.
When the Air Force re-engined the KC-135’s, they started looking and what they found under the pretty exteriors was ugly and expensive to fix. Even Boeing was surprised. Aluminum corrodes and cracks; it takes a lot of manhours find and manage.
I tend to keep my cars a long time and maintain them accordingly — the obvious stuff. Do I look at every little thing consistently? No. Why? It’s not a life threatening matter.
First line fighter aircraft keep grunts from dying; there can be no compromise. Bottom line: Spreadsheets are not part of this equation.
Completly overhaul 200 F-15’s And fill in the other 488 with F-16’s, F/A-22 Raptors, And F/A-18 Super Hornets. Just a thought.
The F-15 airframe should be seen like the SU-27eg –35–37 and improved. The USAF cannot afford f-22’s so the option is to open the –15 production line up. Using the –15E airframes is not the best idea as the non-fbw airframes the –A’s and –C’s esp can pull far more G’s. I suggest you get the C airframe and put the NASA STOL goodies and new supercruise engines and a –22 esq radar and you have a force multiplyer.
There were plans in 1989 for a new F-15 design
the F-15 STOL to get production. It was canned
in favour of the –22. Big mistake.
The –22 was a not a true replacement for the –15
the –23 was better but politics does more than what pilots think.
F-22 production stopped? Maybe the NASA STOL F-15 will see the light of day. Ha ha defense contractors you work for the air force not yourselves.F-22 still need big runways to take
off and a STOL F-15 only needs a short road
to get where it needs to. It could have next–
gen engines as well so it could supercruise
the F-15X. It now also has a stealth version.
The Isrealis who have seen the F-15 in battle
were quite happy with it. I wonder if NASA has
test flight data of the STOL F-15 vs the F-22
in a dogfight. Might have some unpleasant company
data. The F-22 needs digital equipment to fly–
the F-15 does not need that. Aerodynamics is key
to a dogfight more than computers are only a pilots aid not mentor. People though when missiles
came along the dogfight is dead. Russia now even
has a Mig29 STOL than do maneavers a F-22 could
not do– a F-15 STOL would be the perfect counterplay. Use the F-22’s in a electornic warfare role and stragic strike and high value
escort role more than the risk of other missions
which may lead to its end. F-15’s evaded S-400’s
and struck in Syria.
The other problem with the F-22 ever gets shot
down like the F-15 would the Ruskis and Chinese
would go nuts on the brains of the F-22. Then
the F-22 would then soon have a Russian rival.
Somebody sold secrets afterall to the Ruskis
and hey before you know it SU-27 copy!
The F-22 is Excallibur sure but I think because
it design began its limitation.
F-22 production stopped? Maybe the NASA STOL F-15 will see the light of day. Ha ha defense contractors you work for the air force not yourselves.F-22 still need big runways to take
off and a STOL F-15 only needs a short road
to get where it needs to. It could have next–
gen engines as well so it could supercruise
the F-15X. It now also has a stealth version.
The Isrealis who have seen the F-15 in battle
were quite happy with it. I wonder if NASA has
test flight data of the STOL F-15 vs the F-22
in a dogfight. Might have some unpleasant company
data. The F-22 needs digital equipment to fly–
the F-15 does not need that. Aerodynamics is key
to a dogfight more than computers are only a pilots aid not mentor. People though when missiles
came along the dogfight is dead. Russia now even
has a Mig29 STOL than do maneavers a F-22 could
not do– a F-15 STOL would be the perfect counterplay. Use the F-22’s in a electornic warfare role and stragic strike and high value
escort role more than the risk of other missions
which may lead to its end. F-15’s evaded S-400’s
and struck in Syria.
The other problem with the F-22 ever gets shot
down like the F-15 would the Ruskis and Chinese
would go nuts on the brains of the F-22. Then
the F-22 would then soon have a Russian rival.
Somebody sold secrets afterall to the Ruskis
and hey before you know it SU-27 copy!
The F-22 is Excallibur sure but I think because
it design began its limitation.